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.

 

Lucy (2014)

How do you like your action movies? Straight-up and balls-out, no brains required? Or something a wee bit more thoughtful, even if the philosophy being peddled is wacky science and hardly substantiated by scientific inquiry? Either way, oddly enough, you should be quite pleased with Lucy, which is a ridiculously fun – if occasionally outrageously silly – action movie, spiced up along the way with some unexpectedly deep ideas about the value of life and love.

Lucy (Scarlett Johansson), an exchange student in Taiwan, is a perfectly ordinary girl with perfectly ordinary concerns. (Leaving aside the fact that she looks like Scarlett Johansson, that is.) Sent into the maw of an international drug syndicate by her skeevy new boyfriend, Lucy is forced to become a drug mule. A brand new experimental drug is sewn into her stomach for transport back to America. But no one expects the bag to be roughly kicked apart, or for the hyper-dangerous drug to sink deep into Lucy’s bloodstream. Within minutes, she finds that any previous limitations on her mind and body are rapidly being unlocked – which greatly facilitates her quest for vengeance and, perhaps, something more.

Make no mistake, this is science-fiction of the first order; if you’re looking for science-fact, you’ve definitely come to the wrong place. The notion that humans use only 10% of their brain power has been debunked by scientists but remains stubbornly entrenched as an urban myth. Writer-director Luc Besson relies heavily upon it – and the sonorous, credibility-lending tones of Morgan Freeman as a professor expounding on said theory – for the progression of his story, as Lucy acquires new, terrifying abilities each time she gains access to another portion of her brain. It makes for some quite thrilling, hyper-kinetic scenes, as Lucy moves from manipulating gravity to changing her appearance in a split second. Besson even manages to explore a few weightier ideas tied up with identity: as Lucy’s consciousness expands, so too does her understanding of the inter-connectedness of the world around her, and she begins to slip away as an individual.

But Besson does falter along the way – he takes his frankly silly concept so seriously at times that it’s hard not to laugh at what he’s tossing up onscreen. Lucy meets the first primate – a female named Lucy. She gains a soul-changing comprehension of the universe and is nevertheless bent on avenging herself against Mr. Jang (Oldboy‘s Choi Min-Sik), the brutal head of the drug cartel. Lucy – and Lucy’s – final scenes manage to be eerie and ridiculous at the same time.

Fortunately for Besson, Johansson anchors the entire film – even at its flightiest – with a steely humanity that proves absolutely essential in her more dramatic moments. It’s sometimes hard to follow the logic of the character (surely Lucy should become more pacifist and less wantonly violent as she gains knowledge?!), but Johansson will make you care anyway. She delivers most of her dialogue with a stony, impassive face, yet somehow allows the great pain and fear Lucy experiences, at least at the beginning, to spill through the cracks of her character. Her few moments of human connection with people who mattered greatly to her in the past – her mother, her room-mate – give this action film more emotional ballast than you’d expect.

Lucy is not, ultimately, Besson’s best film – he might well have made that twenty years ago, with The Professional. But it’s certainly a nice change of pace and relative quality from the forgettable films he’s been overseeing for years – everything from the Transporter and Taken franchises, through to the awkward We’re A Nice Normal Family. Smarter than you’d expect, though quite silly as well, there’s plenty to enjoy in this high-octane, heart-racing, brain-busting blend of action, emotion, and pop philosophy.

Basically: Surprisingly smart and enjoyable for a relatively dumb plot. Johansson is stellar.

Under The Skin (2014)

Few films arrive in cinemas having divided critics and audiences as thoroughly as Jonathan Glazer’s Under The Skin. On paper, it sounds like a pulpy hit: Scarlett Johansson (true identity within the film a spoiler) cruises about town seducing men and ingesting their sexual energies to stay alive. In practice, the film provokes thought but also tests patience – its story (what there is of it) unfolds at an almost breathtakingly slow pace, looping in and around itself, frequently at the expense of emotional engagement.

The film starts out intriguingly enough – Johansson’s character stands in a room flooded with light and reflections, dressing herself in a dead girl’s clothes. There’s plenty here to chew over: it’s spine-chillingly macabre, for one, and you can’t help but wonder about the what and how and why of it all. Then, she starts her new routine of chatting up men on the street, and we soon find out – in agonising, nightmarish detail – what happens to the few who enjoy her stony-faced favour.

But Glazer’s film also drifts into a kind of deliberate tedium after a while. We meet the victims, all perfectly ordinary except for a heavily disfigured man who enjoys next to no human contact of his own. At first, you’ll find yourself analysing the choice of victim, and the pathology involved in said choice. But, as the cycle starts, ends, and repeats itself to the rhythm of a monotonously metallic soundtrack, the pace of the film seems to slow all the more. The dark, horrifying tension that accompanies the first capture defuses as the narrative meanders along.

But, just as Under The Skin threatens to lose itself in a soporific loop, it shifts gears in its final act. Johansson goes from predator to prey, as one wonders if the men she has encountered really are getting under her skin, after all. The story’s heartbeat picks up somewhat, as she stumbles through the woods in the murky grey drizzle, trying to outrun – or perhaps to find – the humanity that’s starting to eat away at her. Along the way, she meets men who are chivalrous, and men who are reprehensible, and it seems as if society has caught up to her at last.

In effect, there’s a bubbling brew of fascinating ideas and themes locked within Under The Skin‘s frequently frustrating script and structure. It muses on the idea of the ‘other’ – the individual who doesn’t fit into society – just as it examines notions of loneliness and connection (or lack thereof). And yet, intriguing as it often is, the film also pulls off the strange feat of being, well, boring. It provokes discussion and analysis as much as it defies it, and winds up coming across less as a cult classic than a curiosity.

Basically: An odd, occasionally effective, very arthouse film that’s every bit as fascinating as it is frustrating.

Chef (2014)

Anyone familiar with Jon Favreau’s work prior to Iron Man would know just how odd and brave it was for Marvel to entrust him with the film that would, ultimately, launch an entire Cinematic Universe. Pre-Tony Stark, Favreau largely lived in the realm of the quirky indie: dwelling on character rather than spectacle, finding humour within the everyday. So it’s nice to see Favreau returning to his quirky indie roots with Chef, a sweet, intimate, if rather familiar film about a small band of people struggling to figure out just what they want to do with their lives.

Favreau plays Carl Casper, a perfectionist chef whose career is effectively derailed when he throws a fit at celebrity food critic Ramsey Michel (Oliver Platt) for daring to give him a bad review. After his tantrum goes viral, Carl is forced to figure out what he wants to do next: keep cooking to order in someone else’s restaurant, or start over, completely from scratch – whipping up the kind of food that will touch people’s hearts.

The real crux of the film, of course, is not so much Carl’s professional choices as his personal ones. Along the way, Carl must re-connect with Percy (Emjay Anthony), the precocious son he’s neglected as a result of his job, just as he must learn to accept the help of the people who still care about him – including his ex-wife Inez (Sofia Vergara) and his former kitchen helper Martin (John Leguizamo).

What results is a pleasing, if somewhat formulaic, stew of character, comedy and cuisine. (The numerous montages of food being painstakingly prepared and served will have you hungry within the first half-hour.) Carl serves as an effective anchor for the film, though some of the emotional weight of his transition from respected chef to underground food truck guy doesn’t quite come through. Nevertheless, his evident anger issues and personal doubts feed into the script’s funnier and more dramatic moments, while his tender rapprochement with his son is so lovingly developed that it’s easy to forgive its occasional dips into predictability and mawkishness.

The top-notch cast adds greatly to the film’s appeal. Favreau is a winning screen presence, keeping his character’s irritability and rage just this side of sympathetic. Anthony is wonderful as Percy, a role that might grate in the hands of a more annoying young actor. Vergara (slightly miscast) and Leguizamo (cheeky and charming) lend able support, as do a host of A-list stars plucked out of Favreau’s phonebook. Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey Jr and Dustin Hoffman all pop up in small parts, helping or hindering Carl in his metaphorical and literal journey towards self-actualisation.

There’s a whiff of the self-indulgent to Favreau’s passion project – one gets the sense at times that he couldn’t bear to tighten or edit his final cut, which winds up clocking in at just under two hours long. But it proves easy to forgive Favreau his indulgences when the resulting film is, for the most part, so sunny and full of good will. Ultimately, Chef serves up its plot –  simultaneously sweet and tart – with a generous helping of memorable characters and gentle comedy. It’s a great reminder of what Favreau can do with perfectly ordinary people, trying to figure out how to get by in their perfectly ordinary world.

Basically: Healthy, happy and hearty fare – if a little on the heavy-handed side.

 

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

There’s no denying that Marvel Studios is – by most industry standards – almost ridiculously brave. Its president, Kevin Feige, has given the green light to any number of projects, decisions and personnel that would make most studio executives faint from horror. He resurrected Robert Downey Jr.’s career (it’s hard to remember, sometimes, that recovering alcoholic Downey was down and almost completely out when he became Iron Man), and trusted out-of-left-field directors like Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon and Kenneth Branagh to helm his studio’s riskiest and most expensive projects. And here comes Captain America: The Winter Soldier – one of the bravest decisions of them all, if not an entirely successful one.

After fending off the Chitauri invasion of New York, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) again tries to settle down to life in a country – and century – he no longer knows. The young man with the old-school values starts working for Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) in S.H.I.E.L.D., an agency meant to protect ordinary people from external threats, but finds himself asking a lot of worrying questions about the way things are being done. “You’re holding a gun to everyone on Earth,” he frets manfully at Fury, “and calling it protection.”

When it becomes clear that the methods and machines of S.H.I.E.L.D. have been badly compromised, Steve teams up with the two people he’s decided he can trust – results-oriented Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) a.k.a. Black Widow and war vet Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) a.k.a. The Falcon – to get to the bottom of a nefarious conspiracy that threatens to destroy Earth as he has come to know it. Oh, and he’s also being chased by another genetically-engineered super-soldier: the titular Winter Soldier, who might possess a secret or two of his own.

There’s an enormous amount to love about Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It is, truthfully, the boldest entry in Marvel’s canon yet, and not simply because it dares to bring superheroes into the gritty, twisty world of spy thrillers. That, by the way, is a great touch, particularly in a really quite spectacular car chase through the streets of Washington D.C., one that culminates in a literally heart-stopping encounter in Steve’s shadow-lit apartment.

What the film really dares to do is shake up the mythos of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe to date. Across several films now, Nick Fury has emerged as the sardonic but unquestionable defender of what’s good in the world. It’s somehow fitting that the most red-blue-and-white of superheroes should be the one who uncovers all the shades of grey. It’s a storyline that upsets the comfortable narrative of S.H.I.E.L.D. and its enforcers to date – including Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, making a welcome return to the franchise – but also disrupts the way ahead (including, intriguingly enough, for Marvel’s companion television series, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.).

Directors Anthony and Joe Russo – best known for their work on cult TV sitcom Community – demonstrate a great flair for character development. This is a talky and occasionally silly picture, its plot getting more outlandish as it unravels, but the Russos make up for the occasional deficits in logic with a lot of heart and depth. Steve’s attempts to battle his survivor guilt allow him to connect with both Natasha and Sam, and there are some quietly effective moments when it becomes evident how much Natasha has come to care for Fury. Steve also gets the chance to re-connect with a couple of familiar faces from his long-buried past, which allows him to come somewhat painfully to terms with his strange, new-found life.

The film fares less well in terms of its unwieldy script, which marshals its unlikely elements together quite effectively but is – at the end of the day – formulaic and a tough sell. The big conspiracy lying at the broken heart of S.H.I.E.L.D. manages to be both predictable and ridiculous. It’s a narrative twist that feels a few decades too old, like Captain Rogers himself: a relic of a certain type of Cold War thriller on which this film is clearly modelled (think All The President’s Men), rather than an idea that better captures the nebulous shifts of the world’s current political climate.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier also frequently begs the question – more so than Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World did – ‘Where the heck are the rest of the Avengers?’ It beggars belief that only Steve and Natasha are reacting to the events of this film, which are catastrophic and earth-shaking enough to suggest that their old team-mates should really have popped in at some point. Surely Tony Stark would have something to say about the use of his doomsday technology in any scenario, much less this one!

The cast goes a long way towards making up for the hokier parts of the script. On paper, Steve is a rather one-note good guy, fighting for old-fashioned ideals in an unrecognisably debauched world. But Evans gives him heart and creates a huge amount of sympathy for the shield-wielding Captain America, particularly in a surprisingly emotional last-act confrontation with the Winter Soldier. This film also gives both Johansson and Jackson more to do than in any other Marvel movie to date, and they’re both so electrifying that you’ll continue to wonder why they haven’t yet received their own flagship movies.

The decision to cast Robert Redford – still hopelessly debonair at 77 years of age – as Alexander Pierce, Fury’s commanding officer and confidant, is a canny one. It’s a nice callback to the 1970s thrillers that made Redford’s name and no doubt inspired the grit and feel of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Redford delights in the role, and helps make it appear more complex than it really is.

When it comes down to it, Captain America: The Winter Soldier can leave a little something to be desired when taken on its own merits. Frequently, its grand ambitions outstrip the logic and power of its script. As an extension of what has become the world’s biggest franchise of blockbuster films, however, it’s an unmitigated success. It’s brainy, dark, and boldly rips apart the entire underlying narrative of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In that sense, at least, there’s no doubt that this is one of the finest blockbusters you’ll see this year.

Basically: A fine, bold entry in the Marvel canon, if not an entirely successful one.

Her (2013)

Here’s the thing: strictly speaking, we’ve all seen Her before, in some romantic comedy or other. Lonely, emotionally unavailable guy must learn how to truly open his heart as his marriage dissolves around him. He meets a girl he would never think to date in a million years – but, somehow, she changes him and his views on the world, love and romance. It’s a tale as old as time.

The twist in Spike Jonze’s love story for a new millennium? The girl in question has neither body nor face; she’s an artificially intelligent operating system – think Siri v200.0 – who can grow, learn, evolve and, apparently, love. This twist is what sets Her apart – but also what creates an almost clinical detachment in the film that’s tricky to process within the context of its narrative.

In a subtly distant future, Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) is a loner subsisting on the periphery of human connection. He’s undergoing a painful divorce from Catherine (Rooney Mara), his college sweetheart, and spends his days creating handwritten letters for other people. The last thing he expects to do is form a real emotional connection with his brand new operating system, who introduces herself as Samantha (voice of Scarlett Johansson). As she cleans up his e-mail inbox and sets up appointments for him, the two chat, banter and stumble blissfully into a relationship: one that eventually grows complicated with the encroaching weight of societal convention, expectations and metaphysics.

Bravely, Her is ultimately not about whether a human being and an operating system can fall in love. Within Jonze’s sweetly fractured universe, the answer is obviously that they can. Once the first flush of infatuation fades away, Theodore and Samantha both fret about their unlikely and unconventional relationship. She even tries, in a disastrously awkward moment, to engage the services of Isabella, a willing sexual surrogate (Portia Doubleday), to better conform to the traditional expectations of romance that inevitably involve physical consummation. But these concerns arise precisely because their connection is so deep and so true, and it’s played very respectfully as such.

In fact, it’s played in so intensely straightforward a fashion that it can sometimes feel a little too forced. Several key emotional moments in the film tread a very, very fine line between poignant drama and unintended hilarity: when Theodore and Samantha first forge a sexual connection, for instance, or when Theodore struggles mightily with Samantha’s sexual advances in the form of Isabella. At these points, Jonze’s solution is to play it all completely straight. In effect, when showing us is not quite enough, he tells us that Theodore and Samantha’s love exists and cannot be denied. This can make for a disconcerting experience as a viewer: in order for the film’s central conceit to work, its most important relationship is played almost desperately as more than it amounts to onscreen.

It’s easy, too, to get nervous in the first third of the film about the premise for Theodore’s relationship with Samantha: she’s literally tailor-made for him and comes to life only when he plugs his ear-piece in. As Theodore wanders happily through his budding romance with this perfect girlfriend who’s entirely at his beck and call, we start to get a deeper idea of just what went wrong in Theodore’s marriage: somewhere along the way, Catherine stopped being the person he wanted her to be.

Her, as it turns out, is most effective in its exploration of the notions of self and personal growth in the context of love. The film cleverly uses its science-fiction – soon-to-be science-fact, for all we know – to convey the simplest of messages in the starkest of terms: loving someone is about accepting them for who they are, however messy, complicated and troublesome it might be. It’s about watching them grow, and possibly growing away from you, but loving them anyway. In this respect, Samantha’s evolution, from chipper daily planner to her own person with her own dreams and personality, is subtly and beautifully developed throughout.

Phoenix, as always, is wonderful. For very good reason, he’s become one of the most interesting and reliably great actors of his generation: Theodore Twombly, of the almost determinedly fairy-tale name, is sweet, sensitive, and broken – a world away from the maniacally violent Freddie Quell in The Master. He strikes up remarkable chemistry with Mara, suggesting a wealth of history and heartbreak in a relationship that gets barely ten minutes of screen-time. There are a couple of great supporting turns as well from the eternally lovely Amy Adams (as Theodore’s good friend Amy) and Chris Pratt (as Theodore’s cheerfully open-minded colleague).

But the real star of the show is Johansson, who never once turns up onscreen but nonetheless manages to forge an indelibly real character. In the husky, sweet, kittenish and everything-in-between cadences of Johansson’s voice, Samantha blooms and blossoms. At the last minute, Johansson replaced Samantha Morton – who had already completed all her voice-work – in the role. It would certainly be interesting to see just how different the film would be with Morton in the part, but it’s also impossible to imagine Her without Johansson.

On the surface, Her is a meditation on the technological advancements of the past decade and how they have led to an ever-growing proportion of the world’s population living their lives on – and as defined by – the Internet. We can be friends with, effectively, disembodied voices: people from the other side of this globe that we might never meet in person. Jonze’s film has gained its fair share of attention for being enormously topical and zeitgeist-y. But it’s actually in Her‘s intelligent, sensitive treatment of the perils and lessons of love – part of the human condition since time immemorial – that it really resonates.

Basically: A lovely, sensitive, grown-up romance that both benefits and suffers from its sci-fi bent.

Don Jon (2013)

It’s a wonder that no one has thought of it before: boy loves porn, girl loves rom-coms, boy and girl meet, sparks fly, hijinks ensue, tempers are lost, relationship falls apart. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s feature debut – which he directs, writes and stars in – radiates a raw, unpolished freshness. That’s a good thing, a lot of the time, although it also means that the two halves of Don Jon don’t quite blend into a fully coherent whole.

Jon (Gordon-Levitt), as we’ve already established, is a fairly typical dude: he hangs out with his buddies, cruising for one-night stands; he works out at the gym; he enjoys watching porn. Scratch that: he’s obsessed with it. Real life – even real sex – just doesn’t measure up. Then he meets Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson), a beautiful young woman whose own fantasies and ideals are shaped by a steady stream of romantic comedies. Can Jon and Barbara make a lasting emotional connection?

Much like its title character, Don Jon zips by with glib, affable charm. The arrival of Barbara shakes up Jon’s routine, and we get to see how that affects his entire life: from his gym ritual through to his regular dinner with his kooky family unit, including alpha male dad Jon Sr. (Tony Danza), clucking mom Angela (Glenne Headly) and silently ironic sister Monica (Brie Larson). Oddly enough, it’s this part of the film – the section that most closely resembles a conventional rom-com – that gets a little repetitive and tedious after a while, almost as if it’s on the hunt for its soul.

That spark of life comes, unexpectedly, in the form of Esther (Julianne Moore), another student attending the night classes Barbara convinces Jon to take. Esther is the first person who suggests to Jon that romance involves reality: it’s about making compromises, telling the truth and accepting your partner for who they are. It’s this message, folded with a bittersweet sense of loss into Esther’s backstory, that suddenly elevates Don Jon, turning it into something a little greater than it was.

Whatever Gordon-Levitt’s shortcomings as a writer and director (and, to be fair, he does creditably well as both for a first effort), he certainly delivers the goods as an actor. Jon could have been an impenetrable, hateful character, but Gordon-Levitt shows him to be almost painfully immature and emotionally awkward. Johansson is excellent as Barbara, treading an incredibly fine line between being the girl of Jon’s dreams and, eventually, the girlfriend of his nightmares. Moore, of course, is reliably wonderful. A lesser actress might have failed to make an impact on the film with the same handful of scenes and dialogue, but Moore transforms it – providing comedy and depth in equal measure.

Anyone who sees a poster or a trailer for Don Jon might wonder why Gordon-Levitt has chosen such a feather-light vehicle to kickstart his career as a director. But give him some credit and a little patience. There’s a darker, smarter soul beneath the film’s rom-com veneer, even if it takes a while to surface. The film may be flawed, but it’s also an incredibly promising debut: a summery blast of fun with a few unexpectedly deep insights about love and life tucked inside its characters.

Basically: Smarter than your average romantic comedy, and proof positive that Joseph Gordon-Levitt will take over the world one day.

Hitchcock (2012)

At the very height of his powers, legendary director Alfred Hitchcock didn’t so much play the Hollywood game as completely change it. His best films – and Psycho is right up there amongst them – shook up the industry and cinematic landscape after they were released, even if it sometimes took a few decades for their brilliance to be properly appreciated. Perhaps it’s unfair to expect that same level of brilliance from Sacha Gervasi’s Hitchcock, but it’s also hard to shake the feeling that its subject deserved something more powerful than this gentle biopic about a very complicated genius.

Flash back to November 1959. The great Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) is about to begin shooting the film that will become the crown jewel of his career… though, of course, he doesn’t know that yet. Instead, he is mired in production woes on a day-to-day basis, plagued by financial constraints, a script that needs re-working, wary censors, and his own demons and self-doubt. Through it all, Hitchcock’s constant remains his loyal, immensely capable wife Alma (Helen Mirren), who gives up glory and a career of her own to take care of a man who loves and infuriates her in equal measure.

Anyone who’s expecting a suspenseful brain-teaser or a biting psychological drama in grand Hitchcockian style will be disappointed. Gervasi tries to spice up proceedings by introducing real-life serial killer Ed Gein (Michael Wincott) into Hitchcock’s psyche. The periodic visits from the man who was the inspiration for Psycho‘s sociopath Norman Bates were clearly intended to draw a parallel between the man who sublimates his demons by making movies, and the one who indulges them by committing unforgivable crimes. Unfortunately, the device is more intrusive than effective. It breaks up the narrative and feels forced.

A big reason that Mr Gein feels so out of place is the fact that Hitchcock is really more of a love story – a domesticated little picture focusing almost squarely on Hitchcock’s prickly, loving relationship with Alma. She is the glue that holds the man and his movie together, and it’s when she drifts away from him – possibly into the arms of second-rate screenwriter Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston) – that Hitchcock frays at the seams. As the movie goes on, it becomes clearer why he stayed with her all his life, despite his notorious penchant for beautiful blonde bombshells like his star Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson).

As can be expected, Hopkins and Mirren deliver commanding performances. They don’t really look much like their real-life counterparts, even with Hopkins encased in a fat suit and expensive prosthetics, but they’re both such skilful and smart actors that it’s easy to believe that they’re companions, confidants and combatants in much the same way Hitchcock and his Alma must have been. The younger cast members fare well enough, with James D’arcy putting in a particularly uncanny turn as Anthony Perkins, the boyish, twitchy star of Psycho.

For what it is, Hitchcock is pretty slight – it’s not going to set either the box office or the movie industry on fire. But, on its own merits, this is a sweet, smart film that imbues its iconic title character with a little humanity – while never suggesting he’s a saint – and returns some of that hard-earned glory to his long-suffering wife.

Basically: Hitchcock wouldn’t have made a film this safe and sweet, but he’s unlikely to be too upset by its tender portrayal of his relationship with his beloved wife.

Written for F*** Magazine

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)

After a streak of poorly-reviewed movies in the early part of this decade that proved to be lacklustre variations on a lifelong theme (neurotic central characters falling in and out of love), writer-director Woody Allen turned his attention away from his native Manhattan and towards Europe: London, to be precise, which boasted similar grey skies and iconic skylines, a switch which proved to be furtile for him creatively… and which all starred his latest muse, the young, blonde, pouty Scarlett Johansson. With Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Allen has moved a little further along this particular trajectory: starring Johansson as the titular Cristina, the film sees Allen shift his focus to the gorgeous landscape of Barcelona, where both Cristina and her friend Vicky (Rebecca Hall) find love, lust and neurosis in the arms of sexily mysterious painter Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem).

At this point in Allen’s career, you’re either a fan of his work or you’ve long given up on him moving away from his stable of stock tics and neuroses and even actors. I’m in the former camp, and even I have had problems in recent years with some of his films (Melinda And Melinda seemed so promising and fell so flat, for instance)… however, I must agree that his shift to Europe and discovery of Johansson has produced, overall, films of better quality and more even tone. While I would be contrary in arguing that he achieved something of a minor renaissance with Scoop rather than Match Point, I’d also hazard to say that VCB isn’t quite the marvel that some quarters have made it out to be.

Sure, it proves to be somewhat different from his earlier films in the sense that it is the first one to so heavily feature sex in a non-comic way – as Juan Antonio charms his way into the bedrooms and lives of both Vicky and Cristina, complicated relationships abound… as do sex scenes (something Allen’s characters usually yak on copiously about but hardly ever engage in onscreen). Allen’s trademark wit and willingness to explore genuinely awkward relationships also continue to reliably inform proceedings: whether it’s Vicky finding it difficult to deny her attraction to Juan Antonio, despite her fiance back home and the fact that he’s now sleeping with Cristina, or Judy Nash (Patricia Clarkson in a fantastic supporting turn), an older woman who lives vicariously through Vicky’s emotional anguish because she’s long been trapped in a marriage she’s not sure how she got into in the first place.

But VCB remains, for all that, broadly similar to so many of his films that have come before: a talky, quirky examination of relationships between talky, quirky people – it’s set in Barcelona, but the dilemmas confronted by Allen’s characters remain the same. What is love? What makes somebody fall in (or out of) love? Can one fall out of love? As the relationships twist into and around each other, it becomes a matter of when, rather than if, you’ll get annoyed by the emotional, neurotic pussyfooting that ensues as Vicky delights in Cristina being badly stricken by food poisoning, or as Vicky tries to find a new spark in her life beyond her growing obsession with Juan Antonio.

The highlight of the film, and what truly sets it apart from other movies in Allen’s canon, would be his casting of two of the hottest, sexiest Spanish actors in the biz today. Bardem banishes all signs of the cold-blooded murderer hellbent on extracting his pound of flesh in No Country For Old Men, oozing thoroughly credible sexuality and a charm that makes you believe he can worm his way into the hearts of both the reluctant, sensible Vicky and the flighty, impulsive Cristina… while catering also to the whims of his volatile ex, Maria Elena. This character, of course, is played by Penelope Cruz, who has arguably found herself languishing in piss-poor English films after she set out to conquer Hollywood – here, however, she proves that there is so much left untapped in her ability to portray both simmering sensuality and pure fury. Her Maria is a spitfire balanced on the fine knife-edge between being passionate and just plain insane… and it’s difficult to deny that Cruz is more radiant and effective in this film than any number of others she’s made in the last few years. (Sahara, anyone?)

One of Allen’s middling efforts – neither fantastic nor abysmal – VCB has its good points. It’s a smart look at modern relationships, open and chatty and blessed with excellent performances from Bardem to Cruz to the relative unknown Hall. But the film is little more than an opportunity for Allen to return to familiar territory in an unfamiliar setting. Here’s hoping his next film, which returns to his hometown of New York, can be a progression rather than a regression in Allen’s career…