Avengers: Endgame (2019)

The Low-Down: Statistically, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has achieved a great deal: over 11 years and 21 films, it has introduced dozens of relatively obscure characters into mainstream pop culture. More importantly, however, the franchise has proven that long-form storytelling can work in a cinematic context – as long as you balance plot with heart and humour, prizing character development over spectacle. That’s no small feat, and it’s even more remarkable that a movie with the gargantuan scale and ambition of Avengers: Endgame doesn’t fall apart beneath the weight of an unwieldy script or great expectations. In fact, this is the MCU’s crowning achievement: a heartfelt love letter to the Avengers, their stories, the actors who play them, and to the fans.

The Story: That damn Snap, eh? At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos wiped out half of the galaxy’s population with a snap of his Infinity-Stone-enhanced fingers. After bearing witness to teammates and loved ones vanishing in swirls of dust and ash, the remaining Avengers struggle to live with the crippling grief and guilt of surviving the Snap… and of failing to prevent it. Some characters spiral into darkness; others are frozen in place – a few even manage to move on. But hope is rekindled when Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) returns from the mysterious Quantum Realm, where the usual laws of physics, space and time do not apply…

The Great: Endgame is a storytelling triumph – not only does it bring together and pay off plots and ideas that were seeded over a decade ago, it builds solid, powerful, heartrendingly emotional narrative arcs for almost all of the original Avengers. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) must grapple with their pasts to figure out their futures, while Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) find themselves literally fighting to save their families. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) might provide much of the film’s comic relief, but both characters are also gifted with grace notes, growth and moments of true peace.

The Super-Great: The ability to juggle and create space for multiple perspectives and storylines in one film has been honed to a fine art by directors Anthony and Joe Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. But their narrative strategy feels virtuosic in Endgame, paired as it is with an ingenious plot device that allows the film to truly acknowledge the staggering depth and breadth of its own history. Suddenly, the emotional and narrative stakes are raised, as beloved characters are forced to re-examine their lives, stories and priorities. You might find yourself in tears and in stitches, frequently in the same scene, and this happens throughout the film – a testament to the Russo Brothers’ genius and their skills at anchoring even the most outlandish of storylines in humour and humanity.

The Not-So-Great: This is emphatically not a film for casual viewers – there is no entry point, no easing in, no exposition, to help you understand what the heck is going on if you haven’t watched most of the preceding films in the MCU. There are also a few logical fallacies and plotholes scattered throughout Endgame that will puzzle you the more you think about them – from the wobbly rules governing time travel to the fractured way in which the too-conveniently hyper-powered Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) pops in and out of the story.

Stan Service: This film, above all others in the MCU, feels like a heartfelt tribute to the very concept of Marvel itself, finding numerous ways to reward and delight true-blue fans. Naturally, it includes Stan Lee’s final appearance in the MCU, while folding in a host of other cameos and callbacks that reinforce the interconnectedness of the entire franchise – of all the stories that have been told before, especially the movie that started it all (Iron Man in 2008). There are even a couple of brilliant nods to comics lore, largely centred around the character of Captain America, that feel like the Russo Brothers are deliberately righting a few wrongs where some of Marvel Comics’ more controversial plot twists are concerned. (See: Nick Spencer’s run on Captain America: Steve Rogers.)

Cast-Iron MVP: Casting outside of the box has always been one of the MCU’s core strengths, with Oscar winners/nominees and character actors regularly popping up to play heroes and villains alike. That canny casting strategy pays off in spades in Endgame – especially when certain characters have relatively limited screen time but manage to make it count anyway. The undisputed stars of the movie, however, are the Avengers who started it all. Hemsworth continues to brilliantly dance along the knife-edge between comedy and pathos, while Ruffalo radiates charm and intelligence through ever-improving CGI as Banner and his not-so-mean, green alter ego: The Hulk. Johansson and Renner are given more to do in this film than ever before, and their combined efforts will shred your soul to pieces. Evans brings great warmth and strength to his stoic role, making it perfectly legitimate for you to weep and whoop for a man who’s – somewhat ridiculously – wrapped in an American flag. Above all, this double-whammy of Avengers films belongs, most fittingly, to Downey Jr. He still effortlessly injects Tony with snark and swagger, but also beautifully conveys every shade and layer of his character’s hard-won growth and maturity – giving us all the proof that we have never needed that Tony Stark has a heart.

Recommended? In every imaginable way. Endgame sets the bar as high as it can possibly go for superhero epics that balance enormous scale and jaw-dropping ambition with actual substance and genuine emotion. It’s the blockbuster movie event of our lifetimes, for very good reason – and it’s worth every minute you’ve invested in the MCU since 2008.

Kill The Messenger (2014)

Many films have been made about the difficulties that come with telling the truth. Kill The Messenger doesn’t really have anything new to say in that regard, but remains intriguing to watch because of how very real it feels. There’s a deep, bitter tragedy that underpins the real-life efforts of journalist Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner at the very top of his game) to uncover and publicise a scandalous link between cocaine peddling in America and the sale of weapons in Nicaragua. The initial triumph Gary shares with his boss (Oliver Platt) and editor (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) fades as various government agencies zero in on him and start to irrevocably, irreparably discredit his work and derail his career. Director Michael Cuesta does a fine job of colouring nuances into the film and his characters – Webb, in particular, isn’t lionised; his anger issues and the infidelity that once threatened his marriage to his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) bleed through his determination to be heard.

But the film also has its share of problems. The pacing is uneven, swinging from political thriller to moody family drama and back again. As Gary’s troubles and paranoia increase, the increasingly predictable script seems less and less interested in exploring his downward trajectory. We get a sense of where it’s all going, but are never really given much insight into the depths to which Gary is forced to sink for daring to tell the truth. The result is a solid film that peters out at the end, drifting towards the unsurprising but still sobering conclusion that real life can and often  does end on a sour note.

Basically: A solid if not entirely effective drama about the costs of telling the truth, anchored by Jeremy Renner’s best performance to date.

American Hustle (2013)

There are cons, hustles, lies, tricks and conspiracies aplenty in writer-director David O. Russell’s Oscar-baiting American Hustle. It comes with the territory, of course, in this ostensibly based-on-a-true-story film about con artists working with the FBI to take down corrupt government officials. But one of the biggest hustles Russell pulls off is, quite simply, convincing audiences that they’ve just watched a great movie. There’s no denying that American Hustle is filled with sizzling performances and some of the year’s best scenes. But it’s also a bit of a hollow, sprawling mess, strung together with great moments that don’t really add up to a coherent whole.

Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) is a small-time con artist who’s figured out how to swindle his way to moderate success. Unexpectedly, he finds a soulmate in Sydney (Amy Adams), who’s equally adept at lying to people and winning their trust and life savings. Rumbled by FBI agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper), Irving and Sydney – the latter in the guise of her British alter ego, Lady Edith Greensly – agree to help the FBI catch government officials in the act of taking bribes. Around the hapless form of genuine good guy Mayor Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner) evolves a crazy scheme comprising a made-up Arab sheikh, greedy mobsters, opportunistic politicians, real and fake money, hidden cameras… and the potentially disrupting influence of Irving’s slightly unhinged wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence).

At its best, there’s a loose, loopy charm to American Hustle. It’s a story of bad comb-overs and even worse decisions that starts out strongly, as Irving and Sydney take turns narrating their unconventional love story. Several scenes are so outlandishly silly – pretty much any involving the cooked-up Arab sheikh, Rosalyn and Richie’s beleaguered boss Stoddard (Louis C.K., hilarious) – that it’s impossible not to be swept up in the giddy swirl of confusion and double-crossing in which Russell’s characters have wilfully trapped themselves.  In those moments when the black comedy peeks through the pretense of its plot, American Hustle approaches the sublime.

But Russell’s film – which he’s revealed is about one-third improvised – is almost too loose and it’s certainly too long. The moments that everyone will remember are padded out with narrative convolutions that don’t add all that much to proceedings. Most of the scenes drag on a little longer than they presumably would have if the actors had stuck to a script. It’s exactly as if Russell let his actors off a leash, and couldn’t bear to excise some of their more free-styling moments – even if it would contribute to a smarter, tighter final cut of the film. As a result, the considerable zip, charm and joy of American Hustle‘s best sequences dissipate from moment to moment, making for a curiously deflating viewing experience.

There’s no denying, however, that Russell has amassed a clutch of impressive performances from the combined casts of his last two films (The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook). Bale anchors the entire enterprise with a knowing, vanity-free turn as a follicly-challenged hustler with a hidden heart of gold. His silent reactions to the insanity going on around him – whether it’s Richie’s ego bursting through the ceiling or Rosalyn arguing him into submission – are pitch-perfect. Cooper, too, continues to prove he can actually act under Russell’s direction. He has a fine handle on Richie’s enormous ego and burgeoning delusions of power and control, delighting in the sheer absurdity of this lawman who gets drunk with delight when he takes a walk on the unlawful side of the street.

Awards buzz has been heaped upon Russell’s leading ladies as well, and for good reason. Adams spends rather too much of the film off-screen (especially in its second half), but she’s so raw, brave, vulnerable and brassy – often in the same scene – that she provides the film with an unexpectedly truthful emotional core. In Adams’ hands, Sydney is a rounded, sympathetic creation: one who loses and finds herself again amidst all the lies and deception.

Lawrence is a hoot as the mouthy, delusional Rosalyn, tottering through the entire film like a bleached-blonde time-bomb that could explode at any second. She’s scintillating, maddening and frequently hilarious, even if it’s hard to shake the feeling that she’s just not right for the part. Lawrence is talented, no doubt about it – so talented that she almost makes the role work – but she just can’t help coming off as precisely what she is: a young girl playing dress-up. Imagine an older actress – say, Julianne Moore, Naomi Watts or heck, even Amy Adams – playing the same role; she would lend the sad, dark weight of age and experience to Rosalyn’s kookiness, something the sadly miscast Lawrence can’t quite muster (through no fault of her own!) at the tender age of twenty-two.

Watch American Hustle for its plot – or a faithful re-enactment of the FBI’s Abscam operation in the late 1970s – and you’ll be sorely disappointed. Its story is a jumbled mess that isn’t half as clever or complicated as it thinks it is. But Russell’s cast shine brightly nonetheless. Their bold performances – and gleefully terrible hairdos – are the real strength and energy of Russell’s film. For many moments, they make it easy to believe that American Hustle is the real thing. But take a closer look and it becomes clear that this diamond was really just cubic zirconia all along.

Basically: The film’s greatest hustle is making you think it’s better than it is. The performances are enormously enjoyable though.

Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

A lot of things can happen in the space of a year. Formerly unknown arthouse actors can morph into huge action movie stars – take, for instance, Jeremy Renner, who went from indie (The Hurt Locker) to powerhouse (Avengers Assemble, The Bourne Legacy, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol) during Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters‘ spell in cold storage. Delaying the release of a film for almost one full year is almost always a bad sign. Happily, beyond getting to see a pre-Hawkeye Renner strut his stuff, there’s much to enjoy in this rude, violent, gory and very funny twist on an old fairy tale.

Remember Hansel (Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton)? When the Brothers Grimm left off, the two tykes had brought about their own happily-ever-after by incinerating the witch who had imprisoned them in her candy cottage. Writer-director Tommy Wirkola’s film follows the siblings as they grow up, postulating that they have gained a taste for witch blood and have become bounty hunters who will take down witches for cash. One fateful day, they arrive in a town burdened by paranoia and the loss of a growing number of children to a coven of witches led by Muriel (Famke Janssen) – and uncover in the course of battle secrets in their past that could drastically affect the future of the world as they know it.

Movies based on fairy tales don’t often come with an NC-16 rating, but Hansel & Gretel has definitely earned its stripes on that count. Wirkola’s film is painted in bright, bloody strokes that are at once beautiful and disgusting. His camera lingers lovingly on the carnage wrought by witches and witch-hunters alike. Literally no punches are pulled where either violence or action is concerned, and viewers might find themselves flinching at particularly gruesome or shocking moments.

Hansel & Gretel has more going for it than pure visual spectacle though. Fairy tales and their happy endings have been deconstructed before, but not in quite so irreverent, vulgar and gleeful a way. For the most part, Wirkola has crafted the film with tongue planted firmly in cheek. He just wants to have fun – proper grown-up, adult fun with a story from our childhoods we all know pretty well. Renner and Arterton are in on the joke too, with the latter taking particular delight in playing Gretel as the most kickass female protagonist ever spawned by a fairy tale.

Naysayers have already lambasted the film for lacking an intricate plot and rich character development – which pretty much misses the point. Hansel & Gretel isn’t aiming to be remembered as a cinematic masterpiece: it just wants to drench everything in blood and kick enormous amounts of witch ass. The alternative is to wind up like the comparatively dour, overly serious Snow White And The Huntsman. Go in with expectations tailored accordingly, and you’ll be in for a bloody good time at the cinema – in the literal and figurative sense.

Basically: This is fairy-tale as bonkers, barmy revenge epic, a film drenched in blood, gore and a heck of a lot of fun.

Written for F*** Magazine

The Bourne Legacy (2012)

Confession: I’ve never been a big fan of the Bourne movies. Oh, I’ve certainly enjoyed them very much for what they are – atypically intelligent blockbuster movies that place as high a premium on character and plot as crazy action scenes and car chases in exotically far-flung locales. I appreciated director Paul Greengrass’ flair with a jittery handheld camera, I highly approved of writer Tony Gilroy’s refusal to talk down to his audience, and I quite liked Matt Damon as the completely unexpected thinking man’s action hero. But much as I admired the Bourne trilogy, I never felt a particularly strong emotional connection to the amnesiac Jason Bourne and his (mis)adventures.

So I figured I wouldn’t lose anything by watching The Bourne Legacy – the original director and star might be gone, to be respectively replaced by Gilroy (who also co-writes this installment) and the now-ubiquitous Jeremy Renner, but I sort-of-liked what had been done in the previous three movies and didn’t have an emotional investment in the departed Bourne. I was actually really interested to see whether this movie would be what those involved have proclaimed it to be: a genuine, considered attempt to expand the Bourne universe in a feasible, intelligent fashion.

I’m sure there are many people who have watched Legacy and come to the opposite conclusion that it’s just another shameless money-grubbing effort to cash in on a lucrative franchise. In fact, I know that’s the case – in general, reviews haven’t been strong, and the film has been roundly criticised for being a pointless, flash-and-bang appendage affixed to a brilliant set of movies that didn’t need the embellishment to begin with.

To argue this, however, is to completely miss the point of Gilroy’s decision to continue exploring the world in which Jason Bourne has become a fugitive from his government and all the people he loves. I loved the conceit at the heart of Legacy, as pithily summarised in the poster’s tagline: ‘there was never just one’. Bourne was the protagonist of his movies, sure, but his story – and it turns out, Bourne himself – is just a tiny aspect of the dark and murky web that has been spun by mysterious power-brokers behind the scenes. The Bourne universe was always about consequences: its hero sustained losses and injuries and felt them, and there was a pulsing reality to the adrenaline, paranoia and conspiracy theories that underpinned poor Jason’s life. So Gilroy takes this and runs with it – beyond the obvious ramifications, what other collateral damage did Bourne rack up in outing Operation Treadstone the way he did in The Bourne Ultimatum?

The answer is Legacy and its new hero, Aaron Cross (Renner) – who, unlike Bourne, thought he knew what he was signing up for as an agent of Operation Outcome. For Bourne afficionados, the movie covers the same ground as Ultimatum, except it shows us all the alarm bells we didn’t know had been set off by the Treadstone revelations. Led by retired military man Eric Byer (Edward Norton) and his permanently furrowed brow, the men in black behind the men in black start shutting down programmes and operations that could cause even further damage if brought to light. In pretty short order, Cross is on the run for his life – a desperate journey that brings him to the doorstep of virologist Dr Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) as he hunts for a way to maintain the super-human physical and mental faculties that make all the difference for him between life and death.

Legacy, I feel, shares the best hallmarks of its parent franchise (complexity, breathtaking action and, crucially, unapologetic intelligence), while throwing up new questions and characters that are every bit as intriguing as their predecessors. The ideas in Legacy are no less compelling than the ones inherent in Bourne and his heartbreaking search for his memories. As it becomes clear throughout this film, Cross was signed up to Operation Outcome in a very different way from how Bourne was recruited for  Treadstone. Whereas Bourne went through hell and highwater to unearth his true identity, Cross knows exactly who he was and who he now is and has a very clear idea of which Aaron Cross he prefers to be. This surfaces a whole mass of issues about identity, self-awareness and choice, as it did for Bourne – but in a refreshingly different way.

The cast does a great job of stepping up to the plate and finding something new and interesting to say with characters that follow and yet also deviate from the template established in Bourne. Renner, fresh off The Avengers, has no problem convincing audiences of his physical prowess as this edition’s fugitive with superhuman abilities, but it’s the sensitivity he brings to the part – reminiscent of the wounded, tortured soul beneath a tough-as-nails exterior he played in The Hurt Locker – that helps lay bare Cross’ internal turmoil and emotional dynamic.

He’s ably matched by Weisz, who takes on the typical female part in a Bourne movie: another smart, capable human that the male lead can encounter and form a strong emotional connection with, before the world goes to hell in a handbasket around them. What sets Shearing apart is that she’s afforded as much space as her male counterpart to grow as a character. Weisz deploys her uncanny ability to suggest depth, strength and complexity in the simplest of lines to great effect as Shearing’s world blows up around her.

I do concede that Legacy took a while to find its feet – the film starts off fairly slowly, with a build-up spanning Cross’ rather pointless trek across the Alaskan mountains that would have benefited from some judicious editing. And there’s no denying that the movie does falter somewhat when Cross and Shearing land in the sprawl of Manila’s cramped streets and must book it for their lives on the back of a motorcycle.  The frenetic jump-cuts employed at this point were almost too close for comfort and should probably have come with a nausea warning. I’m also not sure the ending we got is the one the movie – drenched as it was in an aura of constant fear and panic – seemed to be aiming for all along.

But, for all its minor flaws, Legacy serves as a smart, worthy follow-up to and expansion of Jason Bourne’s universe. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that you could watch this film with no prior knowledge of the three movies that preceded it, and enjoy it entirely on its own merits. For what is out of necessity being sold as the fourth installment in a blockbuster franchise, that’s pretty high praise indeed.