Toaster's Summer Movie Round-Up (part 1)

As promised, here is part the first of my reviews (or more accurately thoughts and observations) on the many films I saw in theaters over the summer. So without further ado, here we go:

Furious 7 - Yeah, this wasn't technically a summer movie, but it might as well have been. It had a ton of hype and made a huge amount of money... more than many supposed summer blockbusters like Tomorrowland, Ted 2 and Fantastic Four. Part of the hype was, of course, that this was the late Paul Walker's final film and that the final version of Furious 7 had to be redone after his untimely death while shooting the movie. So the plot is sees the gang avenging the death of one of their own at the hands of the terrorist brother of the previous film's villain. (Big props, by the way, to Luke Evans for getting done up in lots of burn make-up only to appear comatose in the film for maybe ten seconds. That's a team player!)

Jason Statham plays the main baddie, a pretty high profile name for this franchise. He had one of the most bad ass pimp introduction. You see him vowing to his comatose brother to get revenge on his behalf, then tells a doctor and nurse hiding in the corner of the room to take good care of him. Then, Statham proceeds to nonchalantly leave the hospital, revealing the reversed trail of the numerous dead bodies of police and security as well as property damage that he caused getting to see his brother. I was also happy to see Tony Jaa on film again. Oh, and since Gina Carano had a fight sequence against Michelle Rodriguez, Ronda Rousey had to have one too I guess. And like against Carano, I don't think Rodriguez could take Rousey either. That said, Michelle Rodriguez is a bad ass that I'm sure could kick my ass.

Did you like the last installment of the Fast and the Furious franchise, or the one before that, or the one before that? Then you will probably like this one too. It's big, loud and dumb, but it is a lot of fun to watch, full of the usual stunts and action you come to expect from Dominic Toretto, Brian O'Conner and company. Just know that the ending will probably make you cry... seriously. It's a perfect send off to Paul Walker and you better bring tissues.

Ex Machina - Another movie that wasn't released in the summer, but this one at least gained a following for a few months which led to more theaters showing it and ultimately my seeing Ex Machina sometime in May. I already reviewed this movie here, so I won't ramble on too much about it. This was a great science fiction film and in today's world of over the top sci-fi films (Jurassic World, Prometheus, etc.) a bit of a rarity in that it was somewhat lower budget with a very small cast. Also, Ex Machina was a thriller that moved at a gradually accelerating pace, always keeping the viewer guessing at what was really going on from what tiny pieces of the puzzle you are given.

The story in a nutshell is a low level employee of a technological corporation gets the oppurtunity to test the CEO's secret project... to determine how human his android creation truly is. The main cast is great, three of Hollywood's fastest rising stars in Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson and Alicia Vikander. The special effects were pretty amazing, creating realistic looking synthetic humans, blending artificial parts with human looking features. I highly recommend this film for any lovers of real science fiction, not just blockbusters or reboots or adaptations, but of unique, thought provoking films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Altered States and Metropolis (which Ex Machina, like much of sci-fi cinema, owes a huge debt).

Avengers: Age of Ultron - The first real installment for the summer movie season, I also already did a write up for the movie that you can see here. Therefore, I don't have much to add that I didn't already say, except that the longer that time has passed since I saw Avengers 2, the less I like it. It's not a bad movie, but it has a lot of flaws. I get the idea that Ultron was basically an extended personality of Tony Stark and therefore James Spader was more or less doing a Robert Downey Jr. impersonation. It's just that the Ultron I know and love from the comics was not an impression. It was a soulless, cruel killing machine. The Ultron in the movie dicked around too much, making weird decisions like wanting to be more human by, for some reason, designing Vision. His idea of wiping out humans was needlessly complicated and weird.

In the end, I feel the same way about Avengers 2 that I did about Iron Man 3. I didn't hate it, I will probably get it for Christmas, but I'm not excited. When the first Avengers came out, I bought it the day it was released, even though I was on vacation and had to drive an hour to some ghetto Wal-Mart in Delaware (not realizing Ocean City, Maryland has a Wal Mart just off the strip... Oops!). I wanted to show my wife the movie and see it again for myself. Avengers 2 I'm sort of ho-hum about. It also doesn't help that a friend summarized his thoughts on the movie in the most obvious and ruinous way: Tony Stark and Bruce Banner made a bad guy for the Avengers to fight. Yeah... kind of kills it when it's put into that perspective.

Mad Max: Fury Road - Possibly the best movie of the summer. It's the only one I saw twice and loved it just as much the second time as I did the first. The way I described the trailer to people is the same way I describe the movie itself... it's like if The Road Warrior was given a case of Red Bull. Fury Road was insane and just bursting with imagination and absurdly amazing ideas. Why did the War Boys spray their mouths silver before commanding their brethren to "Witness!" their glorious death in battle that will send them to Valhalla! It doesn't matter because it was awesome. The stunts were cool, the bad guys were twisted and amusing (Immortan Joe was epic), Tom Hardy makes for a great Max Rockatansky and Charlize Theron made for a bad ass female protagonist as Imperator Furiosa. Oh, and Holy shit, it was hard to believe that Nicolas Hoult was under that make-up as Nux.

It doesn't seem like Mad Max: Fury Road should have been as good as it was. I never would have thought I would see a highly rated and well reviewed Mad Max film, especially a reboot with a different lead thirty years after the last installment which... well... sucked. (Yes, the fight in the Thunderdome was awesome, but then the movie just kept going after that!) In fact, Jonny Prophet's one sentence review of Fury Road was that "it makes me hate Thunderdome so fucking much." Oh what a day, what a lovely day!

Spy - I did not originally want to see this movie. It didn't seem like something I would like. However, Spy had great reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and it was a slow movie week so, lo and behold, I found myself watching Melissa McCarthy, the world's least likely spy. Truth be told, it wasn't bad. It was a pretty funny movie, had a decent story and a great cast which also included Jude Law, Alison Janney, Rose Byrne, Bobby Cannivale and Jason Statham.

Jason Statham, by the way, stole the show for me. He played this hard ass CIA operative that would boast about having done ridiculous and impossible feats such as reattaching his own arm. Of course he was more talk than anything else, but he worked well opposite McCarthy.

It's funny, this is the first movie starring Melissa McCarthy I have seen. I wasn't necessarily opposed to seeing her movies (except Tammy). In fact, I liked her on Gilmore Girls. I find it funny that at an age when most women in Hollywood find it hard to find work, her career is red hot.

So Spy was good, but I wouldn't call it great. It wasn't even the funniest spy movie I have seen this year (that goes to Kingsmen). There are times when it feels a little forced or has a level of contrived cheesiness, usually regarding making a middle aged overweight woman seem like a highly effective bad ass secret agent or how in the end everything works out so well for everyone despite the overwhelming odds against such a thing. That said, it was funny and entertaining, definitely worth the price of admission (matinee as it was).

Jurassic World - The biggest movie of the summer and possibly the year (we'll see what Star Wars has to say about that!) was exactly what I expected. It was a loud, fun, slightly stupid popcorn flick. It was also the best Jurassic Park since the original... though it didn't surpass that one. The magic just wasn't there, the thrill of seeing an island of dinosaurs... twenty years later it seems like old hat. I think the filmmakers knew that and implied such in the film, making a similar statement about patrons no longer being wowed by regular dinosaurs. Thus was the motivation for the creation of the plot device known as Indominus Rex.

Make no mistake, Jurassic World is a science fiction monster movie not unlike the original Alien, Predator or even some kaiju movie like Cloverfield or Godzilla. The film is spent trying to stop the Indominus Rex from slaughtering everyone and everything. Yes, the other Jurassic films had their share of monster movie moments, but in Jurassic World the other dinosaurs were not really threats (except the flying ones, which aren't technically dinosaurs, but I digress).

I have to question why they would even make the Indominus Rex. It's like in the movie Deep Blue Sea when they made the brain capacity of sharks bigger and where shocked when they became smarter and more efficient at killing. Scientists for Jurassic World decided it would be a good idea to combine the genes of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Velociraptor, a whole bunch of other dinosaurs as well as cuttlefish and some sort of tree frog. The end result is a huge intelligent carnivorous dinosaur with horns, functional arms with opposable thumbs, massive claws, the ability to camouflage itself and control it's body temperature. Yeah, nothing bad could possibly happen there.

I also have to question how Jurassic World would have even been funded. Surely everyone had found out about the massacre that occurred right before the original Jurassic Park was set to open. If not, I'm pretty damn sure they heard about a fucking Tyrannosaurus Rex wreaking havoc in San Francisco. I guess you could argue that "when there's money to be made..." of course they would find funding. The question then comes down to the tourists... which is more dominant, the desire to see an actual living dinosaur or the desire not to be eaten by an actual living dinosaur. Strangely, up until the scientists decided to play God, it seemed like Jurassic World actually did have decent control over the animals.

The special effects were good. I heard some grumblings about dinosaurs looking less real than in the original film... they didn't seem that fake looking to me. I really liked the design of the park itself, the interactive displays and rolling ball cars... it seemed appropriately high-tech and made it more plausible that they could actually raise and contain dinosaurs rather than in the original where all they had were fences.

So before I close this review, I want to point out a few tidbits from Jurassic World. Chris Pratt is now an official A-lister super star in Hollywood. Vincent D'Onofrio is absolutely wasted in this movie, but it's still fun seeing him. Finally, the end battle of the Indominus Rex versus the Tyrannosaurus and the Velociraptor was total fan service, like a dinosaur equivalent of The Avengers. Still, dinosaurs running amok make for big, loud, fun movies.

Inside Out - On Rotten Tomatoes I read on of their review snippets that said: "Welcome back Pixar. You've been sorely missed." Truer words were never spoken. To me, Pixar was always a cut above the rest, setting a bar that few could match and seemingly nobody could surpass. I had a feeling that Inside Out was going to be a return to form for Pixar, which as of late had strayed from their usual level of excellence with what I would consider 'Dreamworks level' movies like Brave and Monsters University... in other words decent but nothing special.

Before seeing Inside Out, the premise excited me. Past Pixar films had been able to make amazing stories from eccentric ideas, such as a virtually dialogue free movie about two small robots that fall in love or an elderly widower rediscovering his love of life and adventure after turning his house into makeshift air balloon. The idea of Inside Out exploring the beings representing our emotions that live in our heads seemed right up Pixar's alley.

Inside Out did not disappoint. It was funny, imaginative, touching (yes it made me cry and yes, I have already established before that I'm a sissy... moving on) and like the best Pixar films, it delved into ideas far deeper than what is on the surface. In this case, the film explores what it means to grow up and, much to TivoGirl's revelation, what use there is for sadness. I only hope that The Good Dinosaur is as good as Inside Out... because I don't have a lot of confidence in Finding Dory. 

I should have Part 2 of this up soon. Until then, Stay Strange.

Hey! We Saw a Movie - Avengers: Age of Ultron

 Since I figure most people who were going to see Age of Ultron probably have by now... certainly the geek population at least, I won't really go into a plot summary. I'm also not going to worry about spoilers... so if you haven't seen the movie yet, don't read on or you will be BIG TIME SPOILED!

Bullet-point Observations

- Avengers: Age of Ultron was not as bad as I was worried it could have been. I probably had my expectations low enough and maybe Joss Whedon is talented enough as a writer and director to do an admirable job juggling an overstuffed script and movie... something most other writers would fail at. Compared to other superhero films that were too full of characters and plot points, like X-men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Spider-man 3 and Amazing Spider-man 2, Avengers: Age of Ultron does a better job than any of them. That said, there was still too much going on and too many characters crammed into the film.

- I don't blame Joss Whedon for how overstuffed the film was. Marvel was clearly trying to make a bunch of new Avengers to take some of the weight off of their bigger stars whose contracts are running out soon as well as advance the plot for the Infinity War movies. Unfortunately, that did confirm what I was worried about in that Age of Ultron was more of a stepping stone at times than it's own entity. I will give Whedon some credit in that he tried to give a good chunk of screen time to each character, which could not have been easy.

- Note to Marvel Films: STOP KILLING OFF YOUR VILLAINS! Iron Monger, Whiplash, Red Skull (as far as we know), whoever the hell Guy Pearce was supposed to be, Malekith, Kurse, Ronan the Accuser, Baron Strucker and Ultron! You know, some of these guys could be useful in the future... and then there's that whole adage about superheroes not killing (though to be fair only four of those deaths were inflicted by good guys... maybe Iron Monger too... that's debatable.)

Why the hell was Baron Strucker even in the film? He did nothing and brought nothing to the table. The end of Captain America: Winter Soldier made him seem like big shit and he did nothing at all... then was killed off-screen. I mean, Baron Strucker was never a top-tier villain, but he was a solid second tier at times. Hell, the guy in charge of Hydra has to be of some worth, right?

- Why didn't Ultron use the vibranium to make himself an updated body. Yes, I know that Vision had a hybrid of the Korean scientist's artificial flesh and vibranium, but that seemed more like a special experimental project he was doing. Why didn't he right away make an updated form with a steel and vibranium alloy to ensure his success should anything go wrong. That's the thing here, Ultron is supposed to be Marvel's analog to "the singularity" where artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence and more or less takes over the world. Ultron should have had multiple plans in place with contingencies in place. Yes, I know the Avengers needed to win in the end, but don't try to make a realistic interpretation of AI run amok and skimp on the reality of it.

- Ultron wasn't quite right. I know Ultron from the comics, he is a cold, relentless machine bent on killing human life. This Ultron was a smooth talking, suave, gentlemanly villain... a witty manipulator. I get that part of his personality was based on Tony Stark's and therefore he would be a suave smart-ass, but he seemed less like Ultron and more like a robotic Lex Luthor!

- I want to be the first to predict it: Ultron will turn out to be a better Lex Luthor than Jesse Eisenberg!

- Could Ultron's plan have been anymore outlandish, random and convoluted? He wants to bring about peace by destroying mankind... sort of. He wants to cause a cataclysm that will wipe out most of humankind and force evolution... except that's not how it works. Evidence suggests that the dinosaurs were not wiped out immediately by the KT impact, but gradually over a few thousand years. If Ultron's logic was that peace can be attained by machines that are programmed to live harmoniously, I could buy that, but his plan was about forcing evolution... which would never bring about peace. Ask the Cro-Magnons who were most likely killed off by the Neanderthals, who were most likely killed off by Homo Sapiens. Strangely, Ultron's goal was more in line with something Apocalypse might do in creating a condition where only the strongest can survive.

- And in the middle of all that, Ultron had some weird fixation on making a robotic fleshed upgrade to himself that eventually became Vision... that whole thing felt forced into the script for the sole purpose of creating Vision and not a natural plotline. Many things felt forced in Age of Ultron.

- BIG TIME SPOILER - I am still a little surprised that they killed Quicksilver. I know why he was killed... Joss Whedon loves consequences for characters. I once saw a Q & A with him where he said (*and I'm paraphrasing because this was about ten years ago*) "In war, people die, that's what happens. It gives gravity to the situation. It can't just be clones versus robots." Regardless, Quicksilver was a major Avenger character that now, barring some unforeseen resurrection by ways of his magic sister or a certain gem covered glove, we will never have the luxury of watching develop.

- That being said, if one had to die, Scarlet Witch was always the bigger Avenger character anyway. Pietro wasn't always the best team player and he often would run off (pun possibly intended) to do other wacky things like join X-Factor or The Knights of Wundagore. Besides, we need the awkwardness of Scarlet Witch and Vision hooking up.

- In speaking of awkward, I guess this settles the debate about whether the movie versions of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch's will have the "extremely close" relationship from Ultimates.

- So in the debate of which Quicksilver was better, I think it goes to Evan Peters from Days of Future Past. His was fun and more memorable with arguably the best sequence in the film. Aaron Johnson's was probably truer to the Pietro Maximoff of the comics, a brooding cocky prick that grows on you, but having to share time in a massive ensemble film (that did not have the luxury of half the cast set decades into the future to make the film seem less crowded) and given that he died without being little more than a fun side character, the Quicksilver of Age of Ultron just wasn't as good. Plus, there was that fake accent.

- If Ultron is a super smart AI computer, then he would have had to know that an impact of the level that he was creating (with the chunk of Sokovia acting as a makeshift meteorite with a vibranium core) would have created a massibe electro-magnetic pulse that would have fried every version of himself in the vicinity. He would have certainly had to have had a back-up of himself somewhere else to ensure his survival... which is exactly what the comic book version does... which is why he is pretty much impossible to kill. Meaning... Ultron could probably return in a future film... though I doubt he will. There are too many villains and storylines and not that many movies for them to appear.

- I'm hoping the next Avengers films (Infinity War parts 1 & 2) will not follow this same formula of a single big villain with a generic army that threatens the Earth. In that way, Avengers 2 felt a lot like the first one... just replace aliens with robots. I would have preferred a villain team like The Masters of Evil. That way, instead of bland generic minions that we all know pose no threat to our heroes, the Avengers can face named villains with unique powers.

- I was really disappointed with the mid-credits scene. Once again we see Thanos and he has a gem-less gauntlet. Whoopee. And where the hell was my shwarma scene? I sat through the entire end credits for NOTHING! Captain America: Winter Soldier had a shwarma scene... so did Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World and Guardians of the Galaxy! In fact, most of the Marvel films have had shwarma scenes. What the hell Avengers 2?!?!

Final Thoughts: In the end, Avengers: Age of Ultron was entertaining enough to watch, but isn't anything near as special as the hype would have you believe. I'll put it this way... Avengers was something special. It was a culmination of several movies with big actors in one big super superhero movie that told it's own self-contained story with only subtle hints toward future films. Avengers: Age of Ultron was just a popcorn flick.

Toaster's Ramblings - Avengers: Age of Anxiety!

We are now less than 2 months from what is arguably the second most anticipated film of the year (some might debate that with Star Wars Episode 7). I am excited of course. I am a total geek, have seen every Marvel movie is theaters to date (note that by this I mean Marvel Studios, I skipped Elektra because it looked terrible). So there is that anxious 'waiting for Christmas' type of feeling waiting for May 1st.

That said, I am worried about Age of Ultron. I touched upon this briefly a couple of months ago, but I thought I would go into it a bit more. I am afraid there will be too much going on and too little time to do it in. Plus it seems to build into the "phase 3" of the Marvel movie-verse master plan. That doesn't sound too bad right there, but when you expand the details, the task seems pretty daunting.

First, you have a ton of new characters to introduce. So far it seems we have Baron Strucker, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Ulysses Klaw (the character Andy Serkis is rumored to be playing), Vision, some random mystery characters from the trailers (the disrobing woman in the caand of course Ultron. Now not every character here needs much of a time investment. I figure Klaw will be a brief cameo. Strucker will likely get the Batroc treatment from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, as in he's a big deal for the first fifteen minutes of the film. However, the rest need some real time to explain and develop. Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Vision will probably all become prominent Avengers (based on the comics). Vision will need an entire origin story along with Ultron!

Second, let's get into Ultron for a bit. Ultron is completely new to the film universe. In the first Avengers movie, Loki already had been introduced in Thor and established as a bad guy. This allowed less time to be spent on explaining him and more on the formation of the Avengers team. This luxury is not afforded to Ultron. We not only have to establish who he is but where he comes from and why he's a threat worthy of an entire team on heroes. Also, consider this... in the first Avengers movie, Joss Whedon really nailed the Loki character. It established him as a true super villain, something that Marvel films had been and continue to lack. In order for Ultron not to seem like a flash in the pan baddie (like Whiplash, Red Skull, Malekith or Ronan), we need some real time invested into him, with major scenes and huge moments that make him memorable.

Third, you still have six established Avengers team to spend time with. Obviously, Iron Man will get his spotlight in the overall story, but Captain America and Thor have to have their screen time. Plus, you still have Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, who received the weakest amount of screen time in the first Avengers and... aside from a cameo in the first Thor movie, has never been in any other film. So, not only do you have the six established heroes slugging it out for screen time, but from the trailer we also see Iron Patriot, Agent Hill and Nick Fury all show up at some point. So that's at least nine established characters returning for the sequel and six new ones!

Can you see what makes me a little weary? Put it this way, both Spider-man 3 and the Amazing Spider-man 2 were criticized with being too cluttered with old and new characters that sacrificed the overall story. Spider-man 3 only had three new characters (Sandman, Venom and Gwen Stacy) to add to the established Spider-man, Mary Jane Watson and Harry Osborn (not including cameos from Aunt May and J Jonah Jameson). Excluding cameos, Amazing Spider-man 2 had to add Electro, Rhino, Norman Osborn and Green Goblin to the story that already had Spider-man, Gwen Stacy, Peter's dad and Aunt May.

Fourth, Age of Ultron seems to be trying very hard to create new movie franchises during it's run time. If the rumors are to be believed, many new characters might be featured as cameos to help try to fill out the Marvel Films universe before Civil War and to promote new franchises like Black Panther, Captain Marvel and Dr. Strange. The fatal flaw of Amazing Spider-man 2 was the fact that Sony was clearly more interested in pushing their Spider-man movie-verse agenda than actually telling a compelling and interesting story. There are ways to insert new characters in a brief manner that will pique the audience's interest. The trick is to use fine brush strokes. You can't be forceful, or else it stops being 'fan service' and just becomes obvious desperation. If Avengers 2 becomes too crowded and jumbled with introducing new characters, cameo or otherwise, it will suffer the same fate as Amazing Spider-man 2.

Fifth, Avengers 2 is clearly a transitional sequel. By this, I mean that the movie is being used to build the next part of the story. Usually, transitional sequels tend to... not be very good. Look at Matrix: Reloaded. Now, quickly look away lest your eyes burn! While the first Matrix film was a stand-alone story, Reloaded was a mess, an obvious cash grab with a plot that I still don't completely understand. Now compare that to Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. 'Empire' was a transitional sequel, but an excellent one that focused on character development and told a compelling story. Yes, it paved the way for Return of the Jedi, but unlike Reloaded, it left it's mark... more memorably that 'Jedi' did to be honest.

The first Avengers was a stand-alone film. It had it's own self-contained story that felt like a true culmination of all of the preceding films into a massive end-all-be-all over-the-top climactic battle. Avengers 2 is clearly building toward Captain America: Civil War, which worryingly has been building more hype as of late than Age of Ultron, a film that hasn't even been released yet!

To be fair, I have a lot of faith in Joss Whedon. Not only does his television biography speak for itself, but he made the first Avengers work on a huge level, making it the first superhero super-film. I hope that he has crafted a good story that gives the proper attention to the veteran Avengers while helping establish Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Vision and Ultron in the process. I hope the any other character cameos are kept reasonable and brief. Based on the trailers, it seems like Age of Ultron has that Empire Strikes Back feel to it... characters forced to face their shortcomings, a splintering of the group and high prices to pay for fighting the 'good fight.' Such themes have made for some of the greatest sequels of all time, such as the previously referenced Episode V, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, The Dark Knight and even Godfather II (though that last one wasn't exactly about fighting for the angels).

Hopefully Age of Ultron will be Joss Whedon's 'The Empire Strikes Back' and not another disappointing ill-conceived cash-grab sequel.