Snow White and the Huntsman

This will be the second of the Snow White movies to come out this year. While Mirror Mirror was considerably more campy and fun Snow White and the Huntsman takes a considerably darker tone to the story. With that in mind this will not be a movie for young children to go see, but may be a nice lesson in female empowerment for the young ladies in the audience. While it takes a while to get there and takes a long look around at all the visuals that surround it Snow White and the Huntsman does become a decent movie.

 A lot of faith and money were put behind a director who is making his feature film debut. Prior to this movie Rupert Sanders had previously worked on commercials and video games. This shouldn't be a deterrent though as many famous directors such as Michael Bay and David Fincher both came from directing commercials before getting called in to do Bad Boys and Aliens 3 respectively. And with the technology now being available to so many, when a studio sees what a director can do on a budget they are willing to take a gamble. Coming from the world of Halo he knows how to make his action scenes visually stunning and he creates a very beautiful movie. At times though he gets lost in his computer generated world and focuses on the scenery more than the action.

Sanders is more than okay with updating the Walt Disney version, especially with the success ABC's recent hit "Once Upon a Time." While taking this story to a darker place, where the Brothers Grimm would no doubt be comfortable, he also empowers his leading ladies Show White and the Queen. Charlize Theron uses her beauty to take the throne from the right and just king and holds the kingdom in her hand. She is undoubtedly the fairest in this movie, but the academy award winner tends to go over the top as her powers begin to wean. Opposing her is Twilight star Kristen Stewart, who does not come into the movie with quite the same accolades as Theron but definitely holds her own. This is most likely due to the limited time she is given to speak, despite being the star of the film Snow White doesn't have a whole lot to say which may be a credit to Sanders knowing what his leading lady can handle.

While the women carry the story and overarching themes on power the savior of the movie may be the men. Chris Hemsworth comes in as the Huntsman, traditionally a very small part and really makes it his own. Obviously comfortable with the science fiction role, Sanders makes his character a drunkard who morphs into a hero. He is able to deliver some of the few laughs that occur throughout the film in the early goings. While dealing with a more adult version of the movie Sanders still decides to keep in the dwarfs which help the movie finally hit its stride. A plethora of who's who in British character acting are cast and shrunk down for the role. It is actually kind of fun when you see Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan and Toby Jones; while you may not recognize all the names, you should get most of the faces. I am sure that there are people that will be offended by not casting small people. But these actors were the right casting choice as they really transformed the movie into something different. They were the only ones that were able to blend the action with the comedy and really helped to move the story along.

Where Snow White and the Huntsman struggle the most is maintaining interest over the long period. The movie tends to drag and all the romanticized visuals that Sanders tends to cut away to does not help. His characters tended to be a bit one dimensional, and there was no real love interest but instead mere mentions and hints at it. The latter I actually found refreshing and fitting as the movie is all about woman empowerment. While they were able to show Kristen Stewart and Charlize Theron as two women who could handle their own due to poor development they did need a man's help to stay engaging. C+

Men In Black 3

It has been 15 years since J was recruited by K to join the Men In Black and a decade since the last time we heard from these agents.  Time has not been kind to this franchise, which really should have just stopped after the first movie.  But after such a successful original story, and huge star power from Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones you can't blame the producers for trying to recapture the magic from the original.  That is what Men In Black 3 feels like, an attempt to recapture the magic of the original instead of attempting to coming up with an original story.

Anytime a movie attempts time travel or goes to a tropical island viewers enter at their own risk, especially when the movie is a sequel.  Here J, must go back in time and save his partner from getting killed and put history back in its proper place.  So in this movie all of the fish out of water jokes from the first one are in relation to going back in time rather than learning about alien life on earth.  I can not think of a time traveling sequel that has ever been rewarding, so this movie is already up against a wall. 

The movie's humor relies on everything being dated.  That means that all the technology the agents use in the sixties are antiquated and bulky and therefore must be funny.  There are moment where it looks like there could be some genuine moments of levity, and they even touch briefly on the race issues of the sixties but are too quick to move on to a new device before any joke has the chance to settle in.  You can tell that the writing team for this movie had too many cooks in the kitchen and Etan Cohen tried pulling the best of the best instead of making every moment flow into the next one.

The bulk of the movie rests on Will Smith's back, because while K is a big piece of the puzzle, the role is shared by two different actors.  Smith seems like he is phoning this one in and is merely getting a paycheck to help his children do more projects.  Meanwhile Tommy Lee Jones literally disappears for half the movie, which may be due to the aging actor not being able to handle an action blockbuster like this anymore.  In his place is one of the few bright spots of the movie in Josh Brolin.  Brolin plays a dead ringer as a younger Tommy Lee Jones, with the good ole boy drawl and dry delivery down pat. Even if the younger actor is supposed to be in his late twenties and not his early forties the casting still works.

While Brolin was a nice surprise, what I was looking forward to most was Jermaine Clement as Boris the Animal.  I don't know what I was expecting out of him but I didn't get it.  Vincent D'Onofrio just did so spectacularly in the first one that I think they tried to replicate it.  Maybe I just wanted him to be a little goofier and I don't know bust out into song with Bret (Hi Bret), but that would be too much to ask for, I guess.  It seemed like they missed an opportunity with a brief appearance by Nicole Scherzinger or maybe I just wanted to see more of her leather dominatrix costume.  The most important part though may be Michael Stuhlbarg who provides some nice support as the last of his species who can see all the different possible futures which adds a little bit to the time traveling plot line.

Everyone keeps referencing a major past event in K's life, a moment which would turn out to be the climax of the movie.  With all that build up there was an expectation for a bigger moment.  That is this movie in a nut shell - bigger expectations.  And expectations weren't even that high for this movie, after all it was the third movie 15 years removed from the original that featured time traveling.  If you do go and see this movie, it may be a better idea to bring a neuralizer along and replace the two hours with a more pleasant memory like the one below.  D+

Battleship

No doubt when people heard they were coming out with a movie based on the board game battleship there were a lot of eye rolls and heavy sighs.  Director Peter Berg of Friday Night Lights fame and the writing team of Jon and Erich Hoeber, who also wrote the Bruce Willis movie Red, heard the heavy sighs and decided to roll with it.  If people are already going into this movie thinking it is going to be ridiculous then why not just go full tilt.  Battleship is an overly computer generated action movie that follows every cliché in the genre, and the only thing that makes the movie enjoyable is just how ridiculous the movie becomes.

The movie feels a lot like Transformers and in a lot of respects it is, aliens coming down to earth with a plan to destroy it.  Actually I think once the aliens landed we were the ones who fired first, but that is not the point.  Where Michael Bay and Peter Berg differ is Bay took his action movies much more seriously.  Berg has seen a summer blockbuster before and knows that the demand for action is much higher than the demand for story.  So he makes the premise completely ridiculous and decides to not take the movie based on a 60's board game too seriously.

The movie opens on Lieutenant Alex Hopper played by Tim Riggins.  With no real direction in his life his brother played by Alexander Skarsgard from True Blood, forces him to join the navy under his command.  And I kid you not almost as soon as Skarsgard delivers the line "Do you think this is a game?" the title card for the movie flashes on the screen.  I have to believe they did that intentionally to set the tone for just how ridiculous the movie was going to be.  Because if they didn't, then really, just wow.  With a rocking soundtrack playing in the background that is just one of the many laughable moments of the movie, and I would love to give them away, but doing that would be like telling you the punch line to a joke before giving you the set-up.  Just know that during some of these moments the entire audience let out a bellowing moan, they are just that bad.  Thankfully no one in the movie says anything to the effect of "You sunk my battleship," but as soon as the reference to the grid board comes into play the movie becomes something so awful it just loops right back around to being awesome.

That being said it does take a while to get there.  The first half of the movie drags.  It may even be more than half the movie, it really is just that difficult to tell how long and how far the movie drags.  There are a lot of clichés the writing team need to set up first and the Hoeber brothers take their time getting to the point.  They always have a tough time getting all the information out in the first act like in their previous films Whiteout and Red.  But this then lets the duo put all the best action sequences and comedy at the end.  It wasn't till the action picked up that they seem to excel with pacing and finding the correct dialogue to fit the scene.

Since the movie was so hoke not much was demanded from the actors, which is important because none of the main actors have too much to offer.  You may be saying to yourself, but Liam Neeson is starring in the movie he is not really there.  While his name may be on all the advertising, really he is just there to collect a paycheck, he gets left out of most of the action as the commanding officer.  Most of the heavy lifting is done by Taylor Kitsch who some of you may remember, or most likely remember hearing about from the recent bomb John Carter.  It makes sense that Berg would go back to cast one of his biggest actors in his critically acclaimed television show, but in Friday Night Lights he was asked to be soft spoken off the field, and intense on it.  That soft spoken nature, which was captured well in the series, does not translate when you are asked to be the lead star in an action movie.  Rihanna also makes her feature film debut and while I went in wanting to make fun of her, she does fine in the movie as the spunky private with attitude.  Brooklyn Decker is always a great choice as eye candy, and she even gets her own storyline to stop the alien invasion.  All the actors do exactly what is expected from them and deliver all their lines with a smile on their face, everyone is in on the joke.

Unless you are a glutton for punishment, you probably shouldn't be paying the exorbitant ticket prices to see this movie.  The only relief to the movie is all the action doesn't come flying at you as they chose not to put the movie in 3-D although the visuals to the movie would certainly justify it.  A lot of the people walked out of the theater with a look of disgust on their face.  But I had a huge smile on mine.  The movie is laughably bad, and I can't remember a major blockbuster recently released like this. I loved this movie, but could see why people would hate it if they had expected something more.  I suppose they will have to wait for the theatrical release of Crossfire, because if it’s anything like the commercials, that movie would be epic. C+

Dark Shadows

Remember when Tim Burton had some indie cred, and his emo movies were something new that brought credibility and something different to the movies.  Remember seeing his remake of Planet of the Apes, how he had them wear those stupid hats, just how upset you got seeing it, and wishing things could go back to the way they were.  It hasn't.  You would think a movie based on a sixties vampire soap opera would be right up his alley.  And maybe it was.  And Burton just had so many ideas for his new movie; he couldn't bear cutting any of them out.  That is probably what happened to Tim Burton's most recent passion project. Dark Shadows suffers under the weight of having too many ideas with no idea how to bring them together.

This is the eighth time Johnny Depp and Tim Burton have teamed up and by now there really is nothing left the duo can do to surprise their audience.  Burton goes for a Gothic look while trying to provide a balance of horror and comedy; while Depp rocks a ridiculous wardrobe and a funny accent.  Nothing we haven't seen these two try before.  And just as predictable is Burton shifting his tone as often as he changes his scenes.

No doubt feeling the need to pay homage to the series, Burton tries to include too much with his story and doesn't give enough attention to any of his many subplots.  He does fine with the first act of the movie, and setting up the story.  Even once we get to 1972 the movie has some solid jokes delivered by Depp who always does so well as the fish out of water.  To no surprise Depp was the one of the few bright spots of the movie, and did very well in the roll, but nothing we hadn't seen countless times before.  The movie gets lost in itself once we meet the rest of the family.

While it looks like a large cast really there are only two players in this production.  Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins and his immortal rival the witch, Angelique Bouchard, played by Eva Green.  Their lust/hate relationship is the main plot line throughout the movie and the only one given any real attention.  Both characters are fully realized and play well off each other.  The only other character that possesses any semblance of depth is Michelle Pfeiffer's matriarchal, Elizabeth Stollard Collins.  All the other characters seem thrown into the mix just to honor the source material of the sixties soap opera.  It wouldn't surprise me if Alice Cooper in a brief cameo had more lines than the rest of the family including a completely underused Chloe Moretz and Jonny Lee Miller who probably should have just been written out of the story entirely to better develop the young son played by Gulliver McGrath.  Even Burton's muse Helena Bonham Carter couldn't gather any real screen time as she would appear briefly as the live-in psychologist and then be completely forgotten about for chunks as a time.

Not only that, but the movie flip flops from comedy to horror at the drop of a hat.  Becoming lighthearted and cheery underscored by some classic hits from the early seventies and then almost immediately shifting gears to murder and death.  While the Burton look to the movie helps reflect whatever mood the audience should feel he shifts too many times, and doesn't do great with either the comedy or the horror.

The movie really loses its momentum by introducing too many characters with too many story lines.  Burton seemed to have a very distinct idea of how he wanted the movie to begin and end but no real road map on how to get there.  By the end of the movie you could almost see Burton throwing his hands in the air and just tossing in ideas that he meant to build towards but never actually mentioned.  And just as I'm sure the production crew was getting frustrated with their ending, the audience did as well, with people in the screening walking out at the end already knowing how the movie was going to end but not caring to see it themselves.  D

The Avengers

For those of you who are not in the know about The Avengers where have you been?  Seriously not only have there been two recent movies featuring The Hulk and Iron Man, but last year Paramount obviously rushed through production of Thor and Captain America to get the public ready for what could be a record breaking opening.  And while these two movies were nothing all that special, they both lay the ground work and have important information leading up to the first major blockbuster of the summer.  

For those who could not be bothered with the previous projects here is a recap, or you know just go and watch the other movies.  After the first Iron Man we meet Nick Fury, who is behind The Avengers Initiative, a team of Earth's mightiest heroes to come together should they ever need it.  From there we meet Thor, whose brother Loki was the featured villain in Avengers #1.  At the end of the movie we see The Cosmic Cube or the Tesseract in Nick Fury's possession.  We learn more about the cube in Captain America which is the source of many of The Red Skull's weapons of mass destruction.  While all independent projects, the stories of our heroes intertwine to build up to the summer blockbuster.

The Avengers is directed by major fan boy Joss Whedon responsible for television series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, Angel, and Dollhouse.  To the uninitiated many out there may not know who Joss Whedon is, after all he has only directed one feature film before, Serenity, and it was based off a show that no one watched while it was on.  But anyone who recognized the name knew immediately that this was the perfect match for the movie. Whedon is a lifelong comic book fan and not only did he create comic versions of Firefly and Buffy he also worked on a version of "X-men" and helped to develop Marvels crossover hit "Civil War."  With such passion for the genre, there was little doubt of his success.  

With so many characters, stories, and battles to fit in it is not surprising that the movie runs a little long.  The only time the movie feels long though is while the crew is on board Nick Fury's helicarrier.  Throughout the rest of the movie Whedon finds a perfect balance.  With eight major super heroes, four of which have been featured in their own movie, it would have been easy to put the primary focus on Robert Downey Jr., whose Tony Stark character has undoubtedly the most successful franchise of the superhero team.  But instead he finds something interesting for all of his heroes to do and gives them all equal screen time.  Whether it be finding back story or a featured fight, we feel like all eight heroes share an equal part to the story.

The show stealer of the whole movie may be the Hulk.  While Mark Ruffalo played Bruce Banner very well, at the very least better than Eric Bana did, I'm talking about the big guy.  The big screen has not been kind to the green giant, having been played by several different actors with no movie nailing down success.  Due to a combination of Hulk's inability to speak coherently and complete dominance of the enemy's around him his story has suffered as a leading man.  But as part of an ensemble The Hulk excels and has many of the movie's best moment.  He will no doubt be a fan favorite, now we can only hope that those movie execs don't try to make him the leading man again, the other guy is best in small doses.    

The action in the movie is in a word awesome.  In a superhero movie like this an epic battle scene is always anticipated, but there has never been anything quite like this.  There are always groups of thugs for the hero to take out before getting to the final battle; this may be the first time a blockbuster like this features a climax against an army.  The final sequence of the movie is nothing but action, but unlike Michael Bay's action movies which feature similar pacing it feels like the audience is much more vested in the outcome.  There isn't just cool shots for the sake of cool shots, it is all building to something.  While all the battles were great, any comic book nerd will tell you the best fights are when the heroes go at each other.  Everyone wants to know if the Hulk really is unstoppable, or who would win in a fight Captain America or Iron Man.  It is just another another point of praise for Whedon knowing what the audience wants as he sprinkles in fights between our heroes throughout the flick.  It sometimes feels as if the action never stops.  

For those who won't get excited about all the wonderful 3-D battle sequences there is also plenty of humor injected into the movie.  From the bickering of the superheroes, to the well placed quips, to the visually funny; Whedon, who also wrote the story, knows his crowd and injects the movie with plenty of laughs to make sure the movie constantly stays up.

The Avengers hits on all the right levels.  Putting up two duds last year, the movies will no doubt pay off as this one is a guaranteed success.  It will have fan boys, and casual movie lovers alike jumping for joy at just how well the movie is done.  The summer of 2012 starts off on a great note and The Marvel Superhero team have set the bar high.  A

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