Thor (2011)

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård, Colme Feore, Ray Stevenson, Idris Elba, Kat Dennings, Rene Russo, Anthony Hopkins

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Genre: Action, Adventure, Comic

Rating: B+

Many years ago a bitter war was fought between the Frost Giants of Jotunheim and the warriors of Asgard, over the future of the nine realms which the Asgardians protect.  Now, in the present, the king of Asgard, Odin (Hopkins), is preparing to adbicate his throne in favour of his son, Thor (Hemsworth).  Before he can do so, however, Frost Giants attack Asgard in order to retrieve the Casket of Ancient Winters, the source of their power, from the Asgardians.  In retaliation, Thor decides to lead an attack on the Frost Giants, accompanied by his brother Loki (Hiddleston), their childhood friend Sif (Jaimie Alexander) and the Warriors Three, Volstagg (Ray Stevenson), Fandral (Joshua Dallas), and Hogun (Tadanobu Asano).  The battle destroys the truce between the two races, and Odin must interfere in order to save the Asgardians.  As punishment, he strips Thor of his powers and exiles him to Earth, although he sends Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, as well, so that if and when Thor is worthy he can pick it up.  On Earth, Thor is found by astrophysicist Jane Foster (Portman), her assistant Darcy Lewis (Dennings), and mentor Dr. Erik Selvig (Skarsgård).  His hammer, however, is found by the local populace, and eventually attracts the attention of S.H.E.I.L.D.  Thor must find his hammer and return to Asgard, before the Frost Giants can take over.

This was a fun movie, as all the Marvel Cinemetic Universe films tend to be.  Thor is, in my opinion, absolutely amazing and clearly worthy of a standalone series - which is something that Marvel seems to struggle in distinguishing at times.  A lot of the Avengers are great, and most of them deserve their own opportunity to shine in the sun, but some don't.  Going into this film, I wasn't really sure about whether I thought Thor was one of those shining characters or not and I really questioned just how he fit into the greater scheme of the universe already established by characters like Iron Man and The Hulk.  In the end, however, I think he really fit well and did a great job of adding to the feel of this series.

The other thing that really worked was Loki.  The two most important characters in this film are the brothers (no offense to love interest Natalie Portman), and they really mesh well.  They both go through transitions in this film and I love how you see where they come from and where they end up.  Part of me would have liked a bit more back story to Loki - it feels almost like he starts this film a few steps ahead of the rest of us, and we're all left trying to catch up (although, Thor does take very big steps).  As for the Thor/Jane relationship... I love how it kind of sneaks up on both of them, even if the audience is completely expecting it the entire time.  Thor has to change in order to be the man for Jane, and it is this change that makes him the man that he needs to be in order to be the god that his father wants him to be.  I'm really looking forward to how this relationship continues to develop in later films - I was actually rather disappointed that she didn't make an appearance in The Avengers, but I do see how it could have potentially taken away from that film.  Either way, I really enjoyed this movie.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

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

Director: Christopher Nolan
Genre: Action, Comic, Drama, Thriller
Rating: A+

"Gotham, take control... take control of your city. Behold, the instrument of your liberation! Identify yourself to the world!"

I’m going to stick this out there right at the start – my biggest problem with The Dark Knight Rises is Bane’s voice.  While I actually liked the accent overall, as well as the sheer amount of thought that Hardy appeared to put into it, there were points when it was rather screechy and as a result what Bane was saying became a bit incomprehensible.  I always got the general gist of what he was saying, but I often lost the actual words, which was a bit disappointing because in this movie Bane is more than just a brute, he’s almost Shakespearian in his way of speaking and thinking.  On the plus side of the accent, however, there were also points when he sounded like Sean Connery.  I’m just going to throw this one out there: sounding like Sean Connery is never a bad thing.  Never.

The Dark Knight Rises picks up eight years after the events of The Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne (Bale) is living as a hermit, basically, in Wayne Manor, allowing Alfred (Cain) and Fox (Freeman) to basically run his operations. Bruce is still haunted by the death of Rachel and suffering from the injuries that he sustained as Batman, notably a pronounced limp. The streets of Gotham, however, have been cleaned up because of his sacrifice, and the city has gone on to worship the fallen hero, Harvey Dent – although Commissioner James Gordon (Oldman) clearly regrets his part in the cover up of Dent’s crimes and desires to come clean about them, when the time is right. The time is taken from him rather suddenly; following a series of events initiated by cat burglar Selina Kyle (Hathaway), Bruce loses his fortune and control of his company after Bane attacks Gotham’s stock exchange. Bruce decides to bring Batman out of the closet, while also moving to relinquish control of the company to Miranda Tate (Cotillard), instead of his business rival John Daggett (Ben Mendelsohn), who’s been working with Bane. Batman is unsuccessful in defeating Bane, however, who seizes control of Wayne Enterprises, turns a fusion core that they’d created into a nuclear bomb, and uses it to take over the city – unleashing chaos and entrapping the majority of the city’s police force underground. Not underground is Gordon and newly promoted special duty police officer John Blake (Gordon-Levitt), who conspire to disable the bomb and take back their city.

To be honest, going into this movie I wasn't entirely sure what to expect.  I tried to keep my expectations down; I didn't want my love for The Dark Knight to spoil this movie.  That happens so often with sequels in general.  They might be good movies on their own, but because of the build up as the result of their predecessor(s) they fall short.  I was expecting Dark Knight Rises to fall short - especially once I heard that the villains were going to be Bane and Catwoman.  Between Batman & Robin and Catwoman Bane and Catwoman were both big parts of two of the worst movies ever.  It's hard to follow up Heath Ledger's Joker with villains associated with the worst Batman movies ever.

Dark Knight Rises takes all of your fears and throws them away.  It makes you forget that the horrors of previous Batman movies never happened.  Despite Bane's occasional vocal problems he still has a flowey, poetic way about him that makes him more than just a brute.   While it takes a bit for the movie to develop, with Nolan falling back into the use of flashbacks and reused footage from Dark Knight, once it does develop you're almost completely sucked into it - asides from the occasional jarring moments when Bane becomes incomprehensible.  The thing that I really liked about this movie was that it isn't all about the action.  It's making a social commentary about anarchy, the one percent, and standing up against evil.  It was about the people of Gotham growing up and taking back their city.  Some of my favourite parts of this movie weren't the fight sequences but rather the slower and quieter montages of the characters as they come to terms with what they face.

There are problems with The Dark Knight Rises beyond just Bane's voice.  I really didn't like what they did with Alfred in this movie, it almost felt like Michael Caine was phoning in his performance here.  It seemed very un-Alfred like.  A lot of people seemed to intuitively know things in this movie, or else I just missed the explanation on how some of them knew things that they knew.  The movie was a lot slower than Dark Knight and took a bit more to get into, although as I've already mentioned this wasn't all bad.  I really enjoyed the twists that the movie brings.  I saw some of them coming from the onset, saw others just before it happened, and was caught completely unaware by others.  All in all, it was a good journey.

The Dark Knight (2008)

Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Morgan Freeman

Director: Christopher Nolan
Genre: Action, Comic, Drama, Thriller
Rating: A+

"Why so serious?"

I’m not really sure if there are words to describe just how much I was blown away by The Dark Knight, the second in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.  This movie has you sitting on the edge of your seat from start to finish and appears to complete Gotham’s descend into a really dark world.  My favourite part, though, is Ledger’s take on the Joker and the very sick and dark form of humour that he brings to the film.  While Batman movies have been funny before, they’ve never done so in a way even remotely similar to Heath Ledger’s Joker.

The Dark Knight escalates things from the way that they were left off in Batman Begins. While the mob still rules in Gotham it is clear that the duo of Batman (Bale) and Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Oldman) are making a very clear dent in the business. Mob bosses are now definitely scared of the Batman, and the new district attorney Harvey Dent (Eckhart) has a tough on crime approach that makes him a good ally to this dynamic duo. That is, until a new villain arrives on the scene. Calling himself the Joker he is a perpetrator of anarchy and desires to cause Batman to break his one unbreakable rule – he wants to drive Batman to kill. Alongside the struggles of Batman is the slow downfall of Dent, who at the start of the film is a stoic man unwilling to compromise his morals – an unmasked counterpart to Batman, and a good match for Rachel Dawes (Gyllenhaal), who acts as the damsel in distress to both Bruce Wayne/Batman and Dent. Just as it appears that they’ve caught the Joker, Dent and Rachel go missing – it’s up to Batman and the good men of Gotham’s police force to find them in time.

This movie takes the set up that Bale established in Batman Begins and runs with it. We know who the players are and the world in which they live; it’s been established that Bruce Wayne is a brooding, stoic man who carries a torch for Rachel – a torch that while being mutual is in competition with her feelings for Dent. Since we already know this – as well as Batman’s decision to not kill – Nolan doesn’t need to waste the viewers time re-establishing all of this. Instead he just plunges us straight into the action – even going so far as to introduce the movie’s villains before he reintroduces its heroes. And from that moment when he takes out the bus driver Ledger’s the Joker has us completely captivated, assuming that it even took that long.  The best part is that never once does he do anything to rip you out of the compelling narrative that he's weaving; as soon as you're sucked in, you're in it until the end.

The acting in The Dark Knight is stellar, but with this kind of cast it shouldn't come as a surprise.  I much preferred Maggie Gyllenhaal's Rachel Dawes to Katie Holmes', however I am still disappointed that they had to recast her.  I hate it when they recast characters, be it in the movies or on TV, as I find that it takes away from the narrative.  It's one thing when it's James Bond, which is special, and another thing when it's pretty much anything else.  I love, love, love Heath Ledger in this movie.  He was one of my favourite actors, and I think this movie just really shows his genius.  The Joker has always been one of the best Batman villains, and in this film Ledger proves to be one of the best Jokers.  That the film doesn't stop with the one villain makes things even better.  The problem with Batman Begins is that it was unremarkable and rather slow: it spent so much time setting up the premise that by the time everything was established half the movie was over and then they finally got around to dealing with the villains and plot twists.  Dark Knight doesn't waste any of this time and as a result it's plot twist after plot twist, action sequence after action sequence, and the whole thing just blows your mind.  Even when it isn't the big action sequences - even when it's just the Joker strolling down the street you're completely captivated.  If you haven't seen this movie yet, I highly recommend you do.

Batman Begins (2005)

Starring: Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Katie Holmes, Liam Neeson, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer
Director: Christopher Nolan
Genre: Action, Comic, Drama, Thriller
Rating: B-

I’ve been trying to figure out how to write this for a bit, but all that I can actually think of is “na na na na na na na... BATMAN!” which I suspect you are all now doing. I’ve always had a thing for Batman; he’s probably my favourite superhero and definitely the only DC Comics hero that I like. In celebration of the release of the third and final instalment in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy I’ve decided to re-watch the earlier instalments before catching The Dark Knight Rises. Having now dived into Batman Begins I’m almost questioning just why we love this series so much (almost – I know that the answer lies in The Dark Knight). While I’ve watched this movie a few times already it didn’t take me long to realize just how unmemorable Batman Begins was. Sure it’s dark and action packed, but there’s very little about it that’s awe inspiring and nothing really sticks out in your mind once you’ve watched it.

The movie tells the origins of Batman, from Bruce Wayne’s (Bale) initial encounter with bats and the death of his parents, to him making the decision to free Gotham from its criminal underworld, the training that he undertakes in order to be able to do so, and his return to Gotham and the creation of Batman.  While training, Bruce spends time in a Bhutanese prison, where he meets Ducard (Neeson) who offers to train him as a ninja with the League of Shadows, headed by Ra’s al Ghul.  That’s right, Batman is a ninja.  While he trains under Ra and Ducard, he disagrees with their methods and eventually burns their temple down and kills Ra, before returning to Gotham.  Once back at Gotham he enlists the help of long time family butler Alfred Pennyworth (Caine) and high ranking Wayne Enterprises employee Lucius Fox (Freeman), who has been delegated into a dead end job for opposing C.E.O. William Earle (Hauer) in the boardroom.  Bruce and Alfred build Batman’s lair underneath the Wayne mansion, while Fox provides Bruce with the technology needed to make Batman awesome, thus proving that any billionaire ninja can become a crime fighting unit if he has a secret lair.  Later, Batman’s allies are joined by Sergeant James Gordon (Oldman), Gotham’s only uncorrupt police officer.  Batman’s first target is the ruler of the underworld, gangster Carmine Falcone (Wilkinson), but what he doesn’t realize is that psychopharmatologist Dr. Jonathan Crane (Murphy) has an alter-identity as the Scarecrow, and has been dumping fear inducing toxins into Gotham’s water supply.  Oh, also there’s a girl: Rachel Dawes (Holmes), assistant district attorney and Bruce’s childhood friend adds some sexual tension, but really doesn’t become relevant in any way until the end.

There is nothing remarkable about Batman Begins.  It’s not that it’s not a good movie, but in terms of a Batman movie it doesn’t really stand out.  It’s not so horrible that it just sticks in your mind like a really bad dream – that would be Batman and Robin.  It’s not so ridiculous and over the top that you can’t help but love it – that would be the Adam West Batman.  Where Batman Begins is successful is not in the movie itself but in what it succeeds in doing for the Batman franchise and the superhero genre in general.  Previous superhero movies were prone to being campy and very light; look at the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, where you really do expect Spider-Man to say “Gee, golly” as he’s fighting crime.  Batman Begins takes this genre to a whole new level of grittiness.  Gotham is a dark and ugly world, completely free of camp that has haunted other films.  This film is the push that the genre needed in order to give us the far superior superhero movies of the last few years, from The Dark Knight to The Avengers.

Beyond that, the acting is stellar; Christian Bale is awesome, although the voice that he does for, well really both Bruce Wayne and Batman, is a bit ridiculous.  I almost wished that Bale would use his natural voice, although I somehow suspect that Batman with an English accent would have been a lot easier to identify.  He wasn’t the shining star in this movie though, although Bale did succeed in making Batman stand out far more than his adversaries (evidently, the trick to doing that is to make the villains not all that cool).  I think the real stars of this movie were Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman.  Seriously, how can a movie go wrong with these three in it?  It’s kind of messed up when you care more about Alfred the butler than you do about Batman himself, but then that’s been a problem that’s long existed within this franchise.  I love how Caine developed his own backstory before portraying Alfred; it’s never determined in the film itself, but it gives him a deeper sense of who the man is and by extension creates a deeper character.  I got a similar feeling about Oldman and Freeman; they really knew the characters that they were portraying.  It’s also important to note that the accent that Oldman used in this movie, while not his natural one, was far better than the fake accent that Bale used. Come on everyone, say it with me “I’m Batman.”

The Avengers (2012)

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

Genre: Action, Adventure, Comic

Rating: A

The Avengers was awesome.  So far, it’s definitely the best movie that I’ve seen of 2012, and I’ve seen more than a few.  The action was stellar, the special effects great, the comedy subtly genius.  The basic idea of this film was nicely set up in the previous Marvel movies (the Iron Mans, Captain America, Thor, and the Hulks), with the introduction of both many of the characters and the elements that were at play.  My one problem with this movie was that there were still a lot of names that I didn’t really pick up on, because they weren’t really said often enough.  Without doing an internet search I would be unable to tell you the superhero alter ego of Renner’s character.

The premise of the movie is a bit complicated.  Asgardian Loki (Hiddleston) has made a deal with an alien race; in exchange for retrieving the Tesseract he will receive an army that he can use to conquer Earth.  Using his scepter Loki manages to enslave Dr. Erik Slevig (Skarsgård), Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Renner), and several other S.H.E.I.L.D. agents, while also stealing the Tesseract and blowing up S.H.E.I.L.D.’s remote research facility.  S.H.E.I.L.D. director Nick Fury (Jackson) reactivates the “Avengers Initiative” and calls in Tony Stark/Iron Man (Downey), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Evans), Dr. Bruce Banner/Hulk (Ruffalo), and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Johansson).  In the pursuit of Loki they are also joined by Thor (Hemsworth), Loki’s brother and the god of thunder.  The group don’t exactly work well together and are as likely to fight each other as Loki and with the exception of Romanoff none entirely trusts Fury, suspecting him of withholding the entire story.  It is up to the group of them to come together for the greater good, stop Loki, and save the planet.

The best part of a movie like this is the action, and The Avengers doesn’t fail to meet expectations.  It’s an action packed movie, and despite the league of some of the characters none of the fights are one sided.  There’s no moment when the bad guys line up and wait to be slaughtered one-by-one by the good guys, nor does the fact that Thor and Loki are gods make the outcome of a fight rather obvious.  Even the very human Phil Coulson (Gregg) gets a few good shots in.  The space bits were a bit over the top and I have to admit that the alien invasion kind of reminded me of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. 

The second best part of this movie was the cast.  Downey, as always, is stellar as Tony Stark.  I don’t think he was as funny as he was in the Iron Man films, and I would have enjoyed a little more between him and Pepper Potts, although his interactions with Jarvis did make up for it a bit.  Seeing him squaring off with Captain America, Loki, and Thor really gave us an idea of just how powerful Iron Man is, and for the first time he seemed to really be up against an opponent who is his match.  I liked Captain America more in this film than I did in Captain America, although I do hope that by the next movie he’s gotten an upgrade on his uniform.  I think I liked Thor more in Thor, although part of that is because he’s quieter and more stoic than the other Avengers and thus fades a bit when in a larger group.  Hiddleston makes an amazing villain; I spent part of the movie hoping for his sake that he doesn’t look as creepy in real life as he does when he’s playing Loki.  His timing was amazing, I just wish that he hadn’t been wearing that horrible horned helmet for so much of the film.  I enjoyed both Johansson and Renner’s characters, and I liked that the Black Widow was utilized more – I’d like to see standalone films for them in the future.  I’d also love to see a standalone film for Nick Fury.  Smulders character left me wanting more – it was nicely acted, I just found myself questioning who she was every time she appeared on screen (did they even mention her by name?).  I didn’t really care for Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner, although he’s not my least favourite Bruce Banner.  When Stark asks Banner if he smokes pot I was waiting for him to say yes.  Ruffalo, however, had the distinction of playing two very different characters, and while his Banner was lacking his Hulk was amazing – easily the best part of this movie.  It says a lot about an actor when he manages to make the Hulk funny.