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.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Over the past decade, Marvel has earned itself the benefit of the doubt. The studio has consistently delivered smart, funny, brave films that both embrace and transcend their comic-book origins. The 18 blockbuster movies produced since Iron Man first blasted off into the stratosphere in 2008 have not only reinvented superhero films as a genre – they’ve helped to legitimise it. Indeed, Marvel’s two most recent films – Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther – have received the kind of accolades usually reserved for edgy arthouse flicks.

And yet, it’s perfectly reasonable to be apprehensive about Avengers: Infinity War. This is a blockbuster film that’s been ten years in the making, its plot hinted at and scattered throughout 18 other movies. It features 30 or so characters, each with their own complex backstories and motivations. And all of them are coming together in a bid to stop a giant purple alien dude from destroying the universe. It sounds ridiculous, and feels impossible.

But that’s precisely what makes the final product such a monumental achievement. Masterfully directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, Infinity War is bold, brainy filmmaking at its very best: the kind that will lift your spirits, blow your mind and shatter your soul – occasionally in the same scene. It demonstrates on an epic scale what Marvel has known all along: that special effects and tightly choreographed action are there to serve the story. For all its blockbuster spectacle (and there’s almost too much of that), the film is anchored by the heart, humour and humanity of its characters.

The film’s basic plot is simple: Thanos (played via motion-capture by Josh Brolin), intergalactic purveyor of death and destruction, has long been on the hunt for the six Infinity Stones that will give him complete control over the elemental building blocks of the universe. He dispatches his acolytes to Earth to retrieve the Time Stone, currently in the possession of Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), and carve the Mind Stone out of the forehead of Vision (Paul Bettany). It’s a literal existential threat so terrifying that all the heroes we’ve come to know and love – from the Avengers to the Guardians of the Galaxy – must put aside their differences and unite against a common foe.

From the outset, it’s immediately clear that neither the film’s directors nor screenwriters (Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely) are interested in playing it safe. Most other superhero films are bled of high stakes – the hero in the title might suffer untold trauma, but it’s a super-safe bet that he or she will make it to the end alive. There’s no such guarantee here. Within the first ten minutes, we are confronted with the dark, twisted depths to which Thanos and his acolytes in the Black Order will sink in order to achieve their goals. Death, as well as genuine loss and sacrifice, is intrinsic to the narrative drumbeat that drives Infinity War ever forward, and the film is all the better for it.

That’s not to say the movie is a morbid and depressing experience. What’s so impressive about Infinity War is how it expertly juggles its constantly shifting tones and moods. When it’s funny (and it very often is), it’s deeply, truly funny. The film finds maximum joy in flinging characters together with merry abandon, mixing and matching ones you’d never have expected to share scenes or trade banter. Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is floored by Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) godly muscles. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) is charmed by the wit and intelligence of Shuri (Letitia Wright). And it’d be impossible to not be utterly delighted by Peter Dinklage’s inspired cameo. It’s a blithely tongue-in-cheek sensibility shared by Marvel’s best comic books, which understand that humour can make you care when it really counts.

And, boy, does Infinity War make it count. There are many heartbreakingly human moments threaded throughout the film: from the charming surrogate father-son dynamic shared by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) and Peter Parker (Tom Holland), to the undeniable love that ties Vision and Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) together. In many ways, the film stands as a testament to the human capacity not just to love, but to love fiercely and beyond all logic. It’s right there when the unfailingly noble Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) declares, “We don’t trade lives”, even when giving up one could save billions.

There’s even a chilling echo of it in Thanos himself. A lesser film would have turned Thanos into a one-dimensional villain, much the way he’s all monster and maniac in the comic books. In Infinity War, however, Thanos’ end goal is surprisingly relevant when it comes to thinking and talking about the staggeringly overpopulated world in which we live today. There is, as it turns out, method to Thanos’ madness. It makes the tragic twists and turns in his relationships with his estranged adopted daughters, Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Nebula (Karen Gillan), all the more unsettling.

For the most part, Infinity War does justice, too, to the many heroes who have been assembled for the film. The Russo brothers displayed great skill at interweaving multiple perspectives and character trajectories in Captain America: Civil War, and they do so again here, with twice as many characters. Even the most minor of supporting players, like Don Cheadle’s James Rhodes/War Machine, are given story beats that land. It helps that Marvel has always taken care to cast genuinely good actors in roles that might otherwise come off as silly and slight.

Even so, there are a few standouts amongst this enormous and enormously talented cast. Emotionally speaking, this is Downey’s film. He plays every note of Tony’s reluctant courage and bone-deep trauma, as he embarks on what he’s convinced is a suicide mission. He’s ably matched by Cumberbatch, who finds vulnerability even in his character’s most cunning and calculative move. Hemsworth, meanwhile, is given free rein to import the big-hearted comedic swagger of Thor: Ragnarok into this film – while also layering it with a deeply-felt, jagged grief for the losses he has suffered at the hands of Thanos and the universe.

In a film with so many moving parts, some elements don’t work quite as well. A couple of characters that you might have expected to be right at the forefront – including an original Avenger or two – fade into the background. The film tumbles from dizzying fight scene to dizzying fight scene, and while most of them are fantastically choreographed, there are some purely dumb moments that literally revolve around attempts to prevent Thanos from clenching his fist. In effect, this is a superhero mêlée that’s part over-the-top and part overkill, and might prove too much for those who don’t already care for this franchise and the characters in it.

Minor quibbles aside, though, Infinity War is yet another step in the right direction for Marvel. It continues the studio’s tradition of placing a premium on rich, complex storytelling that respects both its characters and its audiences. But it also refuses to make things easy for itself. The film ends even more bravely than it began, with a final ten minutes that will haunt and horrify you in equal measure. It’s a stroke of bold, brilliant genius – a narrative risk so audacious that you’ll want to follow Marvel wherever it goes next.

Basically: This movie will blow your mind and break your heart – and make you desperate to go back for more. Brave, brilliant and better than it has any right to be.

 

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

In some alternate reality, a movie bearing the title of Thor: Ragnarok has taken itself very seriously indeed: full of literal doom and gloom, it’s an apocalyptic drama about the End of Days, as prophesied by Norse mythology. Since that pretty much describes the world in which we currently live, it’s actually rather fitting that Marvel’s 17th studio film is something else entirely. In our reality, Thor: Ragnarok is a wild, wacky and very welcome blast of pure joy – a raucous comedy that fuses an intergalactic road trip with buddy comedy, brotherly rivalry and battle domes. Thank Thor (and director Taika Waititi) for that!

We reunite with Thor (Chris Hemsworth) – still free of new Infinity Stones, freshly confident that he’s once again warded off the fabled Ragnarok – just as he discovers that something is rotten in the state of Asgard. As teased at the end of Thor: The Dark World, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), his shape-shifting trickster brother, has been impersonating their ailing dad, Odin (Anthony Hopkins). When Odin’s strength finally fails, the dark secret he’s been keeping at bay storms into the lives of his sons: Hela (Cate Blanchett), their bloodthirsty older sister, is back to claim the throne she believes is rightfully hers.

For (largely) better or (occasionally) worse, Thor: Ragnarok doesn’t dwell as much on the royal family drama as its predecessors did. Instead, its second act plays out on the candy-coated, death-dealing planet of Sakaar. Ruled by the whims and fancies of the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum, dialled to 11), Sakaar’s people are relentlessly entertained in their very own battle dome. (Think the gladiatorial contests of ancient Rome, with holographic screens and super-powered alien beings.) Following an initial devastating confrontation with Hela, Thor is stranded on Sakaar, and brought in by the mercenary Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) to stand against the raging primal force of the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) – not quite the “friend from work” Thor remembers.

If that all sounds like serious business, rest assured it’s very much not. There’s a gentle wit threaded through every frame of this film – a glorious, big-hearted (and largely improvised) silliness that fans of Taika Waititi will remember (and treasure) from such indie comedy gems as What We Did In The Shadows and Hunt For The Wilderpeople. Miraculously, Waititi has managed to infuse this gargantuan, green-screened epic with his trademark offbeat vibe, best exemplified in the way key plot points are revealed (via sardonic monologue or ironic stage play) and the character he plays (Korg, a chirpy rock monster who befriends Thor before our hero heads into the arena).

Waititi’s involvement is a blessing for pretty much everyone involved in the film, but especially for Hemsworth. It’s not that he hasn’t been good in his previous appearances as the God of Thunder throughout the franchise – he was suavely charming in Thor and resolutely grim in The Dark World. But he’s so remarkably good here, switching effortlessly between bright-eyed puppy and care-worn leader, that it feels like he’s finally come home. Hemsworth’s performance in this film is a fantastic balance of sunshine, silliness and subversiveness, and it’s a joy to behold.

It’s clear, too, that everyone in the cast – including respected veterans like Hopkins and Blanchett – were delighted to partake in the film’s mirth and mayhem. Ruffalo continues to play the dual aspects of Bruce Banner – looming brute and mild-mannered professor – with so much winning charm that you want him to get his own Hulk movie, stat. Hiddleston is totally game for playing up the odd-couple comedy of Loki’s rivalry with Thor, while shading unexpected complexity into his character’s machinations. Thompson swaggers off with practically every scene she’s in, finding the heart, humour and heroism in an Asgardian warrior who’s lost her way.

Perhaps more impressively, Waititi handles every Marvel blockbuster’s requisite action scenes with more clarity and flair than you’d expect from an indie director. He manages to find character and comedy beats even in swooping spaceship chases and bruising hand-to-hand combat. There’s a thrilling fluidity to the action sequences – whether it’s Thor soaring towards his enemies like lightning made flesh, or Hela unleashing her multiple projectiles of death with a dark, graceful beauty.

That’s not to say Thor: Ragnarok is perfect. As it turns out, the film’s greatest strength – apocalypse as afterthought – is also its biggest flaw. Waititi just about manages to find the emotional weight in Thor coming to terms with his power and leadership (a driving theme for this character), but it does get a little lost in all the knockabout comedy. Thanks to Blanchett, Hela is never less than terrifying: she oozes gleeful malevolence in her wake, forcing Thor to confront his own gold-tinted ideas of himself, his family and his history. Alas, she’s also one of that peculiar breed of antagonist who’s immeasurably powerful and strangely ineffective, all at the same time.

For years, Marvel has been making brave choices in terms of the directors to whom it has entrusted its stories and characters. This strategy has yielded films that are, for the most part, creatively diverse, ranging in quality from decent to excellent. Even so, handing the reins of the Thor franchise to a director with such a unique voice as Waititi might have been its biggest gamble yet. Fortunately, it pays off in spades. Smart, silly and self-aware, Thor: Ragnarok is a blockbuster that feels like it snuck into cinemas by way of the arthouse. It’s also that rare threequel which isn’t just as good as its predecessors – it’s easily the best of the lot.

Basically: Get ready to Ragnarok & Roll – this film is the most fun you’ll have in a cinema all year!

Begin Again (2014)

You’ve seen it all before. Strictly speaking, Begin Again doesn’t have the most original of storylines – movies, specifically romantic comedies and sports movies, have long built their predictable happy endings out of opposites attracting, spinning tales of Disillusioned Person A finding inspiration from Disillusioned Person B, and vice versa. The fact that this film comes with added original music isn’t even that much of an innovation – writer-director John Carney did the same thing in Once, his own much-beloved musical romance from 2006. But, for all that, Begin Again remains appealing because it refuses to settle comfortably into any one genre. Funny, dramatic, romantic and platonic, the film navigates its cast of characters with much skill and tenderness.

Dan (Mark Ruffalo) is a mess: once a groundbreaking executive of his own indie record label, he’s floundering helplessly in a life he no longer recognises. He’s alienated his wife Miriam (Catherine Keener) and teenage daughter Violet (Hailee Steinfeld), and his partner Saul (Yasiin Bey a.k.a. Mos Def) has just fired him. Musically-inclined Greta (Keira Knightley) isn’t having all that great a time of it either: she moved to New York with her boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine), but he’s too busy having his head turned by fame and other girls as he hits the big time. When Dan hears Greta singing in a rundown bar, he resolves to make music with her – even if no one else believes he can do it.

When examined in its broadest strokes, Begin Again isn’t anything special. There’s never any doubt that this story will turn out well, that its protagonists will help each other move out of their dark romantic pasts. Its deliberately quirky-cute plot veers frequently towards the corny and predictable, as Dan and Greta set about making the indie-est of indie albums, guerrilla-style on the streets of New York. Of course they’ll meet like-minded, kooky people who help them achieve their goal. And yes, Dan will find a way to bond with Violet in the process, just as Greta figures out just what she wants (or doesn’t want) from her relationship with Dave.

But Begin Again is a far better film in its details, largely because Carney lavishes a lot of thought, love and hope on his characters. Dan, for one, grows as the film does, the layers of hurt and anger shrouding him and his bad choices slowly peeling away to reveal the damaged soul hiding beneath. There’s even something unexpectedly rich about the interaction between Greta and stereotypical bastard boyfriend Dave: he is every bit the jerk he appears onscreen, and yet, Carney lends credence to their relationship with some genuinely emotional moments, anchored by a song she writes for him (Lost Stars). Greta’s time with Dave, Carney seems to suggest, is not wasted, even if her trust in him might be misplaced. That’s an unusually complex thought for a film that’s so apparently slight.

The way the film ends, too, comes as a welcome surprise. Unlike the more vapid rom-coms for which it might be easily mistaken, Begin Again chooses to focus on a deeper kind of love story. The love that Dan and Greta eventually share is of a pleasingly unique kind – a connection that isn’t romantic or, at least, not purely so. They are also friends and kindred spirits: relationships that typically get short shrift the moment a guy and a girl are placed in the same scene together.

Having scored a hit with Once, Carney can now afford big-name Hollywood actors. Fortunately, he also chose A-list actors who have quite enough skill and charisma to make the hokier parts of the script work. Ruffalo again manages to lend Dan, a generally rumpled mess of rage, his own innate charm and sweetness. Even at his most reprehensible, Dan – in Ruffalo’s hands – feels more like a lost soul than an unforgivable one. Knightley makes up for her less-than-arresting singing voice with her most sympathetic performance in ages. James Corden turns in an amusing performance as Greta’s hapless panhandling friend Steve, although Keener – a fine character actress – is robbed of the opportunity to lend Miriam more depth (especially considering a revelation that comes later in the film).

Better in its execution than conception, Begin Again is an amiably tough-minded twist on a plot you’ve seen a thousand times before. The film never really reaches spectacular heights, nor does it re-invent the wheel. But it’s a smart, sweet and mostly very effective take on a story that could have been a hundred times more predictable and cloying. That, in itself, is quite the achievement.

Basically: A charming, largely effective twist on a tale that’s been told many times before.

Thanks For Sharing (2013)

Romantic comedies have been running out of ideas for decades – thinking up fresh, interesting and yet plausible ways to break up a couple who are clearly meant for each other is no laughing matter. Bravely, Thanks For Sharing selects sex addiction as its theme, exploring the ways in which the disease bleeds into and affects the relationships of its victims. At its best, Stuart Blumberg’s first film as a director smartly mines laughs amidst the drama of his protagonists’ lives, just as his script for The Kids Are All Right did. More often than not, however, Thanks For Sharing suffers from an uneven tone, lurching uncomfortably from comedy to drama and back again.

Adam (Mark Ruffalo), a sex addict who’s managed to stay sober for five years, is nervous about re-entering the dating field despite the encouragement of his mentor Mike (Tim Robbins). He quickly changes his mind when he meets Phoebe (Gwyneth Paltrow), although he soon realises that coming clean to her about his disease will be the one of the hardest things he’s ever done. At the same time, Neil (Josh Gad) struggles with the sobriety programme, desperate to hang on to his medical license but unable to overcome the worst of his symptoms.

Blumberg’s efforts are laudable, even if not entirely successful. He tries to give the topic the dramatic weight it deserves, never making light of the problems suffered by Adam, Mike and Neil. In fact, he renders the affliction more easily understandable: demonstrating that it is a sickness while drawing out the implications of being addicted to something that’s such a fundamental cornerstone of human relationships. But, as a result, the film dances somewhat out of Blumberg’s control. He plays one relapse for laughs, and another for horror, and doesn’t quite manage to knit the two extremes together.

It doesn’t help that Blumberg invests most of his time in the film’s blander relationships. The push and pull between Adam and Phoebe is well-acted (and a real kick for Marvel movie enthusiasts who might like to imagine Bruce Banner and Pepper Potts cheating on Tony Stark with each other), but it falters when it hits that dramatic speed-bump. Mike’s troubled relationships with his long-suffering wife Katie (Joely Richardson) and drug addict son Danny (Patrick Fugit) feel forced and obvious. It’s the almost joyful, fizzy friendship between Neil and fellow addict Dede (a wonderfully natural Alecia Moore a.k.a., Pink) that walks off with the film’s biggest laughs and sweetest moments.

At the heart of Thanks For Sharing lies a smart, complicated message about making relationships work: how acceptance, openness and truth can go a long way towards solving seemingly insurmountable problems. Unfortunately, that message gets buried a little beneath the film’s too many layers of comedy, romance and drama.

Basically: Winning in parts but generally uneven.

Now You See Me (2013)

Pulling off a heist requires pretty much the same set of skills as pulling off a magic trick: planning, practice, confidence, steely nerves, misdirection… It’s a natural fit that director Louis Leterrier deploys to great advantage, especially in the thrilling first half of Now You See Me. The trouble is that the metaphor holds throughout: much of the awe and magic go out of a trick once somebody explains how it’s done. Similarly, the film loses considerable steam as its inner workings unravel.

Enter the four Horsemen – sleight-of-hand expert J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), hypnotist Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), escape artist Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) and street thief Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) – all of whom had perfectly respectable solo careers until they decided to team up and pull off the biggest magic trick in the world. As the finale of one of their shows, the quartet rob a bank in Paris, and shower their adoring audience with the cash from the US$3 million heist. F.B.I. Agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) is assigned to the case, and with the help (or hindrance) of Interpol representative Alma Dray (Mélanie Laurent), tries to stop the Horsemen before they can strike again.

That’s confusing enough to begin with, but it really helps to know as little as possible about the film before going in. Much of its thrill and spark come from being as enraptured as the Horsemen’s audience by their antics. How exactly do they pull some of their tricks off? Can they stay one – or two, or a hundred – steps ahead of Rhodes and professional magic debunker Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman)? Leterrier directs the first half of the film with a light, cheeky touch, so much so that any niggling questions about logic fade away as Atlas bickers with Reeves, or McKinney arrogantly (and charmingly) baits Rhodes within an interrogation cell.

In fact, Leterrier directs the proceedings in so stylish and smooth a fashion that he manages to keep the entire farce going for a lot longer than it really should. In truth, the film has already lost itself in its lies and tricks by the time talk surfaces of a vanished magician and a top-secret magician’s association. But Now You See Me stays just a hair’s breadth ahead of its audience for long enough that these narrative detours and red herrings are fun rather than frustrating – at least initially.

All good things must come to an end, however, and once Now You See Me has laid all its cards on the table, it proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that no one really wants to gain a deeper understanding of how three things – (1) sausages, (2) laws, and (3) magic tricks – are pulled off. The real truth of the matter, if you hadn’t guessed it already, doesn’t exactly cheapen the rest of the film, and in fact would make a rewatch fun, though not strictly necessary. But, in a movie full of audacious trickery, this twist is the most outrageous of all, and could just as easily have you gasping in awe as cursing in frustration.

That Now You See Me remains watchable even after the big reveal is entirely down to its cast. Ruffalo, in particular, is the true magician here, somehow infusing a rather sketchily drawn character with unexpected depth. His colleagues also do such fine work that it’s especially frustrating when the story and relationships of the four Horsemen – together and apart – end up getting a little lost in the shuffle of the deck.

‘The closer you look, the less you’ll see,’ the movie’s poster proclaims proudly. The sad truth is that the closer we get, the less we really want to see. Now You See Me starts out as a complete blast: fun, fizzy, dazzling and escapist, as a magic trick should be. Just don’t tell us how it’s done.

Basically: A great magic trick that loses much of its appeal once its secrets are revealed.

Blindness (2008)

On paper, Blindness is a movie made for Oscar season – starring as it does proper character actors Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo, the film is a chilling, challenging look at a dystopian world in which everyone – save for a lone woman (Moore) – suddenly and inexplicably goes completely, terrifyingly blind. The pure irony of the situation, of course, is that Moore’s character follows her blinded husband (Ruffalo) into a detention facility to keep him safe, and winds up both slave and witness to the horrors that unfold as her fellow inmates split into factions fighting for survival, food… but not dignity. Certainly it sounds like the kind of awards-baiting fare that usually makes critics fall over themselves to throw awards at everyone involved.

And there’s no denying that Blindness is a film that invites strong, visceral reactions from its audience. Director Fernando Meireilles (of City Of God fame) pulls few punches in depicting a world gone black as pitch, as the characters in the film allow the shadows in their souls to come to light once no one can really see them. The man who declares himself the King of Ward Three (Gael Garcia Bernal) goes from small-time hustler to maniacal dictator, as he lays claim to the meagre food supply and doles out survivor rations… first, for small, tradeable goods, and finally, for sexual favours and, on occasion, life. There are some scenes in this film – particularly as Moore’s character leads a group of women on a mission to Ward Three that can only end badly – that are truly difficult to sit through, laced through with a primal violence that’s at once repulsive and yet intriguing.

Similarly, the emotional journeys that the characters are forced to undertake are layered with complexity, meaning and a kind of dark horror that mark Blindness out as a psychological thriller that goes beyond simple chills to truly get under one’s skin. Ruffalo’s character shifts from moral rectitude into a grey area born of desperation and a resentment of his wife’s power of sight, while Moore’s trudges through a world dissolving only before her eyes. That the film finds some kind of hope and light amidst the darkness, as the characters shed the labels and stereotypes with which they were first introduced to the audience, is surely a testament to the power and thought behind this piece.

The performances by all concerned are absolutely fantastic. Ruffalo perhaps has the most thankless task of playing a character who should easily garner audience sympathy, but who loses it in an act of reckless frustration. And yet he remains, at all times, heartbreakingly real. The same could be said of Moore and Bernal, who surely are deserving of acting awards for their work in this film. On her part, Moore shifts easily, naturally, from a chirpily normal housewife to the reluctant, occasionally dead-eyed leader of a faction of blind men. Bernal, meanwhile, clearly relishes his monster of a role, uncovering a steely madness more haunting for the fact that it’s just barely hidden beneath the surface shimmer of his dark good looks.

So why then has Blindness failed to make good on its promise to garner critical plaudits galore? What else could one ask for in a weighty, topical drama that resonates in the real world and is rich with metaphor and subtext? Some say it’s because the film is too divisive, its violent scenes, whitewashed of all morality, simply too off-putting. Well, that may be the case. But what kept the film from achieving greatness, for me, wasn’t the buttons it was eager to push… but the ones it didn’t. In the end, the film is crippled by a painfully, wilfully poetic voiceover provided by Danny Glover, who plays an older, lonely man finding companionship only after he has lost his sight. It’s a narrative concession that feels stilted and awkward, voicing as it does an unmitigatedly hopeful sentiment that jars with the bleak, tentative optimism that suffuses the rest of the film.

There is a great deal to enjoy and appreciate in Blindness – the film lingers with you long after the fact, dark and creepy and strangely uplifting. Unfortunately, what we have here is provocative, stylish mbovie-making hobbled by a script that, in the end, did not dare trust in its own ability to put forth a universe at once trapped within itself and also – at times – dazzlingly enlightening.

Zodiac (2007)

It’s been an even dozen years since Se7en, in which director David Fincher first tackled the story of a serial killer hell-bent on screwing over and messing with pretty much everyone on his tail. The difference with Fincher’s latest, Zodiac, is that this film is about a real-life serial killer, a seriously mixed-up dude who gained notoriety throughout the US when he went on a killing spree in the San Francisco area in the 1970s. Not only did he stab or gun down innocent couples, Zodiac – as he called himself – sent all the gory details, together with blood-soaked remnants of a murder victim’s clothing and jumbled-up ciphers hiding secret, sinister messages, to newspapers and police stations. Very much a case of a completely cold-blooded nutter seeking attention, then. But another point where the movies differ is that Zodiac, as a movie, is almost unconcerned with the true identity of its featured mass murderer – oh, sure, it’s integral to the plot in that detectives and journalists alike spend their lives, years after years of obsessive research and frustrating dead-ends, hunting this one man (or is it two?). But, ultimately, Fincher’s latest is less of a straight-up thriller than a tension-filled psychological study, as we watch lives and priorities and relationships dissolve in the wake of the Zodiac murders… and we’re not even talking here about the murder victims and their families.

Instead, we’re talking about the men for whom hunting down Zodiac became almost a personal mission. Meet Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), a cartoonist at the SF Chronicle who finds himself increasingly absorbed in a case which he technically has absolutely nothing to do with. But his clear fascination with the case sees him draw closer to eccentric, jaunty crime reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr), who amiably shares details of the case even as he finds himself getting involved – or, as is also the case, wilfully involves himself – in the publicity circus generated as much by Zodiac’s actions as the media’s initial willingness to pander to his demands to be published. Then there are determined cops David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards), who immerse themselves in the minutiae of the case but are equally frustrated by bureaucracy (Zodiac’s killings take place over several police districts, each under separate jurisdictions) and their need to finally give up and live their own lives. Finally, when almost everyone else has fallen by the wayside in an alcohol-fuelled haze or sheer frustration, Graysmith alone soldiers on, hunting down all the suspects in the case from the distinctively creepy and frequently incarcerated Arthur Leigh Allen (John Carroll Lynch) to equally creepy amateur film projectionist Bob Vaughn (Charles Fleischer).

Although the Zodiac murders remain officially unresolved in real life, Fincher’s Zodiac, based as it is on the real-life Graysmith’s same-titled novel and (reportedly) the director’s own sordid fascination with the case, eventually draws a conclusion about the identity of the murderer. Of course, all the evidence is circumstantial but damning when taken in its totality, and Fincher makes that point clearly with a final scene that sees Graysmith – the lone warrior still on his quest of righteousness – seek the murderer out and stare him in the eyes, just for the satisfaction of knowing that he did track Zodiac down. But again it must be made clear that this film, when it comes down to it, isn’t really about the identity of Zodiac, but about just how much some men are willing to give up to finally find out the truth, even if only for themselves. The crumbling of Graysmith’s marriage to Melanie (Chloe Sevigny) is perhaps the best example of this: he first meets her for a blind date but can barely think about anything else but Paul Avery’s possibly disastrous meeting with (maybe?) Zodiac himself. Melanie leaving him is only a question of time, but it’s still chilling and almost immeasurably sad when she returns on one occasion to find him crouched in the dark, still hellbent on tracking down Zodiac despite the danger to himself and his family, and he admits that he can’t go back to her because he can’t let his kids see what’s become of him. Toschi, too, struggles through William’s decision to quit the case to have a normal life, and damning accusations that Toschi himself might have faked letters to keep interest in Zodiac and his own career going.

There is much to admire about Fincher’s film, although I suspect it will be a bit difficult to find something about it to love. He remains a master at creating nail-biting tension out of practically nothing – as the years pass in Zodiac‘s world, with nary a peep from the mysterious murderer himself, Fincher somehow manages to keep Graysmith’s quest almost morbidly fascinating, whether Graysmith is given the go-ahead to rummage through boxes of weathered records or has just discovered that Vaughn has a basement (gasp!) as Zodiac does, in the practically basement-less SF area. He laces the few murder scenes scattered through the first half of the movie with genuine terror, keeping Zodiac perpetually shrouded in shadow even as he shoots or stabs the life out of his cowering victims. His cast is also uniformly excellent – particularly Downey Jr as the loopy Avery and Ruffalo (the only actor who’s squashed uncomfortably into tight, checkered 70-style pants) as the dogged Toschi. In a few brief minutes, Lynch also manages to make his character – who’s better known as Leigh than Allen – just a little bit off-kilter during his interrogation by Toschi and Armstrong, enough for both detectives to feel that they might have finally landed Zodiac himself.

It’s a shame that Fincher doesn’t get quite as impressive performance out of his leading man. Gyllenhaal retains his easy charm, and clearly gives the role his all – but his part is frustratingly one-note, his obsession with Zodiac being about the only apparent distinguishing feature about his character. There’s some cute comedy stuff early on in the film, when Fincher is still laying out his story and characters, and he establishes Graysmith as the geeky outsider who only gets in with Avery and the ‘in’ crowd at the Chronicle when he starts trotting out all the books he borrowed at the library on code-cracking. (“Doesn’t it bother you that people call you retard?”) But these light moments of humour quickly dissipate in favour of story, and thereafter Gyllenhaal just can’t seem to avoid looking a little out of place in the film: almost too modern for the 1970s, and too consistently the same (young) age to completely convince as Graysmith. Sevigny, unfortunately, has much the same problem. Both of them are good enough actors for this not to completely detract from the film, but it does mean that the movie feels a little more hollow than it should – how can you convince yourself that these characters are worth caring about when they feel just a little bit out of place in the movie they’re in?

Whether you really warm to Zodiac also depends on how you take to Fincher’s approach in meticulously laying out the entire story – from beginning, to middle, to end – with real commitment to communicating every unvarnished detail to his audience. He wants to present as full a picture of the case as he can, so he moves through every aspect of it: the police investigation, Avery’s building up of his own role in the case, and finally Graysmith’s desperate hunt for clues even as Toschi unofficially feeds him information to continue the quest that the latter can no longer work on in his official capacity. Small wonder that Fincher was so keen to portray the entire Zodiac case in such painstaking detail – apparently he got so into the whole mystery that he insisted on shooting Zodiac’s murder scenes with exact geographical precision. Well, that’s all well and good if you can appreciate the very procedural nature of this film, and want to just soak in every aspect of the story and characters. But if you’re looking for a punchier film, you’ll be quite upset – Fincher could have sliced a much slimmer, tighter movie out of this one’s very long, 160-minute running time, and that’s an editorial decision you’ll have to live with even if you disagree with it.

Whereas Se7en was a fast, furious romp through Kevin Spacey’s decidely fucked-up, nefarious plots, with a final sequence so mindblowing you couldn’t shake it for days, Zodiac is far more expansive and almost elegiac in its impact, delving as it does into the lives that Zodiac has touched and some might say destroyed… except he managed to get these men to do this to themselves over years and years, rather than through mere moments of excruciating pain. It’s a movie that might well test your patience (and bladder), but it’s also a worthy, never less than fascinating examination of men driven not so much by ambition but by curiosity. And didn’t that kill a cat or two, in its day?