Monthly Movie Preview: June 2014

Although June is the center of the summer movie season (starting in May and practically burnt-out by August), it's also typically a lighter month, following the massive onslaught of action spectacle from May, which often continues to gross higher and higher numbers below the radar through the month.  June is often a time that family-centric entertainment finds a time to shine, such as Pixar films, half of their fourteen feature films to date having been released in June, but this year, there is no Pixar release.  HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 is undoubtedly the move to watch not only for this month, but for the entire summer, as many have it pegged as the likely contender for biggest movie of the season, having built plenty of goodwill from the 2010 original.  Also on the horizon is the big date movie of the summer, THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, based on the book that every woman has read, and the newest Mark Wahlberg-starring Transformers movie that every Mountain Dew-guzzling young man is kidding themselves that their not sure about, as if they cared about anything beyond the (not-so-special) special effects.

June 6th
EDGE OF TOMORROW  (SCI-FI/ACTION)

Directed by Doug Liman; Starring Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Jeremy Piven
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, language and brief suggestive material.
Doug Liman of THE BOURNE IDENTITY and MR. & MRS. SMITH directs this science fiction action film starring Tom Cruise as a futuristic soldier caught in a "time loop" in which he is repeatedly caught in brutal combat against alien invaders, dying within minutes and waking again in the same place that he started, but each time he remembers what he learned before, better equipping him to complete his mission.  It's based on a Japanese novel titled All You Need Is Kill, and like everyone else, I agree that the movie sounded way better with that title.  At $175 million, it's definitely a "tent-pole" event film, but it's not a very recognizable property for U.S. audiences, which is interesting.  They're mostly banking on the talent involved.  I'm not sure what to think about it though, so I'll be interested to see what the early reactions are like.

June 6th
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS  (ROMANTIC DRAMA)

Directed by Josh Boone; Starring Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, Laura Dern, Nat Wolff, Willem Dafoe
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, some sexuality and brief strong language.
THE FAULT IN OUR STARS is the big date movie of the summer, and it looks a lot better than the Nicholas Sparks and Nicholas Sparks-inspired schlock that Hollywood typically aims at that young adult dating audience.  Based on the best-selling young adult novel of the same name, it's a coming-of-age love story about a teenage girl with terminal cancer who meets a handsome fellow cancer patient at her support group and experiences first love.  Almost every woman from ages nine to ninety-nine will want to see this (likely with their significant others), especially if they've read the book, but the big selling point for myself is that the screenplay is by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, who wrote the spectacular THE SPECTACULAR NOW, an under-seen independent teen romance from last summer, also starring Shailene Woodley.  I haven't read the book, but I'm on board for this.

June 13th
22 JUMP STREET  (ACTION COMEDY)

Directed by Phil Lord & Chris Miller; Starring Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, Nick Offerman, Rob Riggle, Dave Franco
R for language throughout, sexual content, drug material, brief nudity and some violence.
21 JUMP STREET should not have been good, but it was and then some.  Were it not for the directing team of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, it would be safe to assume that was a fluke, but the pair has also turned similarly stale concepts into excellent movies like CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS and THE LEGO MOVIE, so I have high hopes for 22 JUMP STREET, which is a wonderful title by the way.  Their directed features to date have had relatively low expectations so far though, and even though its essentially a slap-dash sequel to a surprise hit, 22 JUMP STREET is the closest thing to high expectations they've had, not having directed sequels to one of their films before, so it will be interesting to see how they handle that.  Still, if there's anyone who has proven they can turn bad ideas, even bad idea sequels to surprisingly good bad ideas, it's Lord and Miller, plus 21 JUMP STREET is what converted hard-hearted movie fans like myself to Channing Tatum as a leading man (having previously been a staple of lame-brain teen girl romances like DEAR JOHN and STEP UP).

June 13th
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2  (ANIMATED/ACTION-ADVENTURE)
Directed by Dean DeBlois; Featuring the Voices of Jay Baruchel, America Ferrara, Gerard Butler, Cate Blanchett, Craig Ferguson, Kit Harrington, Djimon Hounsou, Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig, Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Rated PG for adventure action and some mild rude humor.
This is my bet for the highest-grossing movie of the summer, although I don't think I'm quite as excited as everyone else seems to be.  I wasn't crazy about the original HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON; it was good, but I didn't think it was anything special.  On the other hand, the advertising's increased action element (within a family animated movie) intrigues me, and I don't doubt that it will at least be a good movie, if not great (if you think the original was great though, I don't see any reason why would won't think the same of the sequel).  Hiccup and his viking community return, now living in harmony with the dragons which their way of living now revolves around.  Naturally, new revelations come to light (most of which appear to be spoiled in the trailers) and new enemies appear, setting the stage for further adventure and brand-new dragons.  

June 20th
JERSEY BOYS  (MUSICAL/DRAMA)
Directed by Clint Eastwood; Starring John Lloyd Young, Erich Bergen, Vincent Piazza, Michael Lomenda, Christopher Walken
Rated R for language throughout.
Clint Eastwood directs this jukebox musical about the rise and dissolution of The Four Seasons, the iconic falsetto singing group headlined by Frankie Valli known for songs like "Big Girls Don't Cry", "December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" and "Walk Like a Man", all of which are among the songs featured in the soundtrack.  I'm intrigued by the idea of an R-rated musical with a primarily male cast directed by Eastwood, best known for grim, melancholy dramas, but there's little to go on as to whether it will be good or even successful.  John Lloyd Young from the original Broadway run of the Tony-winning stage musical reprises his role for the film, and the only recognizable name in the cast is Christopher Walken in a supporting role.  It's not a typical sort of film at least.

June 20th
THINK LIKE A MAN TOO  (ROMANTIC COMEDY)
Directed by Tim Story; Starring Michael Ealy, Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Jenkins, Regina Hall, Jerry Ferrara, Kevin Hart
Rated PG-13 for crude sexual content including references, partial nudity, language and drug material.
THINK LIKE A MAN was a surprise hit in 2012, despite its atypical source material, Steve Harvey's non-fiction book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment.  I didn't see that movie, but evidently, people who did seem to have liked it, and Kevin Hart, who has a part in the ensemble cast, has a much stronger street cred now.  In this sequel, the couples in the first film are now in Vegas (a pretty standard location for slap-dash sequels), where each encounters a new set of relationship troubles.  Assuming this follows the trend of similar sequels, it's not likely to be as good as the original, however, the cast and director of the original are returning.

June 27th
TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION  (ACTION/SCI-FI)
Directed by Michael Bay; Starring Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor, Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci, Sofia Myles, T.J. Miller, Li Bingbing
Not Yet Rated (PG-13 expected)
The most financially successful "bad franchise" gets a fourth installment, with Michael Bay returning as director, but with all new characters (outside of a few returning Autobots).  Taking place after the events of the last three films, Mark Wahlberg stars as a down-on-his-luck mechanic/inventor who lives with his attractive young daughter in the rural Midwest (how's that for a couple of stock characters?) when they accidentally discover a Transformer hiding out in their shed, catalyzing a series of events with global significance involving Autobots, Decepticons and the typical paranoid government officials.  I didn't think any of the previous Transformers movies were good (the first was most watchable, but almost unreasonably stupid; the second is entirely, unreasonably, offensively stupid and incoherent; the third was far too long, monotonous and also stupid), but I can't imagine anyone who enjoyed the previous films won't enjoy this one.  The whole point is the giant CGI robot battles anyway, right?

Review: MALEFICENT

MALEFICENT  (FANTASY/ADVENTURE)
3.5 out of 4 stars
Directed by Robert Stromberg
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Sam Riley, Brenton Thwaites, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Lesley Manville, Kenneth Cranham, Hannah New
Rated PG for sequences of fantasy action and violence, including frightening images.
Verdict: Immensely likable and a refreshing deviation from bloated summer sci-fi, MALEFICENT is an unexpectedly good family fantasy boosted by a pair of excellent performances from Angelina Jolie and Elle Fanning.
YOU MAY ENJOY MALEFICENT IF YOU LIKED:
ALICE IN WONDERLAND (2010)
OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL (2013)
SLEEPING BEAUTY (1959)
LEGEND (1985)
SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN (2012)


In spite of its reputation as a beloved animated classic, Disney's SLEEPING BEAUTY, released in 1959, is not a particularly good movie.  The film can claim an iconic villain, Maleficent, "Mistress of All Evil", with the marvelously sinister vocal performance of Eleanor Audrey and legendary animator Marc Davis' memorable, horned character design.  That film also boasts the grandest production design of any Walt Disney Animation Studios feature during Walt's life time released after BAMBI.  Unfortunately, those positives are outweighed by the largely hollow feel of the film; it is a style-over-substance affair, beautiful to look at, but a bore to experience.
My expectations for Disney's newest live-action reinvention of a fairy tale, MALEFICENT, were in a similar vein.  Outside of their Marvel Studios and animated endeavors (but including the past few Pixar films), the Disney company's big budget films as of late have been expensive, flashy and bland, many of which I was very excited for ahead of time like 2010's ALICE IN WONDERLAND and TRON: LEGACY, and 2012's JOHN CARTER.  OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL was fine, but merely fine, and THE LONE RANGER was more fun than people give it credit for, and still a bloated mess.  And now, it's almost as if Disney accidentally made a quality live-action family fantasy film.

MALEFICENT returns to the classic fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty, specifically the tale as told in the 1959 animated film, but now from the perspective of the iconic antagonist, with a little tweaking besides.  Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) is introduced as a sweet-natured fairy who spends her days frolicking through the enchanted moors which are filled with fantastical creatures and luxurious riches, and are neighbored by the dismal kingdom of men.  Greedy for the treasures of the moors, the dying king promises his kingdom to the man who vanquishes Maleficent, who acts as guardian of her land.  Stefan, the one human whom Maleficent trusts, betrays her, severing her wings to claim the crown, and soon after fathers a daughter, Princess Aurora.  On the day of her christening, Maleficent places a curse on the child to plunge her into an eternal sleep before her sixteenth year, so Aurora is sent away to be raised under the protection of three bumbling fairies.  As the years pass, Maleficent secretly forms a bond with the teenage Aurora (Elle Fanning), and struggles to prevent her own spell from coming to pass, while the mad King Stefan desperately seeks Maleficent out with murderous intentions.
It's an unabashed fantasy movie, opening with a preteen girl sporting a pair of large horns, along with magic, will o' the wisps and assorted other magical creatures (including a few creatures reminiscent of Maleficent's swine lackeys from the animated film), and it embraces its material wholeheartedly and without qualifications.  Surprisingly, it isn't especially dark either, no more than the average fairy tale anyway, and it's actually more family-friendly than films like ALICE IN WONDERLAND or OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL.  In fact, it's a very warm film, carried by the starring pair of Angelina Jolie, in a role she was born to play, and Elle Fanning, who exudes immense charm in each of her scenes, and the two create a believable mother-daughter relationship despite their very different personas. 
In comparison to frequently bloated and convoluted summer blockbusters, MALEFICENT is slight, running about forty-five minutes shorter than the average summer blockbuster at ninety-seven minutes, and running through its simple and familiar plot without distractions.  Although it's directed by first-time director Robert Stromberg, whose career has revolved around visual effects and production design (he's a two-time Academy Award-winner for AVATAR and ALICE IN WONDERLAND), the film is surprisingly restrained to charming storybook visuals, rather than the over-the-top, baroque looks of his previous work.  The special effects are generally adequate if nothing special, except for the three fairies who appear as hyper-realistic CGI in some scenes and very much in the "uncanny valley", and the extremely apparent use of CGI doubles in a few shots.
It's hardly perfect, but I can't remember a more enjoyable and family-friendly, non-animated adventure in a long while.  MALEFICENT is a lovely family popcorn flick.

Review: X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST  (ACTION-ADVENTURE/FANTASY) 
4 out of 4 stars
Directed by Bryan Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Peter Dinklage, Nicholas Hoult, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Ellen Page, Evan Peters, Omar Sy, Daniel Cudmore
Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi violence and action, some suggestive material, nudity and language.
Verdict:  Bryan Singer returns to the X-Men film series in peak form, crafting an epic, time-spanning, character-driven melodrama that at once unites the relatively disparate chapters of the series in common cause and yet standing alone as something new entirely.
YOU MAY ENJOY X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST IF YOU LIKED:
X2: X-MEN UNITED (2003)
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (2011)
MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS (2012) 
TERMINATOR 2 (1991)

Bryan Singer directed the original X-MEN, released fourteen years ago, and it's even more acclaimed sequel, X2: X-MEN UNITED, released eleven years ago.  X2 was the first sequel of the new resurgence of superhero movies that began with X-MEN and SPIDER-MAN, and it upped the ante significantly, still standing as one of the best superhero movies to date.  When the opportunity came to Singer to direct the long-gestating Superman reboot, the severely underrated SUPERMAN RETURNS, he took the offer at Warner Brothers, but left the third X-Men film in limbo at 20th Century Fox.  That film, X-MEN: THE LAST STAND, was ultimately directed by journeyman director Brett Ratner, and while that film currently ranks as the highest-grossing in the series to date, it is widely disliked and earned Ratner the ire of many fans for an abundance of reasons.  After a couple of Wolverine spin-off films and the excellent prequel/reboot X-MEN: FIRST CLASS, directed by Matthew Vaughn and co-written/produced by Singer, Singer has returned to helm a film that is not only the most ambitious X-Men film to date by far, but is also one of the most ambitious superhero movies ever.
X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST opens in an apocalyptic future where cities are in ruins and extremely formidable robots called Sentinels hunt down mutants without mercy and anyone who sympathizes with mutants.  A few remaining mutants, including Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellen), Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Storm (Halle Berry), Iceman (Shawn Ashmore) and others retreat to a hidden location in a last-ditch hope of not only mutant, but human, survival.  One of the X-Men, Kitty Pride (Ellen Page), has discovered a way to combat the Sentinels by using her powers to make herself and others intangible (i.e. walking through walls) to transport a person's consciousness into their previous self, allowing them to experience past events with their present state of mind.  Thanks to his super accelerated healing ability, Wolverine can survive the process of going back years in time, so he is chosen to be transported to the year 1973 to change history.  In order to prevent the creation of the Sentinels, Wolverine must, with the help of young Professor X (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender), prevent the shape-shifting militant mutant Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from assassinating the Sentinels inventor, Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), thus creating a martyr of him and fueling anti-mutant sentiment that creates the Sentinels of the future.

Admittedly, it's pretty convoluted, but Singer sets the stage with remarkable efficiency and clarity, so even those less familiar with the previous films will be caught up to speed in the first fifteen minutes, and no less entertained.  The film feels strangely separate from the previous six films, probably closest in relation to X2, unsurprisingly, and it yet, in spite of the series' notorious lack of continuity, unites the events of each film as much as possible.  Simultaneously, it stands apart from those previous films, acknowledging them, while never letting what others have done before get in the way of the story at hand.  The screenplay, written by THE LAST STAND co-writer, Simon Kinberg, impressively juggles storylines while injecting a dizzying dose of welcome emotional heft evenly balanced between all major players and allowing the audience to be fully invested on all sides.
The cast is one of the most impressive ever assembled for summer blockbuster, with nearly all the major players from both the first three films and much of the FIRST CLASS cast showing up, including the super-in demand THE HUNGER GAMES star Jennifer Lawrence (beautiful in blue body paint) and Michael Fassbender, each at the top of their game, even in this ensemble cast superhero film.  Especially peculiar is how, when all is said and done, despite a gigantic $225 million budget (the second-most expensive Fox film behind AVATAR) and special effects to show for it, it doesn't feel like you've been watching a special effects extravaganza.  The special effects are all merely a substantial garnish to the astutely acted emotional spectacle.
It's not altogether perfect, as there are moments of redundant exposition and some seemingly extraneous plot elements that eventually tie-in, albeit roughly, but its shortcomings are minor.  If anything, X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST is an all too welcome deviation from the bland formula of desaturated destruction and third act showdown bombast, and it sets the stage for the series to pave a new and fresh path.  After the franchise-building cartoon antics of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 and the slow-burn with uninteresting characters of GODZILLA, X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST is fast, fun and invested thrill ride that proves summer has truly arrived.

Days of Future Passed

In recognition of the hotly anticipated X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, I've revisited (most of) the previous films in the X-Men series:

X-MEN  (SCI-FI/FANTASY, 2000)
2.5 out of 4 stars
Directed by Bryan Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Anna Paquin, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Halle Berry, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Bruce Davison, Tyler Mane, Ray Park
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence.
X-MEN is often cited as one of the first modern superhero films, and the one that started the currently continuing dominance of comic book superheroes at the box office.  While I don't believe that X-MEN alone can be given credit, it's definitely part of the one-two punch proving the commercial viability with SPIDER-MAN providing the real box office clout.  On it's own, it's a pretty slight film, dated by visual effects (some very apparent wire work going on, especially in the first fight between Wolverine and Sabretooth) and a serviceable but unremarkable script.  Unlike practically everything that followed, it's not an origin story, beginning with the X-Men already pretty well established, but as Wolverine and Rogue, acting as two drifters, are taken in by Professor X and his "School for Gifted Youngsters".
What X-MEN does, it generally does well, but it doesn't do a whole lot.  In exchange for introducing about a dozen characters to keep track of, the rest of it is kept pretty simple with a formulaic heroes vs. villains conflict played out by a good cast (not a big fan of Tyler Mane as Sabretooth and Ray Park as Toad though, but that could have as much to do with other aspects than the performers themselves).  Outside of Magneto, it's not terribly interesting, but it feels at times like more of an experiment than a self-standing and confident film.

X2: X-MEN UNITED  (SCI-FI/ACTION, 2003) 
4 out of 4 stars 
Directed by Bryan Singer
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, Halle Berry, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Alan Cumming, Brian Cox, James Marsden, Kelly Hu
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action/violence, some sexuality and brief language. 
Although I have a soft spot for FIRST CLASS, X2 is commonly cited as the peak of the series, and that's perfectly understandable.  Bigger and more ambitious than its predecessor, and edging closer to the dark superhero film more than any other superhero film would until Nolan, X2 is a masterwork of blockbuster filmmaking.
Immediately following the events of X-MEN, X2 opens with one of the coolest action sequences in any superhero film; the teleporting mutant Nightcrawler attacking the president in the Oval Office, accompanied by a booming Dies Irae from Mozart's Requiem in D Minor, K.626 before fleeing wounded.  While covert military operative William Stryker uses this opportunity to target the mutant community without restriction, Professor X sends Storm and Jean Grey to locate Nightcrawler and assess the situation, discovering that Stryker used a serum to control Nightcrawler and has been interrogating the imprisoned Magneto.  Stryker and his forces attack the X-Mansion, sending Wolverine and others on the run, while Mystique assists Magneto in escaping his specially-built prison, and the mutants team up to stop Stryker's nefarious plan to wipe out mutants.
In addition to the spectacular opening, X2 features another of the series' best action set-pieces in Wolverine's climactic fight with Lady Deathstrike, both using their adamantium claws to get as close to an R-rating as possible.  There's also the very memorable mutant "coming out" scene, in which Bobby Drake/Iceman's mother asks him "Have you tried not being a mutant?"  These movies are teeming with LGBT social/political themes, but that moment takes those issues on the best.  Released less than two months after the Bush Administration's U.S. invasion of Iraq, the film also astutely takes on similar issues, with Styker's misleading and manipulative tactics, although perhaps with the Patriot Act more in mind.  It's very much a response to the W. Bush era.  It also is the most polished and focused of the X-Men films.

X-MEN: THE LAST STAND  (SCI-FI/ACTION, 2006) 
1.5 out of 4 
Directed by Brett Ratner
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Famke Janssen, Kelsey Grammer, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn, Shawn Ashmore, Vinnie Jones, Aaron Stanford
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action violence, some sexual content and language. 
Everything Bryan Singer was building up to in the previous two X-Men films is gone in this brain-dead would-be trilogy-capper.  X-MEN: THE LAST STAND is the Axe body spray-soaked, UFC Tapout t-shirt-wearing, energy drink-guzzling douchebag of the X-Men series, with journeyman director Brett Ratner taking the reins from Singer, who left the sequel in limbo to make Warner Brothers' SUPERMAN RETURNS.  Although the franchise was obviously not yet dead (with four continuing chapters and counting so far), Ratner was lambasted as a "franchise-killer" for this film, thanks to an assortment of unjustified major character deaths and anti-climactic conclusions.
The movie combines the comics storylines "The Dark Phoenix Saga" and "Gifted" (the latter written by MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS writer/director Joss Whedon), with Dr. Jean Grey (Janssen), presumed dead at the end of X2, returns with an altered state of mind, expressing aggressive behavior and reckless power that Professor X had long been teaching her to control.  Meanwhile, the mutant politics are in an uproar as a "cure" to mutant characteristics has been announced, fueling debate between those mutants who see the benefit of experiencing an ordinary life and those who abhor the notion that the mutant condition needs to be "cured".  Magneto resolves to eliminate the so-called cure with an army of mutants, including the pièce de résistance of his Mutant Brotherhood, Jean Grey, now called "The Phoenix".
The political allegory from the source material is promising, but there is so much more done wrong in this film than is done right.  The characters are depicted outside of their previously established personalities without any justification, with Wolverine lacking his trademark gruffness and practically a softy much of the time, and Magneto is made into a thoroughly unsympathetic (and thus uninteresting) mad man.  A particularly weak part is the dialogue, which includes a great deal of groan-inducing embarrassments like "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" and the rest of Vinnie Jones's (as the Juggernaut (bitch)) lines, and my personal least favorite, Hank McCoy/Beast's fight scene banter, "As Churchill said, 'There comes a time when every man must'...Oh you get the point!"  Gah, it's the worst.  On the other hand, while used to much, much poorer effect, Kelsey Grammer looks a lot better as the Beast than Nicholas Hoult in FIRST CLASS.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE  (ACTION-ADVENTURE/FANTASY, 2009)
2 out of 4 stars 
Directed by Gavin Hood
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Lynn Collins, Taylor Kitsch, will.i.am, Kevin Durand, Dominic Monaghan, Ryan Reynolds
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, and some partial nudity.
Admittedly, it's been much longer since I last watched X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE than any of the other X-Men films.  After THE LAST STAND essentially cut off the progress of the established X-Men team, in order to return to the franchise, X-Men origin stories were considered, the most obvious being the most popular character, Wolverine (an X-MEN ORIGINS: MAGNETO was in development a while before evolving in X-MEN: FIRST CLASS instead).  The movie follows Wolverine from his childhood in 1840s Canada through the early 1980s, as he fights in many wars alongside his half-brother Sabretooth (Schreiber), eventually developing a rivalry with each other and Wolverine takes part in the experiment that leaves his skeleton is coated with indestructible adamantium, rendering him virtually immortal.
Throughout, the script takes vast leaps in logic and is typically watchable but almost wholly uninteresting.  It's hard to remember what happened in each scene before as the movie just moseys along through cartoonish action and formulaic melodrama.  Perhaps it's nitpicking, but something that particularly bothers me in this movie is the nature of the fictitious indestructible metal alloy, adamantium.  Apparently it's established in the comics, but it doesn't make sense that Wolverine can be effectively shot through his adamantium-coated skull, just because the bullets are adamantium too.  Why don't the indestructible bullets just bounce off the indestructible skull?  Plus, there are multiple occasions where Wolverine uses his claws to slice cleanly through stone and metal like a hot knife through butter, without any apparent application of force.  That's my stupid complaint about a stupid movie.  I'd still rather watch this than THE LAST STAND.  On a side note, the stars of JOHN CARTER, Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins both appear in this film as fan-favorite Gambit and Kayla Silverfox, respectively.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS  (SCI-FI/ACTION, 2011) 

4 out of 4 stars 
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Starring: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Lawrence, January Jones, Nicholas Hoult, Zoe Kravitz, Caleb Landry Jones, Lucas Till, Edi Gathegi
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, some sexual content including brief partial nudity and language.
Upon revisiting it most recently, X-MEN: FIRST CLASS didn't hold up quite as well as a remembered it, but it's still one of my favorites of the series regardless, holding it's own against the other pillar of the series, X2, but in a very different sort of way.  While X2 seeks to create a mythic action saga, FIRST CLASS embraces the pulpy fun of a bunch of mutated super humans teaming up to fight world threats, but not at the expense of deep emotional complexity and significance. 
A prequel to the first film, FIRST CLASS crafts the origin story of the X-Men, where it all started between Charles Xavier (Professor X), Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto) and Raven Darkholme (Mystique).  Charles, having taken in Raven as a sister when they were children, is recruited by the CIA as a mutant specialist when an ex-Nazi scientist and other mutants are plotting to plunge the United States and the Soviet Union into nuclear war, destroying human civilization and carving the way for mutants.  During their operations, Charles, assisted by Raven, encounter Erik, a Holocaust survivor who's been hunting down and killing ex-Nazi officers, with a particular vendetta against Charles' own mark, who killed his mother.  Together, Charles and Erik begin recruiting mutants from across the States to help in their cause, forming the first X-Men team.
The script, written by director Matthew Vaughn and three other credited writers, handily creates the most fun of the X-Men movies, slyly paying homage to the established characters while creating believable and complex younger versions of them, especially with Fassbender's Magneto and pre-Katniss Jennifer Lawrence's Mystique (getting a wonderfully hilarious moment calling back to her character's trademark blue naturalism).  Rose Byrne as the CIA operative who connects with Charles is a hidden gem in the movie, providing a human element and humor (this movie is genuinely funny).  The pulpy elements of science fiction-fantasy variations on historical events like the Cuban Missile Crisis and Magneto killing escaped war criminals in South America are just too fun, and a showcase death scene involving a Nazi coin is one of the most incredible moments in the entire series.  The only big weakness to the otherwise excellent film is Nicholas Hoult's Beast make-up, which despite his good performance, makes him look just too silly, even while red devil men and diamond-skinned women get a pass.

THE WOLVERINE  (ACTION/FANTASY, 2013) 

3 out of 4 stars 
Directed by James Mangold
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamoto, Rila Fukushima, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Will Yun Lee, Haruhiko Yamanouchi, Famke Janssen
Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence, some sexuality and language.
Wolverine's second solo outing is vastly better than the very weak X-MEN ORIGINS, but comprised of two parts brilliance and one part idiocy.  THE WOLVERINE is a sequel to X-MEN: THE LAST STAND, several years after those events in Yukon, where he lives as a hermit, tormented by having killed his love interest Jean Grey/The Phoenix and now sworn to a life of peace.  Tracked down by Yukio, a psychic mutant girl acting on behalf a Japanese businessman, Wolverine is persuaded to travel to Japan so the businessman can thank him in person for having saved his life in WWII during the Nagasaki atomic bombing.  In Japan, the man offers to cure Wolverine of his immortality, but dies that night, leaving a power struggle over his considerable holdings, and at the funeral, his granddaughter and heir Mariko is targeted for assassination by Yakuza thugs.  Wolverine rescues the girl and takes it upon himself to defend her while he sifts through the thick conspiracy to uncover the truth. 
I absolutely love the first half of this film, and other than the occasional appearance of the unintentionally goofy mutant femme fatale Dr. Green/Viper (who has a long forked tongue and spits venom, before shedding her skin in the final act), the whole film up until the final act is excellent.  The film noir aspects applied to the superhero genre in Japan are played to perfection, and although, once again, the R-rated superhero is constrained to a PG-13 rating, they get away with a surprising level of blood and brutality (there's also an unrated "Unleashed Edition", which ups that blood/gore quotient significantly).  Hugh Jackman is excellent as ever in his signature role, and more complex, and Rila Fukushima as Yukio is a standout in the cast of Japanese actors unknown in the U.S.  Then the final act happens, and suddenly it's a big, dumb, special effects-driven fantasy that gets super weird and I don't like it much.  But the epilogue is good, so you can sit through it for that.  The end credits sets up X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST.

Review: GODZILLA (2014)

GODZILLA  (SCI-FI/ACTION-THRILLER) 
2.5 out 4 stars
Directed by Gareth Edwards
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watnabe, Elizabeth Olsen, David Strathairn, Sally Hawkins, Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche, Carson Bolde
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of destruction, mayhem and creature violence.
Verdict: After so many numbingly bombastic brawn-over-brain summer blockbusters in recent years, Gareth Edwards' GODZILLA turns such notions on their heads with the least-likely material, and yet, ironically, GODZILLA's human interests and coy manner are often its greatest weaknesses.  Although I'd be very interested to know what GODZILLA die-hards think, this reboot often feels more admirable than entertaining.
YOU MAY ENJOY GODZILLA IF YOU LIKED:
GOJIRA (GODZILLA) (1954)
MONSTERS (2010)
PACIFIC RIM (2013)
KICK-ASS (2010)
INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996)

Prior to GODZILLA, director Gareth Edwards' sole feature film was his 2010 debut, MONSTERS, an extremely low-budget independent creature feature about a journalist escorting his employer's daughter through an alien-infested, walled-off Mexico into the United States in a sly but necessarily slow allegorical thriller.  Despite featuring several short moments of CGI visual effects of the sort more typical of a Hollywood film, Edwards filmed on inexpensive digital cameras and acted as director, writer, storyboard man, cinematographer, production designer and visual effects artist (created on his laptop) to turn in a science fiction creature feature on a budget of only $500,000 (for reference, the low-budget 2004 independent comedy NAPOLEON DYNAMITE cost $400,000).  With the success of MONSTERS, Legendary Pictures, in association with Warner Brothers, gave Edwards the reins to a $160 million brand-name blockbuster in GODZILLA.
Even with the 320% budget increase, Edwards remains conservative about his money shots, which is typically a good thing, and undoubtedly admirable, but sometimes it's just too cruel.  The titular King of Monsters is the final plot point, major or minor, to be established in the film's first half!  That actually shouldn't be that much of a problem, except that once he does show up, he's always more interesting than what's going on with the already established human characters whose stories must be carried through to fruition.  Much about Edwards' approach to GODZILLA is entirely admirable, while not altogether successful.
The drama begins when a nuclear physicist (Bryan Cranston) is studying suspicious seismic activity in Japan that leads to a devastating nuclear plant explosion, but when authorities label it a natural disaster, the physicist becomes obsessed with proving otherwise, and thus estranging himself from his son (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).  Fifteen years later, the son is an explosives technician for the U.S. Army and lives with his wife and child (Elizabeth Olsen and Carson Bolde, respectively), but escalating events in Japan reunite the father and son as prehistoric monstrosities threaten full-blown global devastation.
The advertising has been marvelously secretive about much else of the major plot elemens, and I'm not about to ruin it for you.
Godzilla himself is depicted in true reverence, a massive and elaborate CGI rendering of the iconic and occasionally ridiculed design from the Japanese films, and I can only imagine the roaring cheers of delighted Godzilla fans at their equivalent of THE AVENGERS-style "nerd-gasms" when each of the King of Monsters' trademarks get exuberant payoffs.

For better or worse though, Edwards' execution regularly teases so much more than is ultimately shown, cutting from the monster action just as things are getting really awesome.  It's nerve-wracking.  It's ironic, especially after the likes of last summer's Warner Brothers/Legendary offerings MAN OF STEEL, which took another iconic character and, ignoring his legacy, dealt out an excess of senses-dulling destruction and bombast without regard for restraint; and PACIFIC RIM, which dealt out the awesome money shots in droves, but came up short in the human department.  Now GODZILLA is in almost complete contrast to those films, focusing very heavily on the human stories, but the humans are never quite as interesting as the monsters.  Most of the film is carried by Taylor-Johnson, who is adequate, but not the same level as his co-stars, including Olsen, who'll appear alongside him in next year's THE AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, in which they'll play siblings Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch (Taylor-Johnson and Olsen, respectively).
The creature effects and animation are astounding, taking traditional B-movie designs and rendering them with realistic detail and impressive emotion; I'm inclined to think that they could have carried much more of the film.
On the whole, I'm still a little confused about what to think of this movie.  Watching it, I was only occasionally entertained, while much of the time, all I wanted was to see more of the monsters, which Edwards would constantly tease with brief moments of action before cutting away just as things get really fun.  When I think about it though, most of it seems to be what we've been clamoring for all along- a smart, restrained and respectful action-fantasy.  It's just a bit slower than I would have liked.  I'm very interested, however, to learn what Godzilla fans think.

Review: NEIGHBORS

NEIGHBORS  (COMEDY)
3 out of 4 stars
Directed by Nicholas Stoller
Starring: Seth Rogen, Zac Efron, Rose Byrne, Dave Franco, Jerrod Carmichael, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Ike Barinholtz, Carla Gallo, Lisa Kudrow, Craig Roberts
Rated R for pervasive language, strong crude and sexual content, graphic nudity, and drug use throughout.
Verdict: NEIGHBORS satisfies all the expectations of a hard-R comedy, with brilliantly disgusting gags, patently outrageous behavior and subtle but weight-bearing message about coming into maturity.  Enormously funny, but not necessarily novel, it does what it does with raw energy and surprising star chemistry.
YOU MAY ENJOY NEIGHBORS IF YOU LIKED:
THIS IS THE END (2013)
FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL (2008)
SUPERBAD (2007)
OLD SCHOOL (2003)
ANIMAL HOUSE (1978)

In a list of the biggest movie and television "game changers" of the past 25 years recently published in Empire magazine, number 23 out of 25 was "Team Apatow", referring to writer/director/producer Judd Apatow, who broke out big in 2005 with THE 40-YEAR OLD VIRGIN, and his various collaborators.  Apatow's legacy has largely revolved around turning ultra-raunchy, super-R-rated comedies with sweet, gooey centers into big box office hits, such as KNOCKED UP (2007), SUPERBAD (2007) and BRIDESMAIDS (2011).  NEIGHBORS follows in those footsteps, it being directed by Nicholas Stoller, who is a behind-the-scenes alumni of Team Apatow himself, having written for the short-lived Apatow-produced television series Undeclared and directed two Apatow productions, FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL and GET HIM TO THE GREEK.  You wouldn't know the difference, but NEIGHBORS is Stoller's first film cut loose from his mentor.
Apatow's formula is pretty familiar by now; a fairly simple setup drawn out over a series of mishaps and comedic "set-pieces" with lots of adult misbehavior, strong profanity and a couple of jarringly crude/disgusting moments, all wrapped around a feel-good center usually about coming into maturity.  NEIGHBORS follows that formula closely, but it's all inconsequential in comparison to the question of whether the film is funny or not, which NEIGHBOR most definitely is.
The film stars Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne (the Australian-born actress known for INSIDIOUS and X-MEN: FIRST CLASS usually sheds her natural accent, but not this time) as the Radners, a married couple beginning to settle into adulthood in their peaceful suburban home with a newborn daughter, but this becomes very difficult when a college fraternity moves in next-door.  The president of the fraternity is Teddy Sanders (Zac Efron), who aspires to become the fraternity's next legend by throwing the wildest parties of all time, alongside his best friend and vice president, Pete Regazolli (Dave Franco, younger brother of James).  Although the Radners and Teddy get on pretty well on first introductions, their neighborly relationship soon turns sour as the frat's raucous and less than family friendly parties disturb the Radners' quality of living.
Although he's best known for less-than-quality movies (for reference, his musicals are probably the best things he's been in), Efron is a magnetic comic presence, getting many of the best laughs as the brash and not-terribly-bright Teddy, but what's really strange is how well he gets on with Rogen onscreen.  They're great as rivals, but they could make a pretty good buddy comedy, too.  And while these kinds of comedies most often cater exclusively to men (especially college-age men), NEIGHBORS is surprisingly more gender-inclusive, and not just because of Efron's frequent lack of shirt.  Although the marketing focuses heavily on Rogen and Efron as the headliners, Byrne's part is just about as prominent as theirs, proving her own in every scene.
Outside of a few choice pranks (including one highlighted in the trailers), the big laughs aren't generally unique, much of them revolving around typical setups like fights, drug use and extreme anatomy, the execution is spot-on, as are the performers.
After the lackluster THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 last week, NEIGHBORS is the first really good mainstream, wide-release movie of the summer, and is the best of everything you'd expect.

What if NEIGHBORS did for Robert De Niro parties what ANIMAL HOUSE did for food fights?  [Sigh], If only...

Review: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2  (ACTION/FANTASY) 
2.5 out of 4 stars 
Directed by Marc Webb
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Sally Field, Paul Giamatti, Felicity Jones, Chris Cooper, Colm Feore, Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz
Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action/violence.
Verdict: The biggest battle in the newest chapter in the Spider-Man film franchise is between the misguided and cynical ambitions of franchise "enhancing" and the noble sincerity of a talented director with a magnetic cast.  Ultimately, the two forces cancel each other out, so it's not such a terrible time at the movies, but once it's over, the effect may leave you feeling a bit crestfallen.
YOU MAY ENJOY THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 IF YOU LIKED:
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN  (2012)
SPIDER-MAN 3  (2007)
CHRONICLE  (2012)
TRANSFORMERS  (2007)
CLASH OF THE TITANS  (2010)

The newest installment in what used to be the most bankable superhero film franchise around is a frustrating combination of superbly promising talent and misguidedly ambitious suits and writers.  There are some scenes so marvelously constructed and sincere that they elicit "squeeing", but many of these moments eventually feel somewhat cheapened by contrasting scenes that smack of cynical commercialism and overly eager storytelling, jumping ahead to beats before they can be fully earned.
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 is perhaps the first really significant event out the gate during the post-THE AVENGERS effect, with film studios now having realized the potential of a far-reaching "film universe" to unite independent franchises into one super-franchise.  Unfortunately for Sony Pictures, Spider-Man is the only bankable superhero they have the rights to, while a fellow Marvel property, Ghost Rider, hasn't been working out.  So following the release and subsequent relatively moderate success of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN in the same summer that rocketed THE AVENGERS to $1.5 billion worldwide (third-highest of all time), Sony started tooling around on a set of sequels and spin-offs that might hopefully bring the more limited Spider-Man universe into a caliber similar to Marvel Studios' independent features.  The greatest downside to this is that while following up the previous film should have given director Marc Webb greater clout to see his vision through (THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN was largely hindered by last-minute studio edits eliminate revelations to be saved instead for future films), it yet again feels like Webb is not being sufficiently trusted with the material, while writers like Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (the writing team behind the first two Transformers films, the Star Trek reboot and COWBOYS & ALIENS) figure out a way to cram as much studio input into the film as possible.  Granted, this is all speculation based on what the final product is, but the pieces certainly fit.
The story takes place approximately a year or a little less after the events of the previous film; playing the hero as Spider-Man has become the great joy of Peter Parker's (Andrew Garfield) life, but his incessant desire to be with his high school sweetheart, Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), conflicts with a promise he made to her late father (Denis Leary) to keep her out of harm's way.  Meanwhile, Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx), a loser of truly cartoonish proportions and a downtrodden electrical engineer at OsCorp Industries, develops an extreme obsession over Spider-Man after the web-slinger pulls him out of the way of high-velocity debris and gives him a quick pep talk.  After a highly unusual accident basically turns Dillon into pure electricity and he encounters Spider-Man again, Spidey comes up blank on the name-check, and Dillon, dubbing himself "Electro", turns villain.  But that's not all folks!  Peter's childhood friend, Harry Osborne (Dane DeHaan), son and heir to OsCorp founder and CEO Norman Osborne (Chris Cooper), has returned from boarding school to take up his father's mantle, which it turns out, includes a genetic disease that is slowly killing him, but may be stopped with a cure from OsCorp's more secretive projects.

Jamie Foxx as Electro in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2

 The set-up in the first third is rabidly fast-paced, before it sags some in the middle and then rushing to its conclusion.  If this were a movie comprised of scenes between Garfield and Stone, where the primary dramatic source was the romantic plot, it would be an unqualified success.  I wasn't a huge fan of Webb's breakout feature, the independent rom-com 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, probably because I'm not such a Zooey Deschanel fan, but his Spider-Man films soar when he's plying his hand on the smaller, intimate and romantic moments.  It certainly doesn't hurt either that he has Garfield and the incomparable Emma Stone to work their magic on the screen together, where they have perfect chemistry, such as what is undoubtedly my favorite scene in the film, when Peter and Gwen are trying to establish ground rules for a platonic friendship, but are clearly flirting.  I love it.
The film's biggest problems are not new to the series either; similarly to SPIDER-MAN 3, when Sony executives pressured director Sam Raimi to include multiple villains, the crowding of these fan-favorite antagonists causes them to minimize the impact of each other.  Because none of the multiple villains ultimately holds the spotlight, their threat inadvertently appears insufficient to sustain the drama of an entire film, and when a villain who's been onscreen for half or less the time of a typical screen villain suddenly dominates the climactic action or deals a serious blow, it feels wrong, unearned.  And even if an emotional beat seems to hit effectively, it feels infuriatingly cheapened by the rush to have gotten to that beat.  By the conclusion of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2, with a little thought of all that has passed, it appears to be a battle between the strengths of what works in the film and the weaknesses of what doesn't, directly attempting to cancel each other out specifically.
But don't mistake me for being purely negative in my opinion; the thing is, the parts I didn't like, I really didn't like, but the parts that I liked, I often loved.  Right up until the final act, for better or worse, it's a darn good fun time at the movies.  Like I said, I couldn't possibly get enough of the scenes between Peter and Gwen, and there was also a lot of funny and very ridiculous humor and exhilarating action.  Electro is one of the strangest screen villains ever attempted, and sometimes he works, while at other times he doesn't, but there's no doubting the filmmakers' confidence in him when his bizarre rap theme starts playing in the middle of a big Times Square standoff.  Dane DeHaan, as a villain on the rise, is excellent and always sympathetic, even as his role becomes more and more over the top as he goes.
Like its predecessor, the most aggravating thing about THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 is knowing, and even often seeing, just how amazingly good it has the potential to be, but then witnessing that potential denied by the cynical ambitions of the franchise-builders.

Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) and Harry Osborne (Dane DeHaan) in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2