Doctor Strange

Posted on November 3, 2016 at 5:42 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sci-fi violence and action throughout, and an intense crash sequence
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Prolonged fantasy/superhero peril and violence, serious car accident, characters injured and killed, some disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters (Asian male character in the comics portrayed by a white actress)
Date Released to Theaters:	November 4, 2016

If they ever give a Best Supporting Prop Oscar, it should go to Doctor Strange’s Cape of Levitation, the most endearing magical implement/sidekick since Sorceror Mickey’s brooms in “Fantasia.” And if they ever give out a Best Superhero Movie Producer and Sustainer of the MCU, the lifetime achievement version should go to Kevin Feige, who has once again figured out just the right balance between consistency and distinctiveness, between action and wit, and, perhaps the most difficult hurdle, between magic and superpowers. “Doctor Strange” has a superb cast, a witty script, and some knockout special effects.

Doctor (not Dr.) Strange is a brilliant neurosurgeon. He is also arrogant and obsessed with work with a biting, acerbic wit. If this sounds a bit Tony Stark-ish, you’re on the right track.

He is severely injured in a car accident. (Distracted driving, kids, wait to send that text or review that CAT scan image until you have safely parked the car.) His hands are shattered, with nerve damage and tremors, which will end his career as a surgeon. The man who prided himself on being able to diagnose and cure the most hopeless cases cannot find a way to heal himself.

And then the man of rationality and science, with nothing more to lose, has to try something new. He hears of a man who found a miraculous cure in Nepal, so, despite his skepticism about “alternative” medicine, he goes there only to find that what is involved is an entirely “alternative” way of thinking about the world, the universe, and, perhaps most difficult, himself.

His sensei is known as The Ancient One (the white female Tilda Swinton as a character portrayed as an Asian male in the comics), an ageless and endlessly wise and powerful teacher who shows Strange that the reality he believes he understands and can control is one of many. The Avengers protect the material world from threats, but The Ancient One and her accolytes protect us from magical threats. Is it indelicate to point out that the most severe threats are all coming from former students, a la Darth Vader and Kylo Ren, and Professor X’s former students, so maybe the best course is for The Ancient One to shut down the school entirely? And follow her own advice that if you silence your ego your power will rise?

Oh, who cares. This is when we start to get the very cool special effects, with “Inception”-style planes folding over each other and M.C. Escher-style chases. And you gotta love a neuro-surgeon turned wizard who throws down references to Bob Seger and Beyoncé and, in the big, big moment, finds a solution that is as clever as it is magical.

NOTE: Stay through the credits for TWO extra scenes, one at the very end.

Parents should know that this film includes intense fantasy and superhero action, peril, and violence, car accident, disturbing and graphic images, characters injured and killed, and brief strong language.

Family discussion: Why does Strange insist on being called “Doctor?” Why does The Ancient One first turn him down?

If you like this, try: the Steve Ditko-era comics, “Inception,” Cumberbatch’s “Sherlock” series, and the “Avengers” films

Suicide Squad

Posted on August 3, 2016 at 12:00 pm

I always say that the success of a superhero movies depends on the bad guy. So, shouldn’t a movie that is all bad guys be really great? That’s the idea behind “Suicide Squad,” a sort of “Avengers” (all-star hotshots who don’t play well with others have to work together as a team to save the world) crossed with “The Dirty Dozen.” And it kind of works. On the one hand, it is an August movie, the cinematic equivalent of the shelf in the back of the grocery story with the dented cans, irregulars, and day-old bread. On the other hand, it approaches a nicely messy, authentically amateurish, form equals content vibe that suits the subject matter. If these guys made their own movie, they might overlook some of the fine points, too.

Our scrappy little band of anti-heroes live in one of those “lock them up, throw away the key, throw away the Constitution, and any record of their existence while you’re at it” sort of prisons. Will Smith plays Deadshot, an assassin with a young daughter he loves. Margot Robbie is Harley Quinn, a psychiatrist turned psychopath with the demeanor of a school girl, locked in a romantic tangle with the Joker (Jared Leto) so twisted it makes Sid and Nancy look like Dick and Jane. Somewhere behind full-face tattoos, Jay Hernandez is Diablo, a gang-banger with the power of fire. Somewhere inside a reptilian rubber suit (maybe it is CGI, but it looks like rubber) is Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Killer Croc, and I never quite figured out what he could do besides fight and swim. Jai Courtney plays the Aussie thief Boomerang. Neither one of them is intelligible.

They get a chance to escape the abuses and isolation of prison life when national security expert Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) says that their special skills make them the world’s only hope against the terrorism threat that entities with supernatural powers will pose. “The world changed when Superman flew across the sky. It changed again when he didn’t.” (Cut to super-coffin)

Waller is certain she can control them. Whether she can or not, there is no alternative. And so they are assigned to Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), who informs the motley crew that each of them has an explosive injected into his/her neck, and that he will not hesitate to blow their heads off if they disobey or even if they vex him. “I’m known to be vexing,” Harley Quinn pipes up helpfully, well aware that saying so she proves her point. And then it’s off to the big confrontation with some moments for (1) some bad behavior, (2) some exchanges of confidence and bonding to let us see that these guys may be bad but they have their good points and while they may have made some poor choices, they have feelings, too, (3) a few reminders that these are the bad guys, (4) some setbacks and death of a tangential character to show us how serious this is, and (5) weaknesses becoming strengths, strengths becoming weaknesses, a chance to see that some of the good guys aren’t so good and some of the bad guys aren’t so bad (and deaths are not necessarily deaths).

Here is what the movie gets right: B**** please. Margot Robbie is a huge movie star who owns this film and every moment she is on screen in “Suicide Squad” you get your money’s worth and then some. Anything else that works in the film is an extra cherry on the sundae. #imwithharley so give HQ her own movie PDQ.

Smith and Kinnaman are also excellent. Most of the best of the rest was in the trailer including one exchange which inexplicably was cut from the film. In fact, given the many evident recuts and reshoots, Warner Brothers should just have turned the footage over to whoever made the trailer and let them control the final print. The soundtrack veers into Spotify playlist mode but there are some good choices.

Here is what it gets wrong: Writer/director David Ayer, whose speciality has been military and law enforcement stories, does not understand the right tone for a comic book movie. Compare Marvel/Disney, which managed to create distinctive and right-on-the-money tones for Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Deadpool and yet make us believe they could exist in the same universe, and made that work in the “Avengers” movies without shortchanging anyone. Second, note the reference to the evidence of reworking above. Third, note the very first thing I said. Comic book movies are all about the villain. In this case, with villains as the the good guys, they really need someone specially evil for us to root against. The villains in this film are terrible in every category, starting with the special effects, which should be primo, right, Warner Brothers? But most importantly, a movie that spends too much time introducing us to the Z-team’s backstories never provides us with the basics about the powers and threat of the bad guys so we have no way of knowing what we are hoping for (other than obliteration) from the final battle. Wait, so this and that didn’t work but this and that do? Really? And what happened to those SEALS?

It is good to see more than one female character and this film has four strong and powerful women of different races. But the gender politics of the film are less than one might wish. Both female Suicide Squad members are there because of the men they love, and the female villain is alternately weak around the man she loves and strong but not as strong as her brother. Viola Davis, as always, is sublime as a woman who may be only human but is in every way a match for anyone, superpowered or politically powered.

It’s better than “Batman vs. Superman” and “The Fantastic Four,” but it falls frustratingly short of what it could have and should have been.

NOTE: Stay through the credits for an extra scene, but you don’t have to stay after that.

Parents should know that this film includes extended sci-fi/fantasy violence with some graphic and disturbing images, torture, abuse, many characters injured and killed, skimpy costumes, sexual references, some strong language

Family discussion: Who was the worst villain in the movie? Who caused the most harm? What could “bad guys” do that the “good guys” could not?

If you like this, try: “The Avengers” and “The Dirty Dozen”

X-Men: Apocalypse

Posted on May 24, 2016 at 5:18 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, action and destruction, brief strong language and some suggestive images
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended comic book/action peril and violence, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	A metaphorical theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	May 27, 2016
Date Released to DVD:	October 3, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:	B01G9AXWH2

We love superheroes, but most of the time what makes a superhero movie work is the supervillain. Just as the Avengers on the other side of the Marvel Universe move into X-Men territory by having the supes fight each other, with a villain in “Civil War” who is a mere human, with the most human of motives and goals rather than Loki’s “let’s blow up the universe and roast marshmallows on the flames” sort of threat, the X-Men, whose primary plotlines rest on the shifting loyalties of its mutant members, switches direction toward a more Loki-esque bad guy.

That would be the first mutant of all, going all the way back to ancient Egypt, where he was a god. He is resurrected, he is nearly omnipotent, and he is played by one of the most exciting actors in movies, Oscar Isaac. But there are three big problems with Apocalypse, and that means there are three big problems with the movie.

First, we never really understand that “nearly” part about his powers, and therefore we cannot judge the threat he poses in any given confrontation. Second, Isaac is a superb actor with deeply expressive eyes and voice. Yet he is put into a mask that conceals his eyes and given a double-tracked distortion of his voice. The big, hulking outfit also impairs the precise, distinctive physicality he has brought to roles as different as “Star Wars” ace Po Dameron, the title folk musician of “Inside Llewyn Davis,” and billionaire Nathan Bateman (“Ex Machina”). The power of his presence as a performer is all but muted just when we need a character to be terrifying.

Plus, we’ve seen ancient Egyptian super villains before. After the many versions of “The Mummy,” we need something more than he’s from the time of the pyramids plus chanting. But there is a very cool opening sequence that brings us through history to 1983, the pre-digital era when overhead projectors in classrooms represented cutting-edge technology. And Magneto seems to have found peace, in a small town, with a factory job, and a loving wife and daughter.

Of course, that can’t last. And soon he has experienced yet another devastating loss, and returns to his bad, furious, destructive self — until someone who is even more furious and destructive comes along.

When I say that this episode is a “Muppet Babies” take on the X-Men, I do not necessarily mean that in a bad way. Origin stories are intriguing, and the X-Men have always had an adolescent quality, with the onset of their mutant powers coming with puberty and acting as a heightened metaphor to examine the sense of uncertainty, anxiety, and isolation that comes with the physical and emotional changes that separate teenagers from their childhood. It is intriguing to see Scott (Tye Sheridan) rubbing his red eyes as he becomes Cyclops. But Sophie Turner does not have the screen presence of Famke Janssen as the young Jean Grey, in part because her telepathic gift is not as cinematically dynamic.

Quicksilver (Evan Peters) once again provides the high point, not just in a darker showpiece callback to the sensational Pentagon kitchen scene in the last film but in the film’s brief but most emotionally authentic scene, involving his relationship to Magneto. In a movie about mutants with superpowers, the best moment is human.

Parents should know that this film includes extended comic book-style action violence, with characters injured and killed and some disturbing images, skimpy costumes, and some strong language.

Family discussion: What is the biggest challenge in getting the X-Men to work together? Which powers would you like to have?

If you like this try: the other X-Men movies, especially “Days of Future Past”

The Russo Brothers Tell Us What to Know Before Seeing “Captain America: Civil War”

Posted on May 5, 2016 at 3:20 pm

Captain America: Civil War

Posted on May 4, 2016 at 8:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for extended sequences of violence, action and mayhem
Profanity:	Brief strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended superhero/action violence with chases, crashes, and explosions, characters injured and killed.
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	May 6, 2016
Date Released to DVD:	September 13, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:	B01D9EUNB4

The most important element of any superhero movie is the villain. He (or she) has to pose a credible threat to humanity and challenge particular strengths and vulnerabilities of someone with extraordinary powers. In “Captain America: Winter Soldier” there was a paranoiac Pogo-esque “we have met the enemy and he is us” theme that is expanded in “Civil War.” It goes to the heart of the Avengers themselves as a critical issues divides them so they are fighting each other.

The issue is not one we usually see in superhero movies or indeed action movies in any category: consequences. Part of the fun of action movies is seeing all of the chases, fights, and explosions, without having to worry about the cleanup or what the military euphemistically calls “collateral damage.” But this story has more impact because it acknowledges and engages with the damage that superheroes do while they are preventing worse damage. It falls somewhere between “The Incredibles” and “Eye in the Sky.”

The true meaning of collateral damage is presented early on in “Civil War.” Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) has just announced that he will fund all of the student research projects at MIT when he is confronted by a mother (a small masterpiece of devastation and fury from the extraordinary Alfre Woodard). Her son was on a humanitarian mission when he was killed in the Sokovia crash of an entire city at the end of Avengers: the Age of Ultron. For her, it doesn’t matter that the entire world was saved in theory by a supervillain who is not around when her son was killed in reality by a man who is. “You think you fight for us,” she says. “You fight for yourself.”

Stark is devastated. “We’re no better than the bad guys.” The man we first saw demonstrating his company’s military weapons as though he was a rock star performing an arena show and who had no problem defending the money he made in munitions finally has to reckon with the truth he barely realized he had been moving closer to. And that is why, after the typical superhero opening action sequence we get a non-typical reaction. With SHIELD collapsed following “Winter Soldier,” the Avengers are operating on their own, without any oversight. A coalition of 117 nations insist that they agree to be subject to a UN commission (the “or what” is not ever spelled out because, what would it be?).

One of the film’s most intriguing developments is that not only do the Avengers line up on opposite sides but they don’t take the positions we might expect. Stark’s post-confrontation grapple with guilt has the most anarchistic of superheroes suddenly looking for the comfort of some rules. And the shock of SHIELD’s corruption has the most Boy Scout-ish of all superheroes, Captain America (Chris Evans) suddenly resistant to putting himself under anyone’s control. Some of the avengers pick a side on principle; some are more instrumental or practical. The Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), who has her own history of unspeakable crimes, says, “Staying together is more important than how we stay together.”

Directors Anthony and Joe Russo deftly manage an enormous cast of characters. It’s easier to list those who do not appear in this film: Pepper Potts, Thor, Nick Fury, and the Hulk. Pretty much everyone else is here, and superbly added to the mix we have Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, who has some surprises in store, Black Panther (a lithe, powerful, and compelling Chadwick Boseman), avenging the death of his father, and the brand-new Spidey (Tom Holland, with Marisa Tomei as Aunt May). Bucky/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) is here, too, and his storyline nicely mirrors the larger themes. He has been responsible for terrible crimes and abuses and some can never forgive him. But Captain America knows something about military operations. “We try to save as many people as we can,” he says. “Sometimes doesn’t mean everybody.” He knows how a human can become a weapon, and he is determined to get his friend back. Remember, this is not the Justice League. They are Avengers, and another character’s determination to get vengeance provides one of the movie’s most signficiant twists.

I don’t want to give away too much, so I’ll just say the action is everything you’d hope, with superhero-on-superhero collisions beyond the dreams of fanboy heaven. Keep an eye on the motorcycle. And the helicopter. And Ant-Man. And some cool special effects with Stark’s augmented flashback/therapy. And stay through the credits, of course.

Parents should know that this film includes extended sci-fi/comic book action violence with chases, crashes, and explosions, characters injured and killed, and brief strong language.

Family discussion: What are the best arguments for Ironman’s position on the accords? For Cap’s? How is this Spider-Man different from other portrayals of the character?

If you like this, try: “The Avengers” and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”