Review: JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM

JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM 
(ACTION-ADVENTURE/SCI-FI-THRILLER) 
★★1/2
Directed by J.A. Bayona
Screenplay by Derek Connolly & Colin Trevorrow
Based on characters created by Michael Crichton
Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, Justice Smith, Daniella Pineda, James Cromwell, Toby Jones, Ted Levine, Jeff Goldblum, BD Wong, Geraldine Chaplin, Isabella Sermon, Robert Emms, Peter Jason, Kevin Layne, John Schwab, Charles Rawes
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of science-fiction violence and peril.
128 minutes
Verdict: With improved direction by J.A. Bayona but an increasingly absurd overview from Colin Trevorrow, FALLEN KINGDOM is more entertaining than expected, but about as dumb.

In spite of consistently strong, even stellar, box office returns, the Jurassic Park franchise has been creatively running on fumes since Steven Spielberg's 1993 original.  Back in 2015, I gave a negative review to JURASSIC WORLD in which I called it the best since the original anyway, although I wouldn't say that now.  The thing is, I wouldn't confidently say that it isn't the best of the Jurassic Park sequels either, because THE LOST WORLD and JURASSIC PARK III aren't good either.  They're all just different kinds of bad.  JURASSIC WORLD was mean-spirited and generic, and having rewatched it recently, I was also surprised to discover it's also pretty campy.  The idea of actually opening the theme park and seeing the day-to-day operations of that kind of thing (as much as we do see, anyway) is exciting, but you have this goofy subplot with training velociraptors and Vincent D'Onofrio wanting to use dinosaurs for military operations, and D'Onofrio's performance is weirdly hammy.  As the two leads, Chris Pratt didn't work as a steely Clint Eastwood/Harrison Ford dinosaur wrangler (who sexually harasses his co-workers, by the way), and Bryce Dallas Howard was painful to watch at times as the utterly incompetent park manager.  These were the kinds of characters who would've been eaten off the toilet by a T. rex in the original.  Colin Trevorrow, the writer and director of JURASSIC WORLD returns with the new JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM, but this time only in the capacity of screenwriter, and Guillermo del Toro's Spanish protégé J.A. Bayona takes his turn in the director's chair.  Bayona's previous work has included the 2012 disaster drama THE IMPOSSIBLE and the 2016 fantasy tearjerker A MONSTER CALLS, both movies that, based on the material, could have been disasters, and while they both had their problems, Bayona's direction brought out their best qualities with emotional weight and visceral chills.  In the end, FALLEN KINGDOM is largely a push-and-pull affair between Bayona's direction and Trevorrow's story (co-written with his regular collaborator, Derek Connolly), and the result is entertaining, campy and absurd.

The movie is set three years after JURASSIC WORLD, with the theme park, the island, and the dinosaur attractions abandoned.  An impending volcanic eruption on the island threatens all its inhabitants however, spurring on a movement to save the dinosaurs and transport them to another island.  To be fair, people get behind a lot of political movements and demonstrate passionately for things that are a little funny when you think about it, but my God; the dinosaurs in this franchise are genetic hybrids created by a private business venture combining dinosaur and other DNAs.  They're not authentic dinosaurs, they're not naturally occurring, plus, they consistently eat people.  But dumb Millennial types from the Dinosaur Protection Group, led by former Jurassic World park operations manager who really should know better, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard), are petitioning for public support to rescue them.  Dearing is contacted by the estate of Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), the late John Hammond's estranged business partner in creating Jurassic Park, who wants her and her associate Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to return to the island with a team to help locate and rescue some of the dinosaurs before it's too late, including "Blue," the velociraptor Owen raised and trained.  Owen and Claire soon realize though that they've been used as patsies in an operation to capture the dinosaurs for a secret auction, and Blue, in particular, is to be used to create a sinister experimental new creature.

Perhaps the most pleasant surprise compared to JURASSIC WORLD is that Owen and Claire are a lot more likable this time around.  The idea that Claire wants to save the dinosaurs from the volcano is still absurd, but at least she's competent, more intuitive, and she no longer has that godawful haircut.  Owen is a bit more laidback, less smug, and a little more self-aware.  Their flirtation and "witty repartee" is still groan-inducing, but while trying less to define them or develop them, and instead letting them react to the situations around them as the thin characters they are, it flows better.  New characters like the nerdy IT guy Franklin (Justice Smith) and stock strong woman "paleoveterinarian" Zia (Daniella Pineda)  who tag along to the island are okay and add some diversity but not a lot else.  Ted Levine though, who I haven't seen in a mainstream movie for a while now, is a treat as one Ken Wheatley, the asshole mercenary in charge of the team capturing the dinosaurs, played with a wonderfully oddball twang.

The action and thrills are very good much of the time, and it occurs to me that there just aren't enough movies with action sequences set within a catastrophic volcanic eruption.  There are a few of them, but not enough.  For the first time in a while in a Jurassic Park movie, there are some really good, scary scenes, kicking off with a very intense chase with predictable results in the opening scene, and the final act allows Bayona to really put to use his experience in Gothic horror in some spectacular ways.  Spielberg managed to make a really solid blockbuster adventure movie that plays in an area similar to JAWS with the 1993 original JURASSIC PARK, filled with thrills, but also a sense of wonder and significance.  At this point, however, this kind of thing works best as a goofy, stylish monster movie thriller, and whenever it starts veering into other areas, it feels lost.  There are some late revelations about characters that the movie treats as though they should have more impact than they really do, and I'm not even sure what to think about where this movie suggests future sequels should go.  I haven't seen THE BOOK OF HENRY, but from what I've heard, and looking at Trevorrow's influence on these last two Jurassic World movies, his sensibilities now strike me as campy.  As with other Bayona films, his skilled direction acts in spite of the tendencies of the material, and it reminds me BLADE II, where Guillermo del Toro was directing a screenplay by David S. Goyer.  In terms of the action and aesthetics, the results are typically entertaining, but the writing is clearly holding it back.

The main point of these movies, I suppose, is the dinosaurs though, and while it's pretty much more of the thing we've seen in previous franchise installments, they're a substantial improvement on the creatures of JURASSIC WORLD.  There are more major scenes involving the traditional full-size animatronic puppets, and unlike the one practical scene of a dying sauropod in the previous film, these ones actually look pretty good.  There are shots that look like slightly sub-par CGI, but there are few other times when I wasn't positive whether the dinosaur onscreen was on-set or created in the computer, which should really be the goal when blending practical and digital effects.  The headlining new dinosaur, the "Indoraptor" is uninspired, basically a better-looking version of the Indominus Rex from the last movie, darker, with teethier teeth and longer claws.  Its role in the movie works a lot better than the Indominus though, keeping things simple and purely menacing.  That's where the movie works best all the time, when it keeps things simple.

                                                                                                                                                       Images via Universal Pictures

Review: INCREDIBLES 2

INCREDIBLES 2 
(ACTION-COMEDY/ANIMATION) 
★★★★
Directed by Brad Bird
Screenplay by Brad Bird
Featuring the Voices of: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Huckleberry Milner, Catherine Keener, Eli Fucile, Bob Odenkirk, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Bird, Sophia Bush, Brad Bird, Phil LeMarr, Isabella Rossellini, Adam Gates, Jonathan Banks, John Ratzenberger, Bill Wise
Rated PG for action sequences and some brief mild language.
118 minutes
Verdict: With humor and ferocity, INCREDIBLES 2 subverts expectations to be Pixar's best and most interesting movie in at least a few years, and a potent return to form for Brad Bird.

After 14 years since the classic original THE INCREDIBLES first arrived, it was disappointing that filmmaker Brad Bird was finally returning to deliver a sequel only after the disaster that was TOMORROWLAND, as though it would be an act of penance rather than a project of passion.  Fortunately, what it seemed is not the case.  INCREDIBLES 2 is very much a Brad Bird film, more than it is a Pixar film, really, and that's a great thing right now.  It's not perfect, and it stumbles a bit toward the finish line, but it would be wrong to let that overshadow how strongly it plays as long as it does, especially considering the lofty expectations the sequel has to live up to after all this time.  It's hard to compare the sequel to the original, considering that we've had 14 years to live with and love the original.  The original is a fact of life at this point, and a lot grown adults actually grew up with it, and it's a really great movie besides, so even the idea of a sequel is a huge uphill battle from the start.

The story, written by Bird, picks up with where the original's memorable coda left off, as the super-powered Parr family; physically super strong father and husband Bob (aka Mr. Incredible; voice of Craig T. Nelson), the extremely stretchy and malleable mother and wife Helen (aka Elastigirl; voice of Holly Hunter), the force field-wielding daughter who can also become invisible at will, Violet (voice of Sarah Vowell), the super speedy son Dash (voice of Huckleberry Milner), and the polymorphic baby Jack-Jack; suit up to confront the burrowing supervillain Underminer (voice of John Ratzenberger), but the subsequent battle results in significant property damage and the ending of the "Super Relocation" government program that had been creating and maintaining the secret identities of superheroes like the Parr family.  Despite their success in defending the city only months before, alongside their ice-wielding family friend Lucius Best (aka Frozone; voice of Samuel L. Jackson), superheroics are still technically illegal, but telecommunications tycoon and superhero enthusiast Winston Deavor (voice of Bob Odenkirk) and his sister Evelyn (voice of Catherine Keener) come to Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl and Frozone with an idea to boost public support for the re-legalization of superheroes.  Because of her less destructive track record, the Deavors want Elastigirl to be the face of their campaign by openly fighting fighting crime again, which leaves Bob doing his darnedest to keep things running smoothly at home between Violet's boy troubles, Dash's homework and Jack-Jack, whose newly emerging powers are increasingly out of control.

Being a sequel, the story isn't as inventive as the original, and it isn't as streamlined either, as it heads off in a number of different directions that aren't all that tightly unified, but the paths it goes down are often interesting and fun.  Mostly, it's just great getting to spend more time with these characters, seeing the ways they react to new dilemmas, like Bob's well-meaning and relatable attempts to be a good father, that often result in disaster before he finally finds a way that works, and Helen's own reliving of the glory days.  They still feel like the same characters.  Helen, though, is never as insecure a character as Bob, so her transition back to superheroing is smoother than Bob's ever was and is inherently less interesting, but her powers provide the opportunity for some more unique and exciting action sequences that are occasionally surprising in their ferocity, as well some great high-speed chasing on her two-piece "Elasticycle."  

Like the original, INCREDIBLES 2 is a deceitfully adult-friendly Pixar production dealing with adult insecurities, politics (but not in an obnoxious way) and threats, and it doesn't pull it's punches just because it's a cartoon.  Parents of small children may be surprised at how creepy the villainous Screenslaver (whose broadcasts hypnotize viewers to do his will) is, and the movie earns its PG rating with fisticuffs, gunplay and Pixar's first legitimate profanities (mild though they may be), but it's not that people shouldn't bring their kids.  It's just that, rather than the kind of kids movie that adults can enjoy too, INCREDIBLES 2 is the kind of adults movie that (slightly older) kids can enjoy.  It feels like an anomaly from other, especially recent, Pixar fare, and more like something else entirely that's passed through a light Pixar filter.  But Pixar has been a bit stale lately, visually sumptuous and going for the emotional throat like a coke addict goes for line, a little too reliably.  INCREDIBLES 2 shakes that up, and it's refreshing, yet it's not lacking in feeling just because it's not as blunt about it as something like FINDING DORY.

In the moment, at least up until the last 10 or 15 minutes, I was nothing if not entertained, and only after post-viewing consideration did it occur that INCREDIBLES 2 wasn't quite as brilliant as the original THE INCREDIBLES, but that 'in the moment' joy has to count for a lot, I think.  It doesn't stick the landing as well as it could or as well as its predecessor, and it's constantly subject to those unfair comparisons, but it deserves credit for coming as close to that level as it does.  It's possible that the ending would play better on a rewatch, and it's not that its bad.  It just doesn't come to as clean a point as the bulk of it deserves.  Before all that though, there was little doubt in my mind that this was one of the best movies I'd seen in a while, and while my comparisons point toward a 3.5 out of 4 rating, my heart says 4 out of 4.  Maybe a soft 4, but a 4-banger regardless.  It was just immensely fun and the best time I've had at a Pixar movie since INSIDE OUT.  It's easily their best sequel since TOY STORY 3.  It's not clear if it's as good as the original yet, and we may not be able to tell for another 14 years, but it's playing around the same level, which is a feat in itself.

                                                                                                                                                                          Images via Disney

Review: SOLO+Denny's Solo Inspired Menu!

SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY 
(ACTION-ADVENTURE/FANTASY) 
★★1/2
Directed by Ron Howard
Screenplay by Jonathan Kasdan & Lawrence Kasdan
Based on characters created by George Lucas
Starring: Alden Ehrenreich, Joonas Suatamo, Woody Harrelson, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Thandie Newton, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Paul Bettany, Jon Favreau (voice), Linda Hunt (voice), Ian Kenny, John Tui, Warwick Davis, Anthony Daniels
Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action/violence.
135 minutes
Unfortunately, SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY comes to the table with a bit of ill will, having been the subject of the latest and worst behind the scenes drama of the tumultuous Kathleen Kennedy era of Lucasfilm thus far when the directing team of Phil Lord and Chris Miller (having established a reputation for taking "bad idea" movies and making them good, i.e. THE LEGO MOVIE, 21 JUMP STREET and CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, although usually with a comedic bent) were fired from production with only a few weeks of principal photography left, and replaced by the painfully safe choice of Ron Howard.  As such, it's a bit messy, and it may take some time to become fully objective about it, but let's be fair, a Han Solo solo movie isn't exactly inspired in and of itself.  That said, even while it's nothing special, it's better than it could have been.  Like the first installment of the Star Wars anthology series accompanied by the "A Star Wars Story" subtitle, ROGUE ONE, SOLO is a mixed bag of thrilling moments and "who needs it" bull crap.

Written by THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK scribe Lawrence Kasdan and his son, Jonathan Kasdan, SOLO is set between REVENGE OF THE SITH and the original STAR WARS, where the teenage Han (Alden Ehrenreich) is a resourceful young "scrumrat" on the planet Corellia, with dreams of getting his own ship and traveling the galaxy as a free man with his girlfriend/partner-in-crime Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke) by his side.  In their attempt to escape the clutches of the grotesque crime lord Lady Proxima (an awesome creature design voiced by Linda Hunt) however, Han and Qi'ra are split up, with Han evading capture by joining up with the Imperial Navy but promising to return.  A series of adventures unites Han with his co-pilot and best friend, Chewbacca (portrayed by 6'11'' tall Finnish basketball player Joonas Suotamo, taking over the role from its originator Peter Mayhew), and together they fall in with a band of thieves and smugglers led by Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson).  With Beckett's team, they plan to make a huge score, enough to by a ship, but when things go awry, Han finds himself involved with yet another crime lord in the form of the sinister Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany), and back into the same sphere as Qi'ra, who now has a past of her own.

The story meanders and is at times picaresque, but not always in a way that seems intended.  There are moments that seem very much in the vein of Lord & Miller (reportedly, they filmed about 30% of the finished film but settled for credit as executive producers), particularly the civil rights-minded droid pilot L3-37 (voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge), and there are idiotic revelations scattered throughout that smell like franchise-building B.S., but it's all fine.  It's not particularly clever, and when it tries to be is when it really feels dumb.  Like, yes we all know that people were upset when George Lucas modified the original STAR WARS to make Han shoot after Greedo, so there's going to be a self-aware corrective moment here where Han shoots someone before they can draw.  Whoop-de-freaking-do.  These new Star Wars movies could really do without the self-aware nods to fanboy resentment about things from the Special Editions and prequel trilogy.  On the other hand, while I'm glad they're not trying to erase the prequels from existence the way Lucas tried to do with the theatrically-released original trilogy, a lot of it comes down to name-dropping and throwing out the consequences from of those movies for the sake of familiarity or fanboy pandering.

In comparison to Harrison Ford, Ehrenreich's no slouch, although there's a disassociation between his Han and Ford's Han.  Both are good, but it's never particularly present in the mind that these are the same characters.  As Lando Calrissian, Donald Glover is a little more rough, partly because he's a more familiar personality as an actor than Ehrenreich, but more because of Glover's intermittent attempts to imitate Billy Dee Williams's distinctively smooth speech mannerisms which, coming out of the mouth of anyone other than Williams himself, sound like parody.  There are actually a lot of characters to keep track of in the movie, and a lot of them are underplayed in the mix, like Harrelson's "Long John Silver"-inspired character whose involvement is easy enough to forget whenever he's not onscreen, and there are a lot of characters and revelations that are given more weight than makes sense, unless it's a case of the studio pushing their animated Star Wars TV series, which wouldn't be too surprising.

While it's less ambitious, SOLO is an minor improvement over THE LAST JEDI, more fast paced and more in the vein of Star Wars, even without the Jedi characters, ironically.  The action is solid, including a cool Star Wars version of a train robbery and at least a few chases, all shot handsomely with crispness and scale by Bradford Young (known for his work on ARRIVAL and SELMA), and the production design is beautiful.  The creature designs and voices are both innovative and classic Star Wars, and pervade the movie in a way that makes me really want to see Guillermo del Toro''s theoretical "Jabba's Palace" movie.  There are a lot of covered faces with mechanical voices, giant, photosensitive caterpillars, a four-armed monkey space pilot, and a full-blown space kraken, all of which were excellent.
I don't know that it will stick with me for long, and God knows, it's too long, but at least the first half was pretty fun.

                                                                                                                                                                    Images via Lucasfilm

Denny's Solo: A Star Wars Story Inspired Menu

Co-Reactor Pancake Breakfast
Menu Description: Two buttermilk pancakes topped with fresh strawberries, strawberry sauce and whipped cream, plus a side of Crystal Crunch Rocks and a pitcher of warm citrus sauce to pour over your pancakes to make 'em go pop.  Served with two eggs, hash browns and your choice of two bacon strips or two sausage links.
$9.79
Basically the flagship of the Solo: A Star Wars Story Inspired Menu, the Co-Reactor Pancake Breakfast is what Denny's does best; breakfast food with just the right amount of weird innovation, in this case being Pop Rocks on your pancakes.  The "Crystal Crunch Rocks" aren't exactly the same as "Pop Rocks" though.  Like Pop Rocks, they are tiny candies infused with bubbles of pressurized carbon dioxide gas that cause them to pop and crackle as they melt, but the Crystal Crunch Rocks have a smooth texture and a buttery taste on top of the strawberry flavor.  My pancakes were served with the Crystal Crunch Rocks on the side, so I was able to sample them on their own, and it was weirdly like sucking on spray butter with a hint of fruitiness.  Mixing with the strawberry sauce on top of the pancakes, they made a satisfactorily noisy popping sound as I ate.  Mine was a to-go order, and unfortunately, I did not get the citrus sauce, however, everything else was included (the missing sauce was likely a mistake).  For about $10.00, it's an ample serving of food with pancakes, fruit, eggs, hash browns and either bacon or sausage (bacon for me).

Blaster Fire Burger
Menu Description: Chipotle Gouda cheese, bacon and spicy Ghost Pepper sauce top a hand-pressed 100% beef patty.  Served with lettuce, tomato, red onions and pickles on a brioche bun with a choice of side.
$10.39 ($10.98 with suggested side of Bacon Cheddar Tots)
In my experience, burgers are not Denny's strong suit.  In fact, they suck, and unfortunately, the Blaster Fire Burger was no exception.  The patty was nearly flavorless and dry, even worse than those dreadful Lean Mean Grilling Machines that squeeze all the flavor juices out from the comfort of your home.  Most of the flavor in the burger came from pickles (hard to miss that pickle flavor) and the basic spiciness of the Ghost Pepper sauce and Chipotle Gouda cheese.  Curiously, the burning sensation was mostly delayed, so it was perfectly tolerable to chew, but by the time I swallowed, it began to burn in my throat and proceeded to do so for several minutes.  Although they cost $0.50 more, I ordered the burger with the Bacon Cheddar Tots it was pictured with on the menu, which were better than the low bar set by the burger, but unremarkable balls of cheesy hash browns with bits of bacon.

Two Moons Skillet
Menu Description: Diced ham, fresh spinach, sautéed mushrooms and hash browns.  Topped with Gouda cheese sauce, Cheddar cheese and two eggs.
$9.39
Outside of the two eggs that come on top of it, I'm not sure what the Two Moons of the Two Moons Skillet are in reference to, because that one scene in STAR WARS is of two suns.  This one was a little bit of a hurdle when I was deciding whether or not I was going to try all four Solo: A Star Wars Story Inspired Menu items because mushrooms are disgusting, rubbery, little dirt warts, but when I finally tried it, I was pleased to discover that the Gouda cheese sauce and Cheddar cheese that smothered the skillet drowned out both the taste and texture of the ick.  I was also hesitant about the ham, but really, it mostly registered as cheese-smothered hash browns with a few spinach leaves and the rest were just accentuations, and I liked it a lot.  It was basically a just a big heap of savory breakfast mess.

Lightspeed Slam
Menu Description: Our Fit Slam includes egg whites scrambled together with fresh spinach and grape tomatoes, plus two turkey bacon strips, an English muffin and seasonal fruit.
$8.69
The Lightspeed Slam is actually a Lightspeed Sham, because it's actually the exact same thing as the Fit Slam from the traditional Denny's menu.  It's also a fair bit less food than the other slams with less of a price drop than you'd expect in proportion to the portions, but it is less than half the calories.  It's not bad, but it's about what you'd expect from a breakfast designed for someone watching their cholesterol.  The egg whites with spinach and tomatoes are okay, and I've nothing against English muffins, although my to-go order came with neither butter or jam, so it was pretty dry.  Turkey bacon doesn't exactly taste like your traditional pig bacon, but I wouldn't say it's either worse or better.  It's fine.  The fruit was good, maybe a little tart as the result of lemon juice or something to preserve its color.  It's just that there's not a lot of Han Solo-style adventure in watching your cholesterol.

Review: AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR 
(ACTION/SCI-FI) 
★★★1/2
Directed by Anthony Russo & Joe Russo
Screenplay by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely
Based on Marvel Comics, characters and stories by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, Jim Starlin & George Perez & Ron Lim, Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby & Joe Simon and Jim Starlin
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Peter Dinklage, Sebastian Stan, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Josh Brolin, Chris Pratt, Pom Klementieff, Tom Hiddleston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Terry Notary, Karen Gillan, Bradley Cooper (voice), Carrie Coon
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action throughout, language and some crude references.
149 minutes
Verdict: The climactic chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is long, exhausting, fun, emotional and delivers where it counts.


While this review contains no significant spoilers for AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR, there will be no such courtesies regarding earlier installments of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  You have been warned.
After 10 years and 18 installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) so far, the franchise has still maintained an improbable level of quality, and yet, even as the studio has tried to branch out in some fresh directions with the zany James Gunn-styled qualities of the Guardians of the Galaxy films, the flippant coolness of THOR: RAGNAROK, and the energetic black ensemble-led BLACK PANTHER, the series hasn't been able to totally shake a feeling of fatigue, like even when there's a visible effort to be different, there's still a resolute sameness and commercial safety to it all.  It's been accused of being essentially a multi-billion dollar TV series, which isn't completely wrong.  They feel like episodes at their cores.  It's not that they're haven't still been good, but they have been same-y, even, ironically, when they're not.  AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR, however, is pitched as a culmination.  MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS, which now reaches the ripe old age of five years, memorably ended with a mid-credits stinger that revealed the secret orchestrator of the villainous Loki's attempted takeover of Earth to be Thanos, a character familiar to many Marvel Comics fans as an exceptionally powerful antagonist of the Avengers, but the scene puzzled the masses of uninitiated.  Since then, Thanos (who was merely a CGI effect with a brief grin in his first appearance but has since been portrayed by actor Josh Brolin via performance capture technology) has made underwhelming cameo appearances in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, and all this time, the series has been building to this, his big starring role.  Whatever else, I think INFINITY WAR does a pretty decent job of shaking that episodic feeling, or at least, making it work in a way that it hasn't for a while.  The devoted fans were always going to cream in their jeans over this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it made more than a few casual moviegoers at least a little bit angry.  I yearn for the days of the supersized 100-120 minute blockbusters, but while INFINITY WAR clocks in at an epic two-and-a-half hours, it's briskly paced.  The action scenes are frequent and lengthy, but juggled rapidly between many different storylines, occasionally to very fun effect, and occasionally to one of exhaustion.  Especially by the time that extra half hour was rolling along, I was feeling the length, and by the time all was said and done, I wondered just what it had added up to.  More specifically, it's a very big movie, and I wonder, is it big because it makes sense for this climactic chapter to be a big and is thus an obligation, or did it really need all that?  Suffice it to say, this isn't the final chapter in the Avengers saga.  There is a fair bit of exposition to be had in a movie that, ostensibly, would stand at least somewhat on its own but which is also the sequel to 18 different movies; although, the Infinity Stones buildup didn't really start until THOR: THE DARK WORLD, which was, by then, already the eight installment in the series.  On the one hand, it's fortunate that INFINITY WAR doesn't waste too much time resetting the pieces, but on the other hand, there's still some effort demanded to keeping up if you've seen and remember what happened in the previous 18 movies, so it's probable that people who haven't been keeping track of things could get clobbered by how much is going on.  If you don't have time to catch up on 18 movies before seeing this one, you might be fine as long as you've covered MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS, THOR: THE DARK WORLD, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, DOCTOR STRANGE and THOR: RAGNAROK, and maybe SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING and BLACK PANTHER, too.  Not a one of them is under two hours, though.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR picks up five years after the events of CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, in which the superhero team the Avengers were driven apart by political and personal conflict, and very shortly after the final scene of THOR: RAGNAROK.  Thanos, a bulky purple humanoid from the planet Titan, is on a quest to obtain the Infinity Stones; six immensely powerful singular elements from the beginning of the universe.  The Space Stone, previously introduced in the CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER as the Tesseract; the Mind Stone, previously introduced in MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS and further revealed in AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON as Loki's scepter before it was incorporated into the character Vision (Paul Bettany); the Reality Stone, previously introduced as the Aether in THOR: THE DARK WORLD; the Power Stone, previously introduced as the contents of a powerful orb in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY; the Time Stone, previously introduced in DOCTOR STRANGE as the Eye of Agamotto; and finally, the Soul Stone, which was briefly mentioned in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY.  I had to look all of that up after the fact, because I couldn't keep track of the details on these things for the life of me.  Wielded together, the Infinity Stones make one master of the universe, a power which Thanos desires in order to bring "balance" to the cosmos by killing half the beings in the universe.  Basically, you could say he's a population control extremist.

Once again, it falls upon the Avengers, "Earth's Mightiest Heroes," to protect their planet when Thanos and his army of grotesque henchmen come knocking, but not only are the Avengers fractured between sides sympathetic to Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) after the events of CIVIL WAR, but the battle against Thanos is a battle for the entire universe, so the Guardians of the Galaxy, led by Peter Quill/Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), and Master of the Mystic Arts Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) enlist in the fight as well.
Personally, I'm a sucker for the reintroduction of heroes in a sequel where there's been a passage of time to catch up on, and they're already in the middle of another adventure.  Fortunately, there's no shortage of such moments in INFINITY WAR, as disparate but familiar faces make their re-entries one after another; relationships have progressed, Tony Stark still has hyperactive anxiety about protecting the world and people he cares about, Cap and his allies are continuing their heroics underground, and T'Challa/Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), is opening the previously largely secret knowledge of the nation of Wakanda to the international stage.  The familiar faces in this superhero epic are an embarrassment of riches, as evidenced by not the usual one, but two rows of star billing at the top of the film's overcrowded poster.  In addition to the aforementioned, Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), James "Rhodey" Rhodes/War Machine (Don Cheadle), Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier/White Wolf (Sebastian Stan), and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) play their parts, and those are just the characters who've been in the marketing.  I'm also a big fan of movies where they have to put together a team; one of my favorite parts of the original MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS, even in the midst of all the bombastic action, was just the beginning scenes of bringing them all together.  The hows and whys of bringing characters as varied as Thor, Iron Man and Captain America finally meeting each other, the resulting friction and eventual camaraderie, and there's an abundance of those meetings in INFINITY WAR as well.  How does the irreverent group of misfits that make up the Guardians of the Galaxy react to the prince of Asgard, Thor?  What happens when you put together the similarly brilliant but inflated egos of the tech-centric Iron Man and the magical Doctor Strange in the middle of an intergalactic war?  As a kid, I had about a year or two-long phase of devoted comic book reading, mostly of the Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk series in the form of black-and-white copied collections of the characters' classic eras from the 1960s and '70s, and as weird as each character was on their own, I accepted their individual adventures as grounded within their own respective stories.  

However, they'd occasionally have crossovers with other Marvel characters, and that's when things would start to seem weird.  Sure, a teen from Queens getting bit by a radioactive spider and getting spider-themed powers was one thing, but now he's working alongside Ghost Rider, the biker demon with a flaming skull head?  That seemed weird.  INFINITY WAR is the MCU getting weird in a similar way, but I think I like that.  It mixes together a lot of different flavors, more disparate and varied than the last two Avengers movies, and things get weird, even campy at times, like an '80s fantasy film.  THOR: RAGNAROK's aesthetic seems like a bit of a primer for this style in retrospect.  Some this blending of worlds works really well, some of it seems a bit off the mark.  The design elements of the movie cater more toward the fanboy sensibilities and occasionally to the detriment of things, such as Iron Man and Spider-Man newly styled ugly suits, and I really don't know how I feel about Thanos's henchmen, most prominently represented by the evil butler-like Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) and the ram-horned warrior Proxima Midnight (Carrie Coon), who feel like they might be more at home in an episode of Stargate SG1.  The designs aren't exactly top-notch.

Some audiences might be more satisfied than others in respect to the amount of time devoted specific characters in the midst of so many to juggle, although I think they did a pretty well-balanced job of it overall.  Peter Quill might have deserved a little more time in regards to some events in the latter parts of the film, and after the immense success of BLACK PANTHER not even a few months ago, I'm sure there will be clamoring over whether T'Challa and his circle of close comrades received enough screen time, but I don't have any major complaints about things in that respect.  In terms of characters, the greatest responsibility of all to fall upon the film is Thanos, a character who has already made three previous appearances in the MCU and not yet has been able to project an ounce of real menace or depth, leaving the task all up to INFINITY WAR itself.  A tall and muscular, purple-skinned Titan, Thanos is about a B+ villain, maybe an A-.  The idea that has been pitched that this is Thanos's movie isn't quite true, it's still very much an ensemble film like the other Avengers movies,  but he certainly gets his moments.  He's still a little shallow in terms of his motivations, and while the backstory might be there, the movie doesn't give it sufficient prominence.  On the other hand, he's an emotional villain with some real dimensions, on a level alongside others of Marvel best villains like Loki and Killmonger.  I don't know if he'll make you feel a lot, but he'll make you feel something at least.  He's willing to make real, meaningful sacrifices for his objectives, and it leads to some potently emotional moments, however, there's still some lingering question as to what drives him to make those sacrifices.  There are also some serious issues with the power of the Infinity Stones and Thanos's power as he obtains each one.  I don't understand why they can be used to do one thing but not some other thing, and why it requires all six to achieve Thanos's specific goals, and their specific abilities and limitations are certainly not apparent.  Because other things about the movie seem to working well enough, you try not to worry about it in the midst of things, but the Infinity Stones seem to render a lot of what's going on almost entirely meaningless.  Perhaps there's still more to be said on the matter, but as it is, they seem like all kinds of uninhibited possibilities and deus ex machina.

Most importantly though, INFINITY WAR finally delivers a real feeling of emotional stakes to the MCU.  Obviously, we've been expecting some characters to finally meet their fates and stay that way with this chapter of the saga, after so much avoidance, but just dispatching a few of our favorite heroes wouldn't be enough if not done the right way.  I'm not sure how much credit to give to the directing team of brother Joe Russo and Anthony Russo, veterans of sitcom television who have taken the Avengers reins from Joss Whedon, director of the first two Avengers films.  INFINITY WAR is their third Marvel production after CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR and the quasi-Avengers movie CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, and as with those two movies, INFINITY WAR was falls on the darker end of the Marvel spectrum, although even there, Marvel really doesn't go that dark at their darkest.  Except for this time.  Even while INFINITY WAR finally feels like its own movie within the MCU rather than another TV episode (maybe you could say it feels like the special TV movie event within the TV series), it's still clearly studio picture, continuing Marvel's uniquely producer-dominated practice under the thumb of Kevin Feige, who decides how much creative leeway to allow hired gun directors.  That said, the Russos have displayed a propensity for emotionally charged action and undisciplined storytelling that has applied to all three so far.  In any case, INFINITY WAR is a massive movie in every way and the result of the efforts of many creative talents, some more successful than others.  Within all the spectacle though, I found myself caring about some of the characters more than I realized that I did, and when it finally becomes possible for them to die, there were some deaths that I was resigned to, and others that I actively hoped might be spared.  Finally, they were worth caring about again.  There's an emotional intensity at times that I'd been missing, and when the heroes charge into a massive Lord of the Rings-stye battle in the climactic action, the big signature thrills of a great summer blockbuster were there.

                                                                                                                                                                                           Marvel

Review: RAMPAGE

RAMPAGE 
(ACTION/SCI-FI) 
★★
Directed by Brad Peyton
Screenplay by Ryan Engle and Carlton Cuse & Ryan J. Condal and Adam Sztykiel
Story by Ryan Engle
Based on Rampage by Midway Games
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello, Marley Shelton, P.J. Byrne, Demetrius Grosse, Jack Quaid, Breanne Hill, Matt Gerald, Will Yun Lee, Urijah Faber
Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, action and destruction, brief language, and crude gestures.
107 minutes
Verdict: While delivering on the promise of bombastic brain-dead monster action, RAMPAGE is more dumb than fun.

I'm not a video game kind of person, but RAMPAGE is one of the rare video game-based movies that I can actually compare to the game, because I remember playing it on Nintendo 64 at a friend's house one day when I was 8 or 9 years old.  Basically, it was a very old-fashioned seeming game, even at the time, originally from 1986, where you played as either a giant gorilla ripoff of King Kong, a giant lizard ripoff of Godzilla, or as some random giant wolf-man, and then you try to smash buildings or other monsters or something.  For some reason, it stuck in my mind.

Frankly, the new movie directed by Brad Peyton, and somehow written by four different people, doesn't actually add much more to the story.  The monsters in the game were transformed people, according to Wikipedia, which they aren't in this, but other than that, for better or worse, it's still basically excuse to let a giant gorilla, a giant crocodile and a giant wolf wreak havoc and eat people.
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, for whom this kind of movie is now standard, is the human, non-CGI star as Davis Okoye, a primatologist with a vaguely defined background as a mercenary/special ops/poacher-killer, who works as at a wild animal park in California and is friends with a rare albino silverback gorilla named "George."  When a space station hosting illegal genetic experiments breaks apart in orbit above Earth, capsules containing experimental gas break through the atmosphere and crash down across North America, one of  them landing in George's enclosure, and it quickly mutates him to grow at a rapid rate and become unnaturally aggressive.  Elsewhere in the States, a capsule mutates a wolf into a gigantic, flying monster and another turns an American crocodile into a warped leviathan.  Meanwhile, the unscrupulous corporation behind the experiments, personified by the evil Claire Wyden (Malin Akerman) and her dumb brother Brett (Jake Lacy), is working to cover up the evidence and turn on a radar to draw the monsters to their headquarters in the city to create chaos.
Okoye is mostly interested in helping his "friend," George, so he enlists the help of Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris), a discredited genetic engineer who had been involved with the corporation's work, and gets help whenever convenient from a government agent who seems to be everywhere, all the time, Harvey Russell, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who you could say is the only member of the cast who knows what kind of movie he's in, but he's still playing it awfully high.

Fortunately, it doesn't take long at all to get into the monster mayhem, but every time the movie takes a moment to get back to human characters and make its half-assed, weirdly broad attempts to give them any sort of background, it's hopelessly dull.  Johnson is on cruise control, giving ham-handed lines to a CGI gorilla, and the villainous siblings played by Akerman and Lacy are a less fun carbon copy of the villains from SUPERMAN III.  Morgan's drawl-heavy performance is intermittently amusing, but his character makes no sense, popping up whenever it's convenient to the plot.
Really, the whole point of the movie is the monsters, and the movie doesn't withhold.  Plenty of people are devoured gruesomely, pushing boundaries with gore in the PG-13 rating to a surprising degree, especially for a movie this cartoony, and frankly, regardless of content, feels like a kids movie much of the time.  Personally, I'm not a huge fan of people being eaten onscreen; it's a fine line between fun and sickening, but weirdly enough, the messier deaths where people get torn up don't bother me as much as people being swallowed, e.g. Katie McGrath's prolonged demise in JURASSIC WORLD.  The deaths in RAMPAGE are mostly messy, so that's fine by me.  It's a little nasty, but it's alright.  The whole thing feels really slight, however, because there's so little story, and the encounters with the monsters during the first half of the movie just feel like previews whetting the appetite for the main showcase in the third act climax.

Even in the seemingly simple objective of dumb fun, RAMPAGE still isn't the "good video game" adaptation that continues to elude Hollywood, although it seems to have a better idea of how to get there than a lot of other that have tried.  It aims for the appeal of the Transformers series with epic fights that cause absurd destruction, and JURASSIC WORLD, with brainless bloody mayhem, and the Fast & Furious series with a weirdly earnest theme about friendship.  Unfortunately, it's just more dumb than it is fun.

                                                                                                                                                          Images via Warner Brothers

Review: A QUIET PLACE

A QUIET PLACE
(THRILLER/HORROR) 
★★★1/2
Directed by John Krasinski
Screenplay by Bryan Woods & Scott Beck and John Krasinski
Story by Bryan Woods & Scott Beck
Starring: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Cade Woodward, Leon Russom
Rated PG-13 for terror and some bloody images.
90 minutes
Verdict: A simple, visceral and emotional thriller that builds on its promising high concept with stellar performances.

Despite becoming widely recognizable for his role as workplace prankster Jim Halpert in the U.S. version of The Office, John Krasinski's had a rough go of it breaking into movies, consistently landing in roles in lukewarm failures like 13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS OF BENGHAZI and LEATHERHEADS or out and out failures like LICENSE TO WED and ALOHA.  Sometimes in movies, to get the good roles, you've got to give them to yourself (Ben Affleck knows all about that), but while John Krasinski's role in A QUIET PLACE, which he also directed, co-wrote and executive produced, is good, it's not an especially meaty role.  Nothing about A QUIET PLACE is like that.  It's simple and broad, but highly visceral and emotional.
The context of the situation is minimal.  When the film opens, a title card indicates that it's been 89 days since whatever is happening started happening.  Civilization has broken down and only a few scattered families still survive in the area where the story takes place.  Mysterious, seemingly unbeatable creatures stalk everything that still survives, and though the creatures are blind, any sound louder than a couple dozen decibels brings them running to tear apart whatever animal life is the source.  The Abbott family communicates with sign language, and the parents, Lee (John Krasinski) and Evelyn (Emily Blunt), lay down paths of flour to walk silently on barefooted wherever they go and feel the weight of responsibility as parents while they strive to prepare their children to survive.  In the film's prologue, a scavenging trip into a nearby town ends in tragedy for the Abbott family, before the story jumps forward a year.  Each member of the family is still dealing with the guilt of what happened, and Evelyn is pregnant with another child, adding to their oldest, Regan (played by deaf actress Millicent Simmonds), who deals with the added complication of being deaf with a broken Cochlear implant and feels particularly responsible, and their current youngest, Marcus (Noah Jupe).

Although I can't really explain why, A QUIET PLACE feels more like a thriller to me than a horror movie, but that line is so constantly blurred.  There are jump scares and frequent tension, as well as supernatural plot elements, but something about it feels not quite in the same realm as what I could easily identify as horror.  Watching the trailer, with images of people walking barefoot along white pathways in the woods and an unseen menace, I assumed it would be a more surreal, almost fairy tale-like story, but it's strangely more grounded than that, for the most part.  It's a slick remix of many familiar things and reminded me of movies like SIGNS, THE WITCH and 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE.  It could easily have been the next Cloverfield movie (it's a whole lot better than THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX), and maybe it wouldn't have hurt if it were, but it's great that it's not.  
It's a movie that's easy to nitpick, and if it's okay to speak next to a waterfall because the sound of the waterfall drowns them out, I'm not sure why they can't just get a bunch of noise cancelling machines like therapist offices have, but if most of the movie is working, there's no point in bringing it all crashing down over something like that.  The creature designs are fine, nothing special (I guess I connected the trails with Temple Run and was hoping they'd be more like that freaky four-armed ape thing).

Where the movie succeeds on top of its promising concept is the creation and payoff of tension and the performances, all of which are very good while, with so little dialogue, most of the acting comes through the face and body language.  Blunt (married to Krasinski in real life, so, you know, nepotism), in particular, is a standout.  The screenplay, co-written by Krasinski from a spec script by Bryan Woods and Scott Beck, keeps things simple from start to finish, allowing for the bulk of substance to come from the family relationships and emotions folded into the tension-based set-pieces.  It's a movie with big emotions that work thanks to its performances, and never unnecessarily complicates things, even if it occasionally becomes a little silly.  It's produced by Michael Bay (who directed Krasinski in 13 HOURS), and while critics will blame him when TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES was bad, most of them probably won't give him any credit for A QUIET PLACE being good, but to be fair, only the last couple minutes of the movie feel anything like some Bay would do.  The visual effects are also better and more extensive than you'd expect from this kind of stripped-down horror movie (thriller, whatever), which Bay could probably be thanked for as well.
A QUIET PLACE keeps things moving efficiently throughout its refreshing 90-minute runtime, never wasting a minute as it world-builds and draws out tension ahead of each emotional climax, only to start again, in a story about family crisis in the middle of a worldwide existential crisis.

                                                                                                                                                                 Images via Paramount