Avengers: Age of Ultron

The Avengers assemble....again.

After the events of the first Avengers film and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Age of Ultron finds the titular heroes in Europe in an attempt to retrieve Loki's scepter. Though successful in their mission, The Avengers come across Pietro and Wanda Maximoff (Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen) who prove to be successful antagonists to the team.

Once back on their home soil, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) discover within the scepter lies artificial intelligence. Keeping this secret from the rest of the team, Tony and Bruce try to complete the Ultron defense program. Unforeseen side effects from this tampering, though, create Ultron (James Spader) who becomes fully aware and sets about on a path to destroy all humans with the help of Pietro and Wanda.

Coupled with Ultron's plan of total destruction, The Avengers begin to fracture at the lack of trust and communication. After an attempt to stop Ultron in Africa fails, the team sets about on a second-act downward spiral at Clint Barton's (Jeremy Renner) house to try and get the team back together and reformulate a plan to stop Ultron.Tony, Bruce and Clint along with Thor, (Chris Hemsworth) Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) re-evaluate with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and reassemble The Avengers.

This film tries to go darker than the first, yet comes across jumbled and in need of another pass by the editors. While trying to couple The Avengers along with Pietro and Wanda along with Ultron, some characters get lost in the shuffle while others move to the forefront. This is both good and bad.

On the good side, Natasha sees a relationship begin to form with Bruce. It was nice to see the one female hero be strong and the only person that has a chance to calm Bruce when the Hulk is released (not meant to be perverted in any way). Though the relationship seems to begin out of nowhere, and the time needed to make their growing bond not there, it was nice to see an attempt be made for the human characters.

Along with that, Clint Barton actually gets the most humanistic role in the film. Instead of being a supporting player to the marquee names of The Avengers, we get to see Clint's personal life; including having a family. Even though, like listed above, not enough time is delegated to fully immersing the audience into Clint's life, the seeds have been laid if the filmmakers wanted to showcase Clint's personal life and history. Clint also gets the best speech in the film; near the end, Clint is trying to instill confidence into a character and Jeremy Renner's delivery along with the well-written speech create a satisfying moment.

On the other end of the spectrum, Thor ends up taking a backseat in the film. After the events in Africa, Thor takes off to meet with Dr. Eric Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) about nightmarish visions that Wanda put into Thor's head. This sequence comes off as rushed and feels like it was either written at the last minute or the editor had a fun time chopping the sequence down.

Though it may seem like I am being more negative than positive about the film, that isn't the case. What Avengers: Age of Ultron has is an entertaining mess of a film. The climax is the exact same as the first Avengers film (large scale destruction, heroes fighting multiple CGI enemies, etc.) yet was more entertaining to me. The rest of the film was solid if somewhat scattershot with trying to provide enough screen time for old and new characters along with telling a cohesive story  and trying to appease all audiences. With so much going on in the film, it would be almost impossible to tell a story without it feeling like a jumbled mess.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a jumbled mess, but a solidly entertaining jumbled mess.

6.8/10

Foxcatcher

Director Bennett Miller continues his streak of films based on a true story with Foxcatcher.

Based off the true story, Foxcatcher tells the tale of Olympic Gold Medal winning wrestlers Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo) and his younger brother Mark (Channing Tatum). One day, Mark is contacted by John du Pont (Steve Carrell) about training a group of wrestlers for the 1987 World Wrestling Championship and the 1988 Olympic Games. After living in the shadow of his older brother, Mark decides to take the opportunity in an attempt to separate himself from Dave.

Moving onto John's property and working under the name: Team Foxcatcher, Mark excels at training the wrestlers recruited and beginning to feel the confidence he lacked while training with Dave. John, as coach, begins to feel he is creating something special that can live up to his mother: Jean's, (Vanessa Redgrave) high, yet cold standards.

Having John and Mark on the same property, though, proves troublesome to each other as we see both characters and their insecurities arise. As John and Mark deal with their personal lives, the drive for winning at wrestling begins to suffer. John senses that Mark is not strong enough to handle what he wants and begins a pursuit to coax Dave onto his compound in an attempt to return the wrestling team to John's high standards.

Having seen Bennett Miller's past 2 films: Capote and Moneyball, this film follows in the same tradition I have regarding his past films. Performances are splendid, yet the films are somewhat hollow. This is not a knock on Foxcatcher or films prior, but Bennett Miller seems to really know how to get solid performances out of his actors, yet struggles to find a way to incorporate a solid story with the acting.

Speaking of the acting, the three leads are able to handily bolster the material. With Mark Schultz, Channing Tatum is tasked with anchoring the film as he is the primary focus for the first half of the story. I wasn't entirely sold on his performance as he mainly lacks any empathy and holds the audience at bay while projecting a tough exterior. The tough exterior, though, really doesn't come through as each character, and the audience, can easily see the cracks in Mark's foundation.

The roles that sell the film are Steve Carrell's performance as John and Mark Ruffalo as Dave. Steve Carrell becomes almost unrecognizable under his makeup while playing billionaire John du Pont. The way Carrell plays John, though, is with sadness and empathy. John is not a bad man, thought treated as one by his mother. The script provides no favors as we are only able to scratch John's surface. Thankfully, Carrell steps up to elevate the material. You may not be able to sympathize with John, but you can certainly understand why he is the way he is.

Mark Ruffalo is the true standout of the film as the Mark's older and caring brother, Dave. Even though the role is not showy, Ruffalo is able to project a warmth over the character and never loses focus on what matters most to him: family. Even when Mark and Dave begin to fall out, Dave still has Mark's best interests at hand and is skeptical that John has Mark's best interests at hand also. In true form, Mark Ruffalo can take even the simplest material and make wonders of it.

With three solid performances, Foxcatcher is a few steps above Moneyball and Capote. Now if Bennett Miller were able to find a script to go along with the performances he gets out of each film, he could be a continuous threat come awards season.

7.7/10

Now You See Me

You know what I saw? A waste of talent.

From hackmeister Louis Leterrier (The Transporter, The Incredible Hulk and Clash of the Titans) comes a film that thinks it is so smart that it will talk down to you and tell you that you're stupid and nowhere near as smart as the film you are watching is. If you've seen any film like this, you will be heads and tails much smarter than this drivel.

Honestly, this is my third time trying to write this review after it has been deleted multiple times. I have spent way too much time trying to get this review out than this film deserves. This is my shorter review of the film as I really don't want to have to rewrite this damn thing again.

Magicians, The Four Horsemen: Daniel Atlas, (Jesse Eisenberg) Merritt McKinney, (Woody Harrelson) Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) and Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) are approached by an unseen figure. One year later, they are performing a magic trick in Las Vegas where they rob a bank in France and make it literally rain money on the audience. In the crowd for the trick are The Four Horsemen's benefactor, Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine) and an ex-magician who debunks tricks, Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman).

As robbing a bank is a federal crime, FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes is assigned to the case with Interpol Agent Alma Dray (Melanie Laurent). The audience spends most of the film with these two characters because if we spent the bulk of the film with The Four Horsemen then we would know all the twists that were coming our way.

Unfortunately for the audience and director Louis Leterrier, these twists are so obvious and predictable, than anyone who has seen any film will know where Now You See Me is heading way before we get there. The film tries its hardest to be clever, but no matter how many twists of over the top camera movements that are thrown our way, its all just smoke and mirrors to try and cover up a bad script and an overall bad film.

The biggest issue is the waste of talent this film attracted. Most notable for being wasted are Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. Michael Caine especially, is wasted as the very rich benefactor. In the second half of the film, his character practically disappears while Morgan Freeman basically has one purpose in the film. And speaking of one purpose, Dave Franco's Jack also serves only one purpose and literally felt like the writers had nothing to give this character except for his one purpose. Just a waste.

You're smarter than this film thinks you are. Don't be like me and giving in to seeing the film.

4.0/10

As an aside, here's a picture of Mark Buffalo. Much more entertaining.

The List: 5 Films The Academy Got Wrong (1990-Present)

As with all my lists, this is just my opinion. I understand that what I think may not be what you agree with. If you have suggestions, feel free to post them.

This is a list of what I feel the Academy got wrong between 1990 and the present. This is to cut down on the number of inconsistencies over the years that the Academy has graced us with. This can be argued back to the first awards show where Wings won Best Picture, even though most argue the film should not have won.

5. Gladiator, 2000

Directed by Ridley Scott, this mega-budgeted historical epic stars Russell Crowe as Maximus, a general who is betrayed by an emporer's son, Commodus and eventually becomes a slave. He must learn to fight in a gladiator arena and survive the harshness of slavery in ancient Rome while plotting revenge against Commodus.

This film has exactly all the elements that the Academy loves. An international star and director with a big budget that takes the audience into a historical world. If a film has swords and sandals, odds are it also has at least one Oscar. Unfortunately, the screenplay for this film is average at best.  It's a story as old as Maximus and Commodus. All the flair in this film belongs to the visual eye of Ridley Scott, who ironically did not win the Best Director Oscar.

The Best Director Oscar went to Stephen Soderbergh for his film, Traffic. Along with winning the Best Director Oscar, the film also won the Best Supporting Actor Award for Benicio Del Toro, the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar and the Best Film Editing Oscar. And even more ironic, Traffic won every award it was nominated for besides Picture.

Gladiator on the other hand, besides Picture, won Best Actor, Best Visual Effects, Best Costume Design and Best Sound Mixing. By that rationale, Russell's Crowe's performance was so amazing that it made the film itself the best picture of the year. Though with rationale, I never look toward the Academy. Anytime there is an epic film from a different time period, odds are if you aren't that film, you will lose. See #2.


4. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, 2011

This one will be short and to the point. 2 Oscar nominations total: Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor for Max Von Sydow. A very heavy topic: Dealing with the emotions of the September 11th attacks. Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 47%. Pretentious and preachy. Exactly what the Academy falls for, hence why it was nominated.


3. Zodiac, 2007

One of David Fincher's best films got zero nominations from the Academy. Even Norbit got a nomination. There were other factors that went into why this film was absent from the Oscars. Zodiac was released in March and overshadowed by two much larger films released within the same time frame (Wild Hogs and 300).

Zodiac tells the story of various lives that are intertwined by the hunt for the Zodiac killer in San Francisco. The screenplay by James Vanderbilt takes us through many years and is much more of a police procedural drama than a true serial killer film; ala Fincher's own Se7en. As this follows closer to procedural, this film was hard to market (check out the schizophrenic theatrical trailer) and opened weakly in theaters and fell hard down the box office totals.

As this film was forgotten even before the Summer movie season began, it was no surprise that the Academy ignored this film. Some of the blame obviously goes with the marketing department, as this should have been released in the fall and had a better marketing campaign behind it. The Academy does get some blame though as screeners were sent to Academy members as a reminder for nominations. And it is unfortunate that this film was overlooked as Mark Ruffalo gave an amazing supporting performance. Along with that, this should have been a contender for Best Picture and Best Director. As it is, the Academy does what it does best and screws over movies more deserving of Oscars than others.


2. Goodfellas, 1990

Martin Scorcese's masterpiece of mob life from the 1950's through the 1980's. Goodfellas brought all the elements from past Scorcese classics into one film. Unfortunately, Goodfellas was released the same year as the historical epic Dances With Wolves. Now this is a personal taste, but I find Dances With Wolves to be an unbelievably boring film. Obviously, I am in the minority so I must be wrong.

Goodfellas details the life of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) from childhood all the way through to his downfall. The story itself has been done before, but with Scorcese at the helm and a great script by Nicholas Pileggi with Scorcese, they turn a tried and true story into a very entertaining, violent and often funny film.

Even though it seems like the Academy has a love affair with Martin Scorcese, he never won a Best Director Oscar until 2006's The Departed. Granted, The Departed is a really good movie, but the Oscar felt more like a gimmie as he had never won before. And, with the exception of Joe Pesci for Best Supporting Actor, it is a shame that Martin Scorcese nor the picture itself didn't win the Oscar(s) it deserved.


1. The 68th Annual Academy Awards, 1996

I know the topic says 5 films that the Academy got wrong, but there were many at this Oscar ceremony that it had to be listed.

I'm not even going to say the biggest Oscar miss was letting Braveheart win over Apollo 13. My biggest gripe with the 68th Annual Academy Awards is the multitude of films that were NOT nominated for best picture, let alone any major awards.

Multiple films that year were majorly snubbed. From Terry Gilliam's time-travel mystery, 12 Monkeys to David Fincher's Se7en. Two dark films that were amazingly written and directed superbly. In 12 Monkeys, Bruce Willis played James Cole, a volunteer who time travels back to the 1990's to try and thwart a viral outbreak. In Se7en, Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman are partners on the trail of a serial killer who's motif is that each kill is inspired by one of the seven deadly sins.

Beyond those films, The Usual Suspects, a winner of Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Screenplay (already two-up on Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) was left off the Best Picture list. And possibly an even bigger snub goes to Heat. Michael Mann's good guys versus bad guys epic starring Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro in top form did not receive any nomination at all from the Academy.

Multiple films of amazing quality were again left off the list by the Academy. I know you can't be right all the time, but it seems like there are a lot more misses than hits.

As I said, this list is just mine and nothing official. I know there are other snubs like There Will Be Blood losing to No Country For Old Men in 2007 or Pulp Fiction and/or The Shawshank Redemption losing to Forrest Gump in 1994. Obviously there are plenty, but these are the ones that really jump to mind first.