The Dark Knight Rises **

Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Marion Cotillard
Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Morgan Freeman

Contrary to popular belief, Christopher Nolan might very well be the least imaginative working director trying to pass himself off as an auteur. Movie after movie he proves that his need for self-indulgence often interferes with his delivery; his two last movies being grandiose exercises in incoherence. With The Dark Knight Rises he unintentionally forces us to ponder on a basic aesthetic conundrum: should all ideas be put on some sort of artistic medium?
The question arises from Nolan's absolutely reactionary statements, given that The Dark Knight Rises practically borders on fascism. The director suggests that any sort of social uprising comes in detriment to the development of capitalism and that only the rich can save the day. If this was 18th century France, Nolan would be on his way to the guillotine.
Perhaps the notion that art should be limited to "good ideas" is fascist in itself, but it's not meant as censure, instead it intends to explore what is it precisely that constitutes art. Nolan's fascism isn't bad from a purely aesthetic level, but it's offensive as "art".
Leni Riefenstahl's ideas and support of the Nazi party might have marked her as an "evil" figure but no one watching "Olympia" or "Triumph of the Will" can say that they fail as art. Riefenstahl challenged the format of the documentary and despite her supremacist thoughts, she encompassed the beauty of the human body in a way that hadn't been achieved since the Renaissance.
Then we come to The Dark Knight Rises and not only are Nolan's ideas disturbing, but his execution is absolutely clunky. Every cut and dialogue aim to contribute to an operatic feeling, but the only crescendo in the film is suggested by Nolan's tasteless use of aural and visual tricks. Why does the villain Bane (Hardy) need to sound like a Darth Vader parody? Why does the tribal chanting that obnoxiously permeates the film have to be related to the Middle East? Why is such great effort made to remind us about the goodness and inherent kindness of billionaires? How is this ever really about Gotham City and not about Bruce Wayne (Bale) trying to save his status as a symbol of power (penniless or not)? What exactly does Nolan have against women (especially those named Marion Cotillard)?
The Dark Knight Rises fails as spectacle, as entertainment and other than for Anne Hathaway's scene stealing turn as Catwoman (she seems to be acting in a vastly superior film) the only thing rising in this installment are its director's delusions. 

The Avengers **½

Director: Joss Whedon
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth
Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner
Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders
Stellan Skarsgård, Gwyneth Paltrow

The Avengers feels like a success because its very existence seems to be fulfilling a promise made to us with the advent of comic book movies: that one day we would get to see an epic popcorn flick in which all our favorite superheroes would get to have some fun together.
What once was thought to be impossible due to technology, budget and other factors, has finally become a reality and the result is disappointing because in the process, the film has become the equivalent of opening gifts as grown ups on Christmas morning: the magic has all but vanished.
The first part of the movie, consists of the "let's put on a show" plot that was much better used in last year's The Muppets, since the faces involved are all familiar (or at least they should given that this movie has no less than six prequels) all the audience is expecting to see is what they will do together.
The film however takes its time setting up the stage as we see Thor (Hemsworth) come back to Earth to stop his psychotic brother Loki (Hiddleston) from invading it. Joining the Norse god are brilliant playboy/Iron-Man (Downey Jr.), the slightly passive aggressive Bruce Banner (Ruffalo) whose Hulk is on almost permanent sleep, the thawed Captain America (Evans), the sexy agent known as Black Widow (Johansson) and ace archer Hawkeye (Renner), all led by agent extraordinaire Nick Fury (Jackson who seems to be more alive than in any movie he's made in at least a decade).
The entire film revolves around this group of heroes kicking Loki's ass and preventing imminent destruction at the hand of weird aliens who ride intergalactic mopeds and use fish like spaceships to wreak havoc on New York City (because where else do space invasions begin?).
The film often lies at a very awkward spot because its execution is often marred by the Whedonisms being repressed by the very epicness of it all. Whedon is an extraordinary director who has no trouble alternating and even normalizing the relationship between fantasy and "real life". Some of his greatest creations combine vampires, space cowboys and clones with a deep sense of longing, melancholy and geek humor.
His persona shines during some key moments in the film, mostly through, who would've guessed it, Thor and Captain America, the two towering men whose latent humanity shines through under Whedon's sensitive directing.
The Avengers thrives on its all-star ensemble but the running time (already excessive) doesn't give us enough time to delight ourselves with our favorite characters, unlike the Ocean's Eleven movies this one doesn't know how and when to use its assets best. It tries to be fair, when it should've been selfish in its purposes. As much as Downey Jr. shines as Stark, his smugness can get too grating, especially when Whedon is making Hemsworth and Evans act! 
It's a shame that the director never really knows what to do with the larger setpieces, because he has proven time and time again just how great he is at action sequences (remember the sense of Indiana Jones-like adventure he infused in the whole of Serenity?) The Avengers overflows with moments of almost-greatness that feel abrupt, as if Whedon wanted to jump but remembered he might break a bone upon landing.
The movie is unarguably efficient in its coherence, but it's almost too coherent, when it could have been playful, thrilling. Instead of inspiring us to want and turn the page to see what's next, more often than not we end up wondering if something fun will ever happen. Comic book movies are often a double edged sword because those who concentrate on the profoundness contained in the post-war plight for salvation are never really "fun" (any Batman movie under Nolan), and those that concentrate on thrills leave audiences feeling empty and self indulgent (any Spider-Man under Raimi).
Perhaps to concentrate too much on this would lead to an exploration of why comic books even matter and by the end we'd have lost all notion of the product known as The Avengers, which despite Whedon's attempts, misfires more than it succeeds and reminds us that the whole sometimes is lesser than the sum of its parts.

I See Red.

Via The Playlist come the truly mindblowing news that Nicolas Winding Refn not only is dying to make a feature film about the kick-ass Wonder Woman, but he wants the even more awesome, redhead extraordinaire, Christina Hendricks to play her!

"If I get to do it, she's going to be it" he says and my oh my I already feel like the following comic book scene...

I see red too...

Wouldn't Hendricks, fantastic rack and all, rock this character?

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

When it comes to superhero movies I'm usually completely blasé until I watch them (see how much I enjoyed Thor for example!) and I'd been even more than indifferent towards the new Captain America until I laid my eyes on this fantastic poster.

This is how you do a film poster people! The retro factor gives the film a completely different perspective and truly makes me salivate at the possibility of encountering a throwback to the Fletcher Superman cartoons for example. Can you imagine how awesome that would be?

Love the Hitler punching, the font, the colors and heck, if Chris Evans doesn't look like a young Gary Cooper in that illustration.

Do you love this one as much? Excited about Captain America?

Brokeback Mutants.

If like me, you spent the entire running time of X-Men: First Class waiting for Magneto and Charles to make out and do nasty stuff in a tent, then you probably had a bloody good time.

If you're less of a horndog and actually love the comic book mythology, then you had a great time as well.

Go read my review for X-Men: First Class by clicking here.

Also, head out to PopMatters by clicking here and catch my review for the new DVD edition of Shoeshine.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine *

Director: Gavin Hood
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston
Ryan Reynolds, Dominic Monaghan, Lynn Collins
will.i.am, Daniel Henney, Kevin Durand, Taylor Kitsch

This prequel to the "X-Men" series commits the cardinal sin of action film/comic book/summer blockbusters: it's terribly un-entertaining.
Wolverine/Logan as played by Hugh Jackman was consistently one of the best elements in the ensemble of the previous trilogy; combining raw power, a dark sense of humor and animalistic sexuality.
Once you leave him on his own though, he's just not that interesting. The film begins in 1845 where we learn about Logan's birthplace and his power to regenerate as well as his relationship with his older brother Victor (played by Schreiber). Through the credits sequence (which perhaps would've made a better film) we follow the siblings through most of the wars in the twentieth century finishing in Vietnam where they are approached by William Stryker (Huston) who asks him to joing a special team he's putting together.
The group is made out of other mutants including the invulnerable Fred Dukes (Durand), teleportating Kestrel (will.i.am), Bolt who manipulates electricity (Monaghan), expert gunsman Agent Zero (Henney) and sword fighter Wade Wilson (Reynolds).
Stryker uses them as mercenaries who commit vicious crimes to get what they want. Logan becomes disgusted by this and leaves the group, retiring peacefully to Canada where he lives with his girlfriend Kayla (Collins).
Years later his brother Victor tracks him down and kills his girlfriend setting Logan on a search for revenge. He is approached by Stryker who offers to help him become invincible in order to fulfill his mission. Logan accepts and undergoes a procedure where his skeleton is reinforced with the indestructible metal adamantium.
Logan later learns that Stryker has been in league with Victor all along and escapes, taking on the name of Wolverine in search of vengeance.
Then there's a rescue mission, more mutant cameos than you can shake a stick at and the eventual finale which neatly ties up events so that the first "X-Men" movie makes more sense.
One would assume that the purpose of a prequel would be to establish things otherwise we wouldn't have way of knowing or that at least in some way influenced the behavior of the characters when we met them.
The people involved in making this film however only saw in it the opportunity to make a buck and Wolverine becomes but a puppet in a constant sequence of events and action sequences trying to top the previous one in terms of grandiosity.
As much as Jackman tries to invest something into his character, the screenplay provides him with some ridiculous scenes (not to mention cringe-worthy one liners, which they probably are using for the tie-in video game) that lack a flashy comic book feel and certainly never achieve some sort of hyperrealism.
In the same way the action sequences often come close to turning into selfparodies (unlike the cheesy glory of Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" series) that make us believe that the characters are actually doing them just because the actors playing them are getting paid.
When the film tries to humanize Logan it does so with the subtlety of a nuclear bomb, throwing in ridiculous flashbacks and an even dumber story his girlfriend tells him straight out of the "chick flick book of mythology".
When "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" is over you too will have grown claws from boredom and will wish to tear the screen down.

Watchmen **

Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode
Carla Gugino, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson

It is 1985, the United States have won he Vietnam war and Richard Nixon is elected to run his third presidential term.
The ongoing Cold War with Russia has led the U.S government to create something known as a "doomsday watch" leading to an impending nuclear holocaust.
Masked superheroes known as the Watchmen also exist in this alternate universe and it's mostly because of them that history has been so different.
There's Nite Owl (Wilson) who masters advanced technology, Rorschach (Haley) a mysterious man who finds patterns in unexpected things, Ozymandias (Goode) the world's smartest man who has turned into a business mogul, Silk Spectre (Akerman) who is preserving the legacy of the name after her mom (the effortlessly wonderful Gugino) retired and then there's Doctor Manhattan (Crudup) a man who suffered an accident that has turned him into a nuclear entity that can manipulate energy and see the future.
But the Watchmen have stopped working after the President (when in doubt blame Nixon...) passed a bill that deemed them unnecessary.
Things change when the Comedian (Morgan), a former superhero, is murdered, leading Rorschach to believe there's a conspiracy behind it and reuniting the other Watchmen to uncover the hero killer, deal with their own personal demons and save the world from nuclear war.
Zack Snyder's adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's graphic novel is a perfect example of how you can, almost, never have it all.
With a reverential tone meant to pay homage to the source material without offending the feared fanboys, the film loses the rest of the audience who had never heard about these heroes before.
And with a combination of forced comedy, satire, gruesome violence and gratuitous sex meant to entice a larger audience, it's easy to detect that the film is losing whatever profound meaning was in the original.
Because if there is something obvious is that "Watchmen" isn't as much about plot, as about ideas.
Part cautionary tale, part satirical fantasia, the ambiguity of the actions by who we consider heroes and villains is suggested by larger story connections, not by Snyder's directorial efforts.
His characters come off as singularly one dimensional and erratic. Wilson's Nite Owl is dull and uninteresting, while Akerman's Silk Spectre's mommy issues never justify her bizarre choices and her Cameron Diaz pout. Most of the performances lack the energy to feel as if they deserve to be off the novel's pages.
Crudup's Doctor Manhattan is fairly interesting, even if the actor's forced indie-ness tries too hard to turn him into the next quotable Buddha figure, a la Yoda.
Snyder takes away most of the seriousness from the character by playing around with his blue penis which dangles threateningly across the screen as if to defy what skin color you need to avoid triple X rating.
Jackie Earle Haley gives the film's best performance as the slightly sadistic Rorschach with whom the whole neo-noir spirit finds its best ally.
It doesn't matter that the lines he's forced to narrate with sound like Raymond Chandler parodies, Haley's enigmatic take on his character give the whole movie its only signs of relevance and humanity.
Curious, considering that the discourse behind the heroes' plight is for others to find humanity in them (Doctor Manhattan even leaves the planet in a very adolescent rant to find himself).
It's sad that while Snyder has the visual skills to keep the audience watching, he lacks the depth to engage them and involve them in what's going on up there.
The director prove to be a master at evoking the feeling of reading an actual graphic novel providing the film with long, slow scenes, filled with detail that remind us of the square by square process involved with the source material.
But his artsy attempt is made seriously dull, because he seems to have forgotten that film goes at twenty four squares per second.
Viewers can not invest the same energy into mediums as different as these, a novel can be closed at any time, a film playing in a theater can't.
And with a selfindulgent running time of almost three hours, the movie is an endurance test that never achieves the feel of movies like "Zodiac" instead dragging us back and forth in time because it doesn't know just when to stop.
Whatever postmodernist wonders could've been extracted from a political comic book movie "borrowing" elements from other pop culture elements (there's an "Apocalypse Now" reference that should be kitschy but actually works!) are just disposed of.
"Watchmen" is at its worst when it goes and tries to shake off what we've been watching for two and a half hours; when a character declares "I'm not a comic book villain" you can almost see the speech bubble.