Posted on April 18, 2015 at 3:25 pm
Okay, I admit I was skeptical. I was thinking along the lines of Teeny Little Super Guy from Sesame Street. But I love Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, and Corey Stoll and this trailer has me sold.
Posted on April 10, 2015 at 9:02 am
Posted on October 28, 2014 at 6:46 pm
Wow, Marvel really knows how to make an announcement. Get out your calendars:
May 6, 2016: Captain America: Civil War
Nov. 4, 2016: Doctor Strange
May 5, 2017: Guardians of the Galaxy 2
July 28, 2017: Thor: Ragnarok
Nov. 3, 2017: Black Panther
May 4, 2018: Avengers: Infinity War – Part I
July 6, 2018: Captain Marvel
Nov. 2, 2018: Inhumans
May 3, 2019: Avengers: Infinity War – Part II
And here’s what makes it extra cool. Captain Marvel will be the first in the series about a female superhero and Black Panther will be the first starring a person of color. I was really happy to hear that Chadwick Boseman, who has previously played Jackie Robinson (“42”) and James Brown (“Get on Up”) has been cast as the Black Panther. For more details about these characters and the gleanings from the titles by the fanboys and fangirls, check out #MarvelEvent tweets.
Posted on August 7, 2014 at 5:59 pm
Dear Michael Bay,
Just because you were able to turn one Saturday cartoon series for children into a PG-13 blockbuster, based on nostalgia on the part of its now-teen and 20-something audience and some world class special effects, does not mean that you can do the same with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This is less “Transformer” and more “Yogi Bear” or “Scooby-Doo.” In other words, step away from “Shirt Tales” and “The Wuzzles.” Please, just stop. Sincerely, The Movie Mom
Before it wore or, or, more accurately, wore down its welcome, the original “Transformers” was a refreshing surprise that kept the spirit of the original series. But even as a cartoon show, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were meta and self-referential and cutesy. I mean, just look at the concept: they’re turtles. And ninjas. And teenagers. You can blow them up into CGI behemoths, but they still can’t make a movie work, even by bringing back the original star of the first “Transformers” movie, Megan Fox.
Fox plays April O’Neil, a would-be investigative reporter relegated by her condescending colleagues to cutesy stories like exercising on mini-trampolines in Times Square. She would much rather be reporting on a powerful and merciless gang of criminals known as the Foot Clan. No one believes her when she says she saw a super-strong vigilante in the shadows, fighting the Foot Clan, including her editor (a “what is she doing in this movie?” Whoopi Goldberg). It turns out she has a connection to this mysterious crime-fighter. Her father was a scientist who died in a tragic lab accident as he was working on a special strength-giving serum by injecting it into four young turtles. The night the lab burned down, April rescued the turtles and a rat by letting them escape into the sewer.
A handy martial arts manual found in the sewer gives the rat, known as Splinter (voice of “Monk’s” Tony Shaloub) the chance to train the young turtles, and the effects of the injections make them grow up to be large, muscular, and able to stand upright. Each of the four has a different color mask and a Smurf-like individual personality quirk. But they all love pizza.
The action scenes are well-staged, especially a snowy chase scene, though I have no idea where the snow came from as we only see snow outside the city. But the script is lame and the violence is too intense for anyone old enough to be interested. A slumming William Fitchner plays an industrialist who is not as philanthropic as he seems. And the scenes with an even-more slumming Will Arnett (what happened to his career?), whose two functions are to drive April around and be generally skeezy about his interest in her, are just painful. April strives to be taken seriously as a journalist. Fox, sadly, fails to be taken seriously as an actress (which she really is — see “This is 40”).
And the title characters are under-used as well. For a movie about the TMNTs, they just don’t have enough to do beyond loving pizza and kicking bad guys. Whatever charm existed in the original cartoons is trampled by this over-blown bore.
Parents should know that this film includes cartoon-style action, peril, and violence, sad off-screen death of a parent, some brief disturbing images, some crude humor and a brief potty joke.
Family discussion: Why didn’t anyone take April seriously? Which turtle is your favorite and why?
If you like this, try: the TMNT cartoon series and the earlier films
Posted on July 31, 2014 at 5:59 pm
A-| Lowest Recommended Age: | Middle School |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for some language |
| Profanity: | Some strong and crude language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Drinking |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Extended comic book/action-style peril and violence with weapons and fights, many characters injured and killed, brief disturbing images |
| Diversity Issues: | Diverse characters |
| Date Released to Theaters: | August 1, 2014 |
| Date Released to DVD: | December 8, 2014 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B00N1JQ452 |
This is the most purely entertaining film of the year, a joyous space romp that all but explodes off the screen with lots of action and even more charm.
Our recent superheros have been complex, often anguished, even downright tortured. It has been a while since we’ve had a charming rogue with a bad attitude but a hero’s heart. Enter Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), who keeps trying to get people to call him Star Lord and who carries with him on his interplanetary space travels the “awesome mixtape” he was listening to as a young boy on Earth back in the 1980’s, when his mother died and a spaceship came to suck him up from the ground and take him far, far away. One of the purest pleasures of the film is the soundtrack of 70’s gems like “Ooh Child,” “Come and Get Your Love,” and “Hooked on a Feeling” (the ooga-chacka Blue Swede version) and some others too delicious to give away, wittily juxtaposed with spaceships and aliens.
In a scene that pays homage to the classic opening of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and with a personality that owes a lot to Harrison Ford’s irresistible space rogue Han Solo, Quill enters a chamber and steals a precious orb from a pedestal, only to be stopped by Korath (Djimon Hounsou) and some other scary-looking guys with sci-fi gun-looking things. A lot of people want the orb and are willing to take extreme measures. Evil wants-to-control-the-galaxy guy Ronan (Lee Pace) sends the beautiful but deadly green assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana, who seems to specialize in colorful space characters) to get it. Also interested are superthief Rocket Racoon, a genetically modified procyonid (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and his sidekick Groot, an enormous, self re-generating talking tree (voice of Vin Diesel). Groot can only say one existential sentence, but it is remarkably expressive. Then there’s Drax (Dave Bautista), who just wants to destroy pretty much everyone, but especially Ronan, who killed his family. He is completely literal, with no capacity to process metaphor (except when the script calls for him not to be, but no need to get overly focused on consistency here).
This motley crew ends up in prison together, where they form a bond through an elaborate escape plan and a lot of quippy dialogue. The low-key, unpretentious “Bad News Bears”/”Dirty Dozen” vibe is refreshing after so much sincerity and angst in the superhero genre. It hits the sweet spot, irreverent without being snarky. And because it is set away from earth we are spared the usual scenes of destroying iconic skylines and monuments. Instead we get a range of richly imagined exotic settings and wild characters, though Lee Pace is under too much make-up and is stuck with a one-note character as Ronan. It is a shame that the bad guy is not as delightfully off-kilter as the good guys, but with five of them, there is plenty to keep us entertained. I don’t want to get too picky (see consistency note above), but the orb’s purpose and powers don’t seem to be thought through too well, either. I don’t ask for much from a McGuffin, just that it (1) propel the storyline and (2) not interfere with the storyline. This one doesn’t quite meet #2.
But deliciously entertaining it still is, with a long-overdue star-making role for Pratt, who has been the best thing in too many second-tier movies and outstanding but under-noticed in top-level films like “Moneyball” and “Zero Dark Thirty.” Director James Gunn, who also co-scripted with first-timer Nicole Perlman, has made the summer popcorn movie of 2014, tremendous fun, and with more heart that we have any reason to expect. Can’t wait for the just-announced part 2.
Parents should know that this film has extended (and quite cool) science fiction/comic book/action-style peril, violence, and action with fighting and various weapons, some characters injured and killed, some disturbing images, some sexual references, and some strong language (two f-words).
Family discussion: What makes this group especially suitable for taking on Ronan? How does this movie differ from other superhero/comic book films?
If you like this, try: “Men in Black” and “The Avengers”
