Monday at the Movies - April 27, 2015

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.”  This week, back to movies but staying firmly within the realm of superheroes. Presented in chronological (not alphabetical) order, for those playing the home game.

Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (2015) – As the title might suggest, there are two things going on in this film. On the one hand, we have a sequel to Justice League: War, inspired by the New 52 incarnation of the world’s greatest superhero team, while on the other we have the introduction of Aquaman to this animated universe. Here’s the thing about Throne of Atlantis, based on a recent popular storyline by DC’s resident blockbuster writer Geoff Johns: only one of these plotlines is terribly interesting, and unfortunately for fans of underwater mythology it isn’t the one where the guy talks to fish. The Justice League bits and the character interactions are spot-on brilliant, particularly the scenes before the big battles and action setpieces; there’s a wonderful first date between Superman (Jerry O’Connell) and Wonder Woman (Rosario Dawson), and there’s a lovely internecine clash of personalities when Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion) tries to help Batman (Jason O’Mara) on a police chase through Gotham City. And the creative team does a strong job juggling a League of seven disparate personalities. The Aquaman parts, sadly, are much less compelling; this iteration of Aquaman is part depressive alcoholic, part reticent heir to throne but only with nothing better to do. Sam Witwer is a strong choice for the voice of the film’s villain, Ocean Master, but this character is actually terribly dull, as is (sadly) Harry Lennix’s rendition of Black Manta. It’s not a terrible film by most stretches of the imagination, but there are parts of it that are more boring than they ought to be. Throne of Atlantis should have taken more cues from Johns’s more engaging reinvention of Aquaman than they have, because this Aquaman is fairly boilerplate and a little too stuffy for his own good.

Batman vs. Robin (2015) – Maybe I’m just a sucker for the Caped Crusader, because there are things about this movie that ought to be unforgivable to a true believer like myself, but I kind of liked this one, maybe even more than its predecessor Son of Batman. This animated film stitches together plotlines from two distinct comics – Grant Morrison’s Batman vs. Robin (in which Damian Wayne tries to prove himself) and Scott Snyder’s Court of Owls (in which a shadowy conspiracy makes its bid for Gotham) – and basically waters both down to make for a more coherent 80 minutes than the sum of the parts might suggest. Here’s what works: the film looks very good, especially the Court of Owls iconography, and I’m still a fan of the chemistry between Jason O’Mara’s Batman and Stuart Allen’s Damian. I did feel that the Owls plotline was shortchanged by (without spoiling too much) putting too many faces to what should be by definition a faceless organization, but I appreciated the way it allowed Damian to fall under the Court’s sway while he bristles against his father’s training. And the film’s concluding battle, taken mostly from the comics, is a crackling good fight between Batman and the Owls in the former’s gadget-laden Batcave. It’s actually quite remarkable that a storyline from 2012 has already been adapted – kudos to Snyder and artist Greg Capullo for crafting a modern-day classic – but a more faithful adaptation would have earned two enthusiastic thumbs up rather than my usual review of “Hey, it’s Batman, so not bad.”

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week; I hear there’s some big movie coming out this Friday... something-vengers. Might review that one next.

Monday at the Movies - February 23, 2015

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.”  Joss Whedon is set to have the biggest movie of the summer with Avengers: Age of Ultron, the sequel to his billion-dollar film The Avengers. To prepare, we’re going back to his first film from ten (Ten!) whole years ago.

Serenity (2005) – Here’s the thing about Serenity: it is barely a film, and I don’t mean that as the snarky insult it might initially seem.  Bear with me.  What Serenity is is a two-hour epilogue to the television show about whose cancellation much consternation has been made amongst its cult followers.  Indeed, it is for those followers that the film exists, and though I liked the show when I watched it a few years ago, I have the feeling that I would have enjoyed Serenity a bit more if Firefly were fresher in my mind.  And look, I don’t suspect Joss Whedon is out to make a proper film here; there is so much about Serenity, up to and including its overall refusal to (re)introduce the main characters, that suggests Whedon is catering to a crowd of diehards.  That said, as someone halfway on the outside looking in (someone certain that full devotees will love it), I enjoyed Serenity even without fully remembering all the nuances of the Firefly universe.  The element I liked the most, even more than Nathan Fillion’s swaggering space captain Malcolm Reynolds (think Han Solo by way of John Wayne), was Chiwetel Ejiofor’s villainous turn as a nameless apostle of the crooked transgalactic regime; Ejiofor does a very entertaining heartless disciple, a nice spin on the scenery-chewing villain most cinematic science fiction brings us.  The script has Whedon’s trademark sense of humor and an impressively tight cast of characters, though it does lose points for simply revisiting and not reintroducing or developing those characters (beyond killing a few off).

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week! 

Monsters University (2013)

Aside from Cars 2 (which, if we’re being honest, felt a little like a cash grab), Pixar’s made a name for itself for high quality original material, only dipping a second time into the well when the story merits it.  We go all the way back to (before) 2001’s Monsters, Inc., which gets the prequel treatment with Monsters University.  And like a matriculating monster, Monsters U stumbles at first but finds itself and recovers by film’s end.

Set to fulfill his lifetime dream of becoming a professional scarer, Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) heads to top college Monsters University.  There, studious Mike meets James P. Sullivan (John Goodman), son of a top scarer and more party-hearty than study-buddy.  Antagonized by the stern Dean Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren), the two enter into the college’s olympian Scare Games, with their reputations and their standing at the college on the line.

Entering prequel territory for a buddy picture like Monsters, Inc. verges on predictable in the sense that the film has to cover the “adversaries turn amigos” plot beat in order to feel narratively fulfilling.  Monsters U hits those moments without feeling too forced; remember, Mike and Sulley were hardly birds of a feather in Inc.  Monsters U does not, however, spend too much time making Mike and Sulley polar opposites that meet in the middle, casting them more as contrasting types who begrudgingly work together.  (More interesting for the prequel enthusiast:  the way that Monsters U recasts the tension between Mike and in-crowd wannabe Randall [Steve Buscemi], now college roommates divided by fraternity loyalties.)

There are lots of very interesting things going on in the movie, which aren’t explored at much length in order to focus on the intramural Scare Games.  I see the value in concentrating on the Scare Games; the episodic nature of an event-based competition helps us to see how Oozma Kappa (Mike’s fraternity) improves, and it allows the filmmakers to expand the Monsters world by showing various other creatures (plus it boosts the toy line significantly).

But even in spite of the parts where Monsters U feels paint-by-numbers – which, in Pixar’s hands, is still plenty enjoyable if more generic than usual – there are moments of pure genius that remind us why Pixar movies are still the pinnacle of animated film (or, perhaps, even above most live-action storytelling).  I’ll pit the last twenty minutes of Monsters U against any of the other great Pixar moments for genre-bending imagination and exuberant pathos.  It’s almost too good to spoil where the movie goes, but the film quickly shirks that cliché you feel it’s embracing before contorting 180 degrees into a monster-inflected take on the “Play nice” scene from Toy Story. 

It ends with a callback to a bit of Inc. you didn’t expect to see, but the real heart comes when Dean Hardscrabble – in a turn delivered strongly by Mirren – warms up ever so slightly to our heroes.  It’s comparable to Anton Ego’s change of heart in Ratatouille, and as with Peter O’Toole it’s a reminder that the film needs as much of these top thespians as we can get.  Otherwise, the voice cast is what you’d expect from Pixar – pitch-perfect and full of aural treats (like Aubrey Plaza’s laconic sorority president, though Nathan Fillion’s swagger is more distracting because of how larger-than-life his voice tends to be).

In the end, I find myself having written a more positive review than I anticipated, in part because there’s nothing about Monsters University that is entirely irredeemable; even when they’re not pulling out all the stops creatively, the Pixar team is still lightyears (pun intended) ahead of the competition.  But when they do, Monsters University is a real scream.

Monsters University is rated G.  A few monsters have tricks and skills that might scare the wee babies, but overall most kids can handle it.

Monday at the Movies - March 4, 2013

Welcome to this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.”  This week, two DC Animated films adapting popular storylines from the comics.

Justice League: Doom (2012) – One of the best Batman stories of the last fifteen years took place in the pages of JLA, when it was revealed that Batman kept files on all his Justice League teammates detailing their weaknesses and how to exploit them should a Justice Leaguer go rogue.  This animated film adapts that storyline, reuniting the Justice League animated voice cast (Tim Daly, Kevin Conroy, Susan Eisenberg) in a battle against themselves when immortal caveman Vandal Savage steals and enacts Batman’s contingency plans as part of a larger scheme for – you guessed it – world conquest.  The film works almost as a coda to Justice League Unlimited, showing the cracks in the team as well as the expanding roster (Cyborg finally joins the team).  The voice cast is first-rate, as always (even if I’m sorry Mirror Master isn’t Scottish), but the animation style is a little too stripped down for my tastes, with streamlined features resembling Saturday morning anime more than the Timmverse style I’ve come to expect from these features.  Overall, there are parts that work and parts that don’t – the choice of supervillains in the Legion of Doom is mostly insignificant, as most characters here are interchangeable with any other rogues.  But the characterizations of Superman and Green Lantern (voiced by Nathan Fillion) are spot-on, with Superman shining in a suicide intervention scene while Green Lantern swaggers through a rescue mission.  Ultimately the film is hit or miss, though it finally achieves Justice League status by creating a threat so big that everyone has a role to play.  Justice League fans will appreciate it, though it’s not quite the caliber of the animated series from the last decade.

Superman vs. The Elite (2012) – My favorite Superman stories always ask the question, “Why do we need Superman?”  The answer provided in Superman vs. The Elite (adapted from Joe Kelly’s “What’s So Funny About Truth, Justice, and the American Way?”) interrogates Superman’s refusal of lethal deterrent against a team of superpowered policemen who aren’t afraid to kill the bad guys (the execution of a long-time Superman villain is a perfect demonstration of that).  George Newbern (late of Justice League) and Pauley Perrette (Abby on NCIS) star as Superman and Lois Lane, doing good work that melds the animated sensibility with the repartee of the Donner films, and as Manchester Black, the central antagonist of the film, Robin Atkin Downes is repellently smug, spouting language that I think is deliberately out of place in a cartoon like this.  The film creates a new arc for The Elite, establishing them first as budding heroes before their moral code puts them in opposition to Superman – an improvement from the comic, which dropped them into the story without first building conflict.  What works less well is the animation style, which is quite two-dimensional and gives most characters the look of overfed bulldogs with Buzz Lightyear chins.  It’s a shame that the film doesn’t look better, because the writing in it is solid, particularly the ending, in which Superman attempts to prove to a bloodthirsty Metropolis that his way is better.  While not as quintessential as All-Star Superman, Superman vs. The Elite offers an alternate approach to the ongoing relevance of Superman.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week, but don’t forget that this Thursday is the Double-Oh-Seventh of the month, and you know what that means...

Wonder Woman (2009)

Of the big three at DC - Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman - the Amazon princess has always been my least favorite (Batman of course holding a special place in my geek's heart). 2009's latest installment in the DC Universe Animated Original Movie line, an origin film for Wonder Woman, won't be dethroning Batman and Superman from their Top Two positions, but it might help build Wonder Woman's street cred for me.

As an origin film, Wonder Woman explores the backstory behind Diana (voice of Keri Russell), daughter of Amazon Queen Hippolyta (Virginia Madsen). Diana meets crash-landed Air Force pilot Steve Trevor (Nathan Fillion), but their budding romance is put on hold when evil god of war Ares (Alfred Molina) escapes from captivity.

As origin stories go, this one is pretty concise, dealing quickly with the birth of Diana and moving quickly into "first adventure" territory. At 74 minutes, the run time is a little brief, and I would have liked to see more content, perhaps a subplot with another of Wonder Woman's adversaries (Cheetah makes an appearance at the end, though there's plenty in the Amazon's stable of villains) or even just more of the "adjusting to America" scenes. What there is, I enjoyed, but I was left wanting more - whether Green Lantern: First Flight will deliver or whether I'll simply have to wait for Wonder Woman 2: Cheetahs Never Prosper (come on, that'd be an amazingly corny title, right in step with the tongue-in-cheek attitude of this animated adventure) remains to be seen.

Like every entry in the DCUA line (excepting, of course, the beautiful adaptation of Cooke's The New Frontier), Wonder Woman sports the same Dini/Timm look that fans either love or hate. I'm in the former category, having been a fan since Batman: The Animated Series way back in the early '90s. The animation is fun and streamlined, slick and stylized without being overly showy. My only complaint here is that some of the Amazons look very similar to each other, with background Amazons looking distractingly like main characters (how many Artemises can you spot?).

The voice cast is strong here, though Keri Russell wouldn't have been my first choice for Wonder Woman. As Ares, Alfred Molina is excellent, bringing the necessary gravitas for a mythological villain, though the animated figure doesn't exactly measure up to Molina's thick voice. Rosario Dawson and Virginia Madsen, as Artemis and Queen Hippolyta (respectively), are adequate choices with believably strong personalities bleeding through their dulcet tones, but the standout in the voice cast is Nathan Fillion as Steve Trevor. It helps that he gets all the best lines in the film - "You smell good" being one of the best examples of comedic timing - but Fillion's inflection and tongue-in-cheek sense of wit are what make his performance the best in the film.

The dialogue is a little corny, but it's surprisingly racy for an animated feature - and thus abundantly entertaining. Example: upon regaining consciousness, Steve Trevor finds himself bound with the Lasso of Truth as scores of angry Amazons loom over him. "I haven't had this dream since I was thirteen," he quips, adding to Hippolyta, "Your daughter's got a nice rack." The wit here borders on sexism, but its gaudy flamboyance (and expert delivery, mostly from Fillion) ends up sailing past any claims to misogyny. Instead, it's so over the top at times that it's something you can laugh both at and with.

The lackluster Superman: Doomsday aside, I've enjoyed the DCUA line of animated films thus far, and I'm looking forward to their interpretation of Green Lantern as well as the sterling Jeph Loeb-penned Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. Wonder Woman is a admirable addition to this line, even if it's sort of like that otherwise-lovable cousin that tells dirty jokes at family reunions.

Wonder Woman tousled with the MPAA and came out rated "PG-13 for violence throughout and some suggestive material." It's all cartoony, with little blood, but there are some pretty epic and extensive battle sequences and a surprising amount of decapitations (all in silhouette). The dialogue is more suggestive than I was expecting, and it's not subtle subtext that kids won't pick up on. It's mild compared to an Apatow script, but this ain't your momma's cartoon comic lingo.