The Avengers 3D

First Hit:  Quips abound as these action heroes give the audience a good time.

A film with Robert Downey Jr. (as Iron Man) will have quips and he’s one of the best. However, in this film every one of the Avengers gets their day in the sun in both quip world and demonstrating their super powers.

The basic premise is a little unwieldy in that some super power generating light cube is found at the bottom of the ocean and aliens decide they need to control earth and the rest of the universe.

This story is enough for uniting superheroes to fight a common enemy. What makes this film fun are the separate storylines with each hero. When they each talk to each other it is of mutual respect and pointed sarcasm. I won’t share any of the quips here because it would take away from the best parts of the film.

With Iron Man, the Avengers are: Captain America (played by Chris Evans), The Hulk (played by Mark Ruffalo), Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (played by Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (played by Jeremy Renner). They are loosely led by Nick Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson). Additionally Pepper Potts (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) makes a couple of appearances which pulls Iron Man’s ego down appropriately.

I’m sure Downey made up a good portion of his lines and he’s good at it.

The 3D is effective in portraying depth and the visual effects. Unlike other films, scenes weren’t set-up for 3D, they just looked better in 3D.

Downey Jr. was wonderful as Iron Man and was the glue of this team. Evans was muscularly fantastic as the straight-laced Captain America. Ruffalo was wonderful and the guy who struggles to maintain inner peace or else his other self, “The Hulk”, reigns over havoc. Hemsworth is powerful and funny as the god Thor. Johansson is funny, fun, and strong as the Black Widow and the only female Avenger. Renner’s role as Hawkeye is first controlled by the enemy but then gets the sense knocked back into him and joins his buddies to fight the aliens. Jackson is alright, not great or as strong as the other characters, in his role as Nick Fury. Paltrow is perfect as Potts. Zak Penn and Joss Whedon wrote this funny, lively script. Whedon did a great job of making the film interesting through strong characterization of the Avengers, allowing each their day in the sun and humanness.

Overall: Although the film’s story is highly improbable, it was only there to showcase a lot of fun these actors had in their roles.

The Hunter

First Hit:  An interesting and sad commentary on how we misuse the natural resources on the planet.

Martin David (played by Willem Dafoe) meets up with two suspicious characters in a high-end airport looking bar.

The deal they cut is that he is to kill and retrieve something. He wants to work alone, but the obvious and increased camera cuts to one of the two men, give the audience the thought; we’re not through with this guy yet.

Arriving at his location in Tasmania we learn that he is hunting, what is believed to be, the last Tasmanian Tiger known to exist. When he gets to the home where he will be staying he finds a little girl and boy named Sass and Bike (played by Morgana Davies and Finn Woodlock respectively) taking care of their drugged and depressed mother Lucy (played by Francis O’Connor).

We learn that Lucy is this way because her husband has disappeared on a project she wasn’t fully aware of – however, the audience knows. While Lucy is struggling, Jack Mindy (played by Sam Neill) is sort of taking care of the kids and Lucy but there is something sinister or not “all in” about his character.

This film is even paced and the highlight to me was Bike and Martin’s interaction about the Tasmanian Tiger and his Bike’s father. There is a subplot about loggers needing work and ecologists / environmentalists wanting to save the forests.

Seeing the beautiful landscape of Tasmania and how logging both helps and hurts the economic roots of this small specific area added to the hunting of, and possibly killing of, the last Tasmanian Tiger was sad.

Dafoe displayed a wonderful combination of intense, kind, focused and perplexity in this role. Davies was enchanting and perfect as the smart unafraid little girl. Woodlock was amazing as the boy who didn’t speak but was smart beyond compare. O’Connor was good as the children’s mother who’d lost her best friend and husband. Neill was strong as creating just enough creepiness to make one always suspect his motives. Wain Fimeri’s adaption of Julie Leigh’s novel was not remarkable but solid. Daniel Nettheim directed this cast with a clear vision.

Overall: I thought it was an interesting film but not everybody’s cup of tea.

John Carter

First Hit:  This was a painfully dreadful film.

It starts off with a confusing story which segues to a battle between 1 or 2 or 3 societies living on Mars – right.

Then jumps back to some guy hunting gold in Arizona but who comes from Virginia. Oh, the guy in Arizona, its John Carter (played Taylor Kitsch).

Then we’re in some mansion, then we’re back to Mars, then were in Arizona, then were…. The acting was stiff, the story made little sense and direction made it overly confusing.

The trick the filmmakers used to make the film language move from Martian to English was really stupid – he drinks some liquid?

There were a couple of funny moments with the Mars “dog” character but overall it was basically they film makers wasted a lot of money making this.

Kitsch was, at times, watchable but mostly it was just him doing some big jumping around which amazed the Martians. Lynn Collins played the Princess Dejah Thoris and it was truly wasteful. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a story on which Andrew Stanton and Mark Andrews wrote a fully flawed and mindless script. Andrew Stanton had no clear vision in his direction and therefore there was a lot of wasted money in visual effects supporting a story that just didn’t work.

Overall: This film has little value and shared no new story or visual technology.

Act of Valor

First Hit:  I could barely sit through this extremely poorly acted vapid film spinning tales that killing for America's version of what is right is admirable.

After the first 2 minutes of dialog, I picked up my water bottle and said to myself, am I willing to do something I’ve never done before – walk out of a film?

My personal practice is, no matter how bad a film is, try to find something in it by which I can hang my hat and stay. I stayed but in the end, probably would have had a better time doing something else.

This is one of the few films, which had nothing of good to note. Not even the technology they were using to locate their next victims was interesting.

The acting was all bad. There wasn’t one good acting scene in this film.

The dialogue was stilted and filled with obvious emotional hooks that were stale beyond belief, and a rampant concept that killing for and dying for America was good, made me sad. Yes, I know I’m not of the majority, but killing, regardless of the reason and who is doing it, is wrong. And making a film that promotes the best killers in our armed forces shows just how unkind, un-thoughtful, and narrow minded we can be.

This isn’t to say I condone any acts of terrorism by any group; I don’t. What I don’t like is that we make our acts honorable and picture theirs as not. Their reality is, they picture their acts as honorable and ours as not.

Who gains in this mindset – no one. Who survives and lives in this mindset – no one. It made me less hopeful for the future to hear some of the audience clap at the end.

The ending scene which promotes how great it will be for a dead man’s new baby coming into the world to never know his dad because he will know that his dead dad died honorably is stupidly mindless.

Having a dead dad will not do a lot of good when the boy needs to learn about right and wrong and how to make these decisions wisely.

None of the acting and actors were any good. Kurt Johnstad wrote a insipid script. Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh directed a uneven lifeless mess.

Overall: Nothing about this film is worthy of a watch.

Big Miracle

First Hit:  This film is predictable but interesting enough to stay watching.

The “Big Miracle” lets the audience know the outcome before you even buy a ticket. Nevertheless it is film version of a real story that took place back in 1988 when Ronald Reagan was president.

Three California Grey whales were trapped 5 miles from the ocean and were only breathing through an air hole in the ice. The air hole was closing fast and the native Eskimos wanted to harvest the whales for food.

Adam Carlson, local reporter (played by John Krasinski) had been trying to find fame in a story so that he could move to the lower 48, filmed a segment which got picked up around the world and all of a sudden the whales had a rooting gallery.

Adam feeling the plight of the whales call his former girlfriend Rachel Kramer (played by Drew Barrymore) who is a Greenpeace honcho. Rachel comes up to rally everyone to save the whales and also makes some enemies while she is as it. The one machine which can break up the ice is owned by an oil company which is run by J. W. McGraw (played by Ted Danson).

He’s always at war with Rachel over the oil drilling rights to a wildlife sanctuary. He thinks it will be good press to help. Everyone in this film has an objective to better their standing in the community. Rachel is the only one who is focused on only doing her job but as pointed out by others this publicized effort will provide a campaign boost for Greenpeace. T

he Russian’s assist in the end with an ice breaker ship and there is a reasonably happy ending to it all. However, the film is extremely predictable, even if you weren’t alive in 1988. The set-ups are very obvious and there is really no suspense to this.

I don’t know if the director made it this way to make it PG friendly or if the story really was this obvious. The highlight of the film was in the credits, where they showed the real people in scenes who really saved these whales back in 1988.

Krasinski does a good job of making us believe his character makes the right choices for his career and life. Barrymore wasn’t her best here. Some scenes she was great and others, she came off a little shrill and without a deep basis of the knowledge of her position. Danson was particularly over done as an oil company executive. Ahmaogak Sweeney as Nathan a native young boy caught between the modern world and his ancestral ways was good and very entertaining. Jack Amiel and Michael Beglar wrote this mediocre script. Ken Kwapis directed this with a lighthearted hand especially when he brings in two guys from Minnesota who have a machine that keeps the ice holes open longer.

Overall: A light-hearted film which was entertaining and interesting enough to have it be enjoyable.