Man of Steel: A Spolier-Thick, Dissenting Opinion

by Will Nepper

We’ll get this out of the way first: I know that Christopher Reeves is dead and I did ‘get over it.’ (Mostly.) I’m also aware this is ‘not Donner’s Superman.’ (What is?) And finally, the fact that I really enjoyed Superman Returns may render my opinion invalid in your eyes. In fact, that may’ve been enough to stop you from reading further. I can live with that.

(What I can’t live with? A “World Machine” for starters, but more on that later.)

On the positive end of the spectrum, there is a lot to like about Man of Steel. That, perhaps, is what makes the entire experience so frustrating.  The problem isn’t that it isn’t Donner’s Superman; it’s not even Superman’s Superman.

I enjoyed Kevin Costner, Diane Lane (even though, she wasn’t given much to do but beam proudly and look concerned) and almost all of the Smallville-era Kent family backstory, particularly moments where a young Clark becomes overwhelmed by his super senses in the classroom. His struggle to keep his powers a secret in the face of bullies presents some solid moments – some of the best in the Superman movie history.

Unfortunately, those moments make up about 20 percent of MoS, serve an origin story that we don’t really need and leave two hours of running time open to completely botch the rest of the job with increasingly boring battles and no real sense of peril or characterization.

I admit that I prefer my Superman movies with a bit of humor and characters that smile from time to time. (Henry Cavill smiles once or twice during the two-hour-plus epic.) But I’m willing to sacrifice all of that on the Fan Boy Alter because those aren’t Superman-story necessities. There have been plenty of “dark” story lines for the Last Son of Krypton and he can’t always maintain the boy-scout-in-blue attitude that many of his older fans (…Who has two thumbs and is an ‘older fan?’…) are accustomed to. Fair enough.

HOWEVER.

If you can’t see that this incarnation of Superman was built around the fan boy gripe that Superman Returns didn’t have enough punching in it, your brown-tinted, grit-covered Chris Nolan glasses may be blinding you.

We’ll never know (well, until we hear a DVD commentary) who’s most responsible for which of MoS’s problems, but I’m sure there’s plenty of blame to go around. The convoluted Kryptonian story components are almost certainly the fruits of Nolan’s influence. The static, unrelenting stake-free action sequences – well, those reek of Snyder’s style. For example: the fast zoom-in-zoom-out moments (to give you the POV of a flying Nikon, I guess) and the terrible pacing. (Snyder blew his wad on his remake of Dawn of the Dead as far as I’m concerned.)

Let’s scratch beneath the surface to the spoiler-y list of gripes I have with MoS and how they keep the movie from being the “Superman movie I’ve been waiting for.”

1. Lois Lane, as played by Amy Adams, looks more Lana Lang than spunky reporter and her character plays more like a History Channel “History’s Mysteries” sleuth than a “Pulitzer-prize-winning reporter.” In fact, there’s no evidence that she’s much of a reporter at all considering that she spends the entire movie tracking one story she’s been told to drop in favor of, you know, news. I’d say she’s miscast, but I don’t think Adams is the problem. Her LL is written as bland, and LL has never been bland. Adams singing scene in The Muppets was a showstopper and she was the only actor to rise above the material in the god-awful The Master. Her relationship with Superman – if we can call him that (Nobody does until the last reel and even then, only once.) –seems to have developed off-screen. I won’t say there’s a lack of chemistry between the two leads because we never get an opportunity to see for ourselves. The movie shifts back and forth in time and jumps to a new scene whenever things start to actually get interesting. To be fair, Superman Returns had some major Lois Lane problems too. (She was played by a woefully miscast Kate Bosworth and was Superman’s baby mama. Whaaaaa?!)

2. Krypton occupies waaaaay too much of MoS – even after we leave it – and this is a huge miscalculation where story is concerned. EVERYthing is explained to no substantial effect.  What’s accomplished in the early scenes on Krypton could easily be chopped down to about 5 minutes without leaving us wanting or needing more. It would kick start the flick with some action-movie pacing rather than serve as a bloated Krypton history lesson. It doesn’t help that Krypton is … well, brown – like a cross between the sets of Dune, The Neverending Story and the Dark Crystal dropped into Nolan’s Gotham City. And the flying monsters, like the one Russel Crowe’s Jor-El hops on? They only served to remind me of a similar moment in a Star Wars prequels (they blur together for me) where Obi Wan mounts a similar CGI beastie eliciting similar groans from me.

The meat of these scenes is our introduction to this movie’s Zod, which is necessary but also problematic when this particular villain’s agenda is revealed and we learn how, in some ways, he’s a more sympathetic enemy than he is pure evil. He’s a Krytonian patriot just as he was genetically engineered. That means this dye was cast without his say, making him less a big meanie than a diligent servant of his race. Kal-El, on the other hand, is the only Kryptonian capable of free will. He faces tough decisions, can weigh the pros and cons, and act accordingly. Everyone else (including bred-for-science, Jor-El) is just doing the Gattaca shuffle his or her destiny demands. This leads me to another major gripe:

3. Superman does not snap necks. He never kills unless he’s left no alternative, and he almost ALWAYS finds an alternative because he’s super smart and calculating. (How many times has he outwitted confirmed genius, Lex Luthor?) Unlike Batman, Supes is a lover, not a fighter. Where DC’s second banana (kidding, Steve-O!) (… Even though he totally is … ) is a vigilante, Superman is more in the business of being a rescuer. His priority: protecting the people of the world (and the individuals within earshot of his super hearing). When Faora (Ursa 2.0) announces that: “You will not win. For every human you save, we will kill a million more,” she nails it because in that way, the bad guys DO win. Her prediction proves correct and though Zod and Co. don’t walk away with the store, they certainly rack up what must be a substantial body count. Remember what 9-11 did to this country? Imagine where the country’s head would be under the rubble of a completely trashed Metropolis. (It’s going to take Smallville several years to rebuild as well, and forget about a late night trip to IHOP for a while.) Superman would never let that pass. He would find a way to save as many people as possible AND save the planet, because HE’S SUPERMAN!

Not to kick it all nostalgic, but remember in Superman II when the panic-stricken Superman pleads with Ursa to rethink throwing the city bus full of people? He knows that a big Metropolis showdown between four superfolk would create a lot of collateral damage, so he leads the bad guys away from the city to battle them where they’ll do less damage. (The Artic was a good choice.) Instead we’re forced to endure a battle of indestructible Gods in which all the real damage is done to the city and its residents. Instead of outsmarting the villain, Superman breaks Zod’s neck and screams.

[An aside: On the topic of collateral damage: What the fuck, Hollywood? I had this gripe with The Avengers and Star Trek Into Darkness too. Our primary characters go unharmed while millions of simple city folk are squished under demolished buildings and thrown cars. I don’t need realism. I don’t require that we dwell on these things, but it would be nice to feel like something is at stake for once. We KNOW the good guy is going to win, but at what cost? That question is never answered because we never get an inkling of suffering despite the mass destruction. Even if we could just hear an off-screen newscast reporting: “Millions dead as Metropolis comes tumbling down like a lost game of Jenga, because a battle we have nothing to do with is being waged in our city by aliens, one of whom is supposed to be the good guy despite his inability to strategize.”]

Within minutes of Zod’s snapped neck, which, it would seem, indicates Supe’s victory, we make a rare visit to The Daily Planet, which looks to be in pretty damn good condition after the battle waged there. Did city engineers start reconstruction with The Daily Planet (a PRINT publication)? Instead of, like, schools? Things look like they’re back to business as usual, though we know outside Perry White’s windows are dead bodies trapped under the rubble left by a battle between two indestructible forces. Unless we’re to believe several years pass between the two scenes, and I’m pretty sure we’re not.

4. Lazy writing. Allowing Pa Kent to be swept away by a tornado is laughably lazy writing and makes no goddamned sense besides.  Seriously, I laughed. It was the ONE TIME in his young life that Clark could have used his powers without it being detected by others. (–Even though Papa Costner forbids him, I bet Pa would be rethinking that stupid move as he free falls through the roof of a Smallville hardware store when the tornado eventually drops him.) But he let’s Dad’s raised hand force him back under the overpass? Maybe Clark just didn’t love him enough. I’d like to think that Ma, would immediately have slapped the shit out of Clark after that scene. “What the fuck?! He was your dad, dumbass!”

In Superman: The Movie, it’s important and pivotal when the elder Kent dies of a heart attack because “even with all of these powers, I still couldn’t save him.” Teachable lesson there, Kal – and one that will inform many of your future decisions as a protector of “truth, justice and the American way.” (In the Donner version anyway.)

Also, Snyder wants us to believe that Kal kills Zod because he had no choice! Zod was gonna heat-vision that family to death!

So, only then he finds the strength to do effective bodily harm to Zod? This after they’ve been having an aerial fistfight in which they sustain virtually no damage? Again: lazy writing that caters to the demand for more punching!  Lazy writing made worse by the fact that Zod just made the case that he’s protecting what he was genetically engineered to protect. That’s not evil enough for a main villain. It’s pitiable. He’s not sadistic or cruel so much as he’s trying to maintain what he sees as “the greater good” even if he’s crazy, angry and misguided. But think about it: If Earth people had to relocate to another populated planet, we’d totally take over and think nothing of dropping a Target and Starbucks smack dab in the center of the alien planet’s red-sun-worshipping sacred ground.

5. Kryptonian jargon. It’s confusing, useless and poorly named. The only thing sillier than Kevin Costner being whisked away like Dorothy is all of the jargony, macguffiny, mumbo jumbo about things like a “codex” and (God help me) a “world engine.” I get that the villains are up to terraforming Earth into Krypton II, but did we need knowledge of Kryptonian science to make this effective? (I’m not saying bring back the crystals, but didn’t they do the job without us having to know exactly what they were doing?) Also did we need over-explanation of the House-of-El family crest? I mean, it works, but that was also done in Superman: The Movie – without the need for dialogue exposition I might add. Can’t we, the audience, sort that shit out for ourselves?

While they’re at it, why not explain why Kryptonians speak English? And have “military generals” that say things like: “Where did you train? –on a farm?!” Because it’s unnecessary. Like Star Wars prequel politics, we stop paying attention to what it all means halfway through the movie because we don’t care. A full season of Battlestar Galactica had less in-your-face fiction-based science.

6. Important elements left out. Most disappointing – and fatal, I think, to MoS’s potential acceptance by his *ahem* older fans – is what’s missing. I’m guessing a lot of this is to stretch the origin story even further into the inevitable sequel, by waiting to introduce REPORTER, Clark Kent, as a coda before the credits. For all the bitching fans seem to do about superhero movies being oversaturated with origin stories, this makes no sense. (It’s the ol’ Prometheus switcheroo, where we know there will be another movie or why else put Guy Pierce under all of that terrible old man makeup?) Without Clark Kent, the intrepid, mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Planet, there’s no signature Superman transformation to get a kid’s heart racing. It also means no real fun with glasses, double identities and the balancing act required to keep reporter and hero separate entities in the eyes of the public and, most importantly, Lois Lane.

Does NO ONE else have a problem with the fact that, throughout most of the movie, Lois is fully aware that Clark Kent and Kal-El are one and the same? It’s one of the primary tropes of the Superman mythos and it’s snuffed out, and what’s worse: for no discernible reason. (Will he be giving her one of those Superman II-style Forget Me Now kisses to reboot her memory later?) Lois seems to exist solely to be rescued by Superman, awkwardly bridge scenes and provide a quasi-romantic moment in the last act so that our two primaries can share a head-scratching kiss that is completely unearned by the story’s wobbly narrative.

Finally, a word about the inexplicably maligned Superman Returns:

What’s everyone’s beef with it? Brandon Routh’s performance was spot-on and the character, well developed. Yes, it used Donner’s movies as a jumping off point but I was glad. It wasn’t a sequel so much as it existed in the same universe. Donner directed most of Superman II before the Salkinds replaced him, mid-shoot, with British director, Richard Lester, who admitted to not giving a shit about Superman and who specializes in comedy.

Snyder and Nolan don’t seem to give much of a shit about Superman either. Thus, we get a stoic, humorless hero and a soulless movie that seems hell-bent on being different for difference-sake. “Let’s make Perry White … BLACK! Let’s modify the costume almost completely! And let’s make the final battle … Well, can we go bigger than The Avengers? Let’s try! … And don’t forget! MORE PUNCHING!”

MoS’s flying sequences are the most well rendered of any Superman movie – I’ll give it that. And Cavill looks great in the cape (and there’s less wrong with his performance than there is with the writing of the character), but there’s more to Superman than that. And Team MoS doesn’t seem to understand or care. They just want to out-action every Superman movie that came before and it’s obviously priority one.

I think the lesson to be learned here is an easy one. Superman is a tough hero to bring to the big screen, now more than ever. Different times require different movie heroes. (It’s why post-Last Crusade Indiana Jones movies can’t be done right. It’s why the return of Star Wars is/was a lost cause. And there’s a reason Bill Murray is telling Dan Akroyd to fuck off with his Ghostbusters III dream.) Someone got Superman right once.  For my money, SR came close for many pre-millennial fans. (And critics. Note the 75% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes compared to MoS’s “rotten” 57% … but who pays attention to critics? … oh … wait. Nevermind.)  MoS seems to be pleasing younger audiences with the spectacle of its relentless battle scenes, spaceships (Spaceships?!), mass destruction and thin characterization. I don’t blame them though because that’s consistent with the movie heroes they’ve grown up with. (See: Transformers) Perhaps it’s time to just accept facts: No one is ever going to make a modern Superman movie that works for everyone. I’m of the belief it just can’t be done and I hope to God people stop trying. (Not likely.)

As for a Justice League movie? Just say no.

Grade: C

Man of Steel (2013)

by Steve Habrat

With Christopher Nolan making the decision to bring his Batman trilogy to an apocalyptic close and 2011s The Green Lantern bombing horribly at the box office, DC Comics has been forced to turn to their last A-list hero in a final attempt to hang with comic book juggernaut Marvel Studios. Now we have Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, a gritty and epic reboot that is the Superman film we deserved way back in 2006. DC Comics made a grave mistake when they allowed Bryan Singer to craft another sequel to Christopher Reeve’s Superman films of the late 70s and 80s, a flub that has actually ended up hurting Snyder’s breathtaking reboot of the big blue boy scout. Man of Steel has taken quite a bit of negative criticism for its decent into massive action set pieces in the final stretch of its runtime, something that Singer wasn’t as eager to do in his wandering effort. The fact is that Man of Steel is seven years too late and it is entering a market that has been saturated by Marvel Studios. If this film would have been released in 2006, I guarantee it would have been met with as much praise as 2005s Batman Begins. That being said, Man of Steel is still a powerful entry into the superhero genre, a film that is perfectly grand for a true-blue do-gooder. It completely rejects the sunny optimism of the previous Superman entries and embraces a heavy heart of darkness that many fans may not be quick to warm to. In my opinion, it is just what the legendary superhero needed.

Man of Steel begins on the planet Krypton, with the wise scientist Jor-El (played by Russell Crowe) and his wife, Lara (played by Ayelet Zurer), giving birth to a baby boy they name Kal-El. With the planet of Krypton doomed to destruction, Jor-El and Lara send their son off to Earth, where he will have a chance for a survival. Meanwhile, General Zod (played by Michael Shannon), the military leader of Krypton, attempts to take over the planet with a handful of loyal followers including the vicious Faora (played by Antje Traue). Zod’s attempt to overthrow Krypton’s counsel is prevented and as punishment, he and his followers are banished to the Phantom Zone. Thirty-three years later, Clark Kent (played by Henry Cavill) is a mysterious drifter with superhuman abilities. He largely remains in the shadows, working odd jobs and occasionally saving people from horrific accidents. Word gets out about a mysterious object found in the ice in the Artic, which catches the attention of Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Lois Lane (played by Amy Adams). Lois sets out to do a piece on the mysterious object, but as she snoops around the dig, she comes face to face with Clark, who has also taken an interest in the object. After Lois is injured, Clark narrowly saves her life and then disappears. Shaken by what she has seen, she begins digging into rumors about a drifter who always seems to be in the right place at the right time. Clark, meanwhile, uncovers secrets about where he came from and learns about his superhuman abilities.

Almost instantly, Snyder, screenwriter David S. Goyer, and producer Christopher Nolan set their vision of Superman apart from the previous attempts through a gritty and emotionally riveting stage setter on the crumbling planet of Krypton. Gone is Donner’s neon crystal environment and in its place is a gunmetal gray landscape full of zippy spaceships and roaring and soaring alien beasts. There is plenty of exposition about Krypton and it is spiced up through bone-snapping fistfights and blaring explosions that dwarf anything we saw in Superman Returns. While this sequence ends in tragedy, there is still plenty of optimism from Crowe’s Jor-El, who is convinced that Kal-El will be a god to the people of Earth. When Snyder shifts clumsily to Earth, Nolan’s gloomy cinematic fingerprints begin to emerge. The filmmakers take their time working up to Superman’s big reveal, spinning a soulful tale of a man who is completely at odds with his abilities. To make things worse on the guy, he is entering a post-9/11 world that trembles in fear over the very idea of a man that can glide over the clouds. Despite numerous attempts to convince us that he means no harm, he is still met with suspicious eyes from the jumpy U.S. government.

The most pivotal part of Man of Steel is Henry Cavill’s performance as Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman. Cavill is absolutely excellent as an outcast who has been warned not to reveal his superhuman abilities to the world. He wants to help any way he can but the fear of rejection hangs heavy over his head. Cavill uses his eyes to convey this constant vulnerability and confusion, looking to the stars and his earthly father, Jonathan Kent (played by Kevin Costner), for guidance. While the new vulnerability is great, wait until you get a load of him in a fight. There is a surging intensity and almost a pulsing anger buried deep within his character that was completely unexpected. When Cavill is finally allowed to stop brooding, it is easy to see why he was chosen for the role. He is just bursting with all-American charm and he certainly is a warm figure of hope, even if he isn’t relegated to saving a kitten from a tree or helping an old lady across a busy Metropolis street. No, this Superman has bigger fish to fry when Shannon’s General Zod comes calling. We all know that Shannon can go fully crazy when he wants, and he certainly does get a little nuts with General Zod, but there is a measured insanity to his performance. He is a man driven by the love of his planet and he will stop at nothing to carry out his mission.

Then we have Amy Adams as the no-nonsense Lois Lane, who early on proves that she can hang tough in a room full of guys. Her strength and determination is certainly well played, but near the end of the film, her character is slowly shifted to damsel in distress, which was a bit disappointing. There was also a lack of build up in her romance with Supes, which sort of felt stuffed in there because it had to be. They share plenty of scenes but that spark just didn’t seem to be there. As far as Kevin Costner goes, he shines as Jonathan Kent, Clark’s adoptive father who constantly warns Clark against revealing his powers to the world. He shares a scene with the teen that is guaranteed to send chills down your spine. Russell Crowe is strong and sturdy as Jor-El, Clark’s biological father who believes that his son will be the Christ-like savior that Earth needs. Laurence Fishburne shows promise as the stern Daily Planet editor Perry White, a small role but one that I feel will be elaborated on in future installments. Diane Lane is affectionate and understanding as Martha Kent, who has to walk and talk a terrified Clark through his emerging abilities. Antje Traue is wickedly evil as Zod’s right hand woman Faora, who snarls threats like, “for every one you save, we’ll kill a million more.” Now THAT is a threat if I’ve ever heard one.

When Man of Steel finally ditches all the character building, the film dives into a climatic battle that is fittingly colossal for Superman. There is an adrenaline pumping battle in the streets of Smallville and the end man-a-mano between General Zod and Superman in the streets of Metropolis laughs at every superhero finale that has come before it. As far as criticisms go, there are a few plot holes that are difficult to ignore and Clark’s education about his home planet and abilities from a holographic Jor-El seems a bit brushed over. There are also a few lines of dialogue that will make you giggle and not in a good way. I should also mention that Snyder bashes us over the head with the Christ references, something that Singer was also guilty of. In case you don’t see the similarities between Jesus Christ and Superman, wait for the scene that finds Clark Kent wandering into a church and confiding in a nervous priest. Overall, while it isn’t perfect, Man of Steel certainly sets the stage for a refreshed Superman franchise for our dark times. It has a unique hand-held visual style and features a pounding score that only Hans Zimmer could provide. Snyder, Goyer, and Nolan successfully manage to wash away the sour taste that Singer left in our mouths and leave us wanting more from the hero that stands for truth, justice, and the American way.

Grade: B+

Favorite Superhero Film of Summer… GO!

VS.

VS.

It’s an royal rumble! Marvel unleashed their A-team on DC’s caped crusader and the battle between who was the best rages on. Personally, I have liked all three of the blockbuster superhero films that have smashed their way into theaters this summer but I’m going to have to go with The Dark Knight Rises being my favorite. What can I say? I’m a Batman fan! Anyways, I hope everyone has loved the Anti-Film School’s July Superhero Takeover. There are a few more reviews on the way in these final days of the month so stay tuned. A review of Hellboy II: The Golden Army will be up tomorrow. In the meanwhile, let us know what you favorite was! Everyone has an opinion.

Video Review: The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Video review of the new Batman film The Dark Knight Rises. This was a tough film to discuss due to content that many may label as spoilers. I really tried to avoid revealing anything that will ruin the experience so please do not judge the video too harshly. Also, my heart goes out to the victims of the shooting in Colorado. It is a shame that someone had to ruin something that was meant to be fun and exciting. My deepest sympathies are with the families of the victims.

-Steve

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

by Steve Habrat

It is finally here, folks! One of the most anticipated films of all time is finally crashing into theaters and everyone is dying to know if it lives up to the sky high expectations that have been set by critics, fanboys, and average moviegoers alike. Well folks, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, the final installment in his wildly prevalent Batman franchise, does live up to the gigantic expectations. In fact, it lives up to those expectations and then blows them to smithereens. If you can believe it, Nolan manages to craft a film that is bleaker and darker than anything he came up with in his shadowy origin tale or his chilling bridge film. This goes way beyond dark territory and dives headlong into black no man’s land. Nolan pits our flesh and blood hero against a foe that he is no match for and throws in an evil plot to end all other evil plots. Raising the bar even higher than he did with 2008’s showstopper The Dark Knight, Nolan once again begins tinkering with the formula of the superhero movie and what he conjures up is a mammoth ogre of a film that finds itself intrigued with our unshakeable fear of terrorism in our post 9/11 world. It could be called a rehash but Nolan is witty enough to put the lives of hundreds of thousands on the line and with a number like that, there is no way everyone can survive.

I won’t provide too much about the plot in this review so I will stick to the barebones basics. Eight years after the Joker brought Gotham City to its knees, crime has been almost completely scrubbed away from the streets of Gotham. The city still mourns the death of their “white knight” Harvey Dent, who was driven insane by the Clown Prince of Crime and went on a killing spree that left several individuals dead. In an attempt to keep hope alive in Gotham, Batman (Played by Christian Bale) has taken the fall for Dent’s crimes and disappeared from the city. Commissioner Jim Gordon (Played by Gary Oldman) has been grappling with the fact that he has been feeding the public lies and finds himself on the verge of revealing the true Harvey Dent to the citizens of Gotham. Bruce Wayne, who is still licking the wounds he suffered at the hands of Dent and the Joker, stays locked away inside Wayne Manor, which has now been rebuilt. Wayne is shaken out of retirement after he stumbles upon a vampy burglar by the name of Selina Kyle (Played by Anne Hathaway) making off with his mother’s necklace. As Bruce begins to investigate Kyle’s background, he discovers a much larger plot to destroy Gotham City. This plot is being led by the terrifying mercenary Bane (Played by Tom Hardy), who is diligently building an army below the streets of Gotham, waiting for the proper moment to emerge and turn the city to ash.

Dropping the thriller routine that he was fond of in The Dark Knight, Nolan crafts a large-scale disaster epic that leaves our hero scrambling to gather all the help he can find. He discovers that he may be able to trust Kyle, who is desperate to erase her rocky past any way she can. Batman also finds that he can trust Gotham City beat cop Detective John Blake (Played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an admirer of Batman’s efforts to clean up the city. He also finds help in the usual suspects Lucius Fox (Played by Morgan Freeman), his gadgets man, Commissioner Gordon, and Alfred Pennyworth (Played by Michael Caine), his trusty butler. While The Dark Knight Rises slowly evolves from disaster film into war epic, Nolan bombards the viewer with countless images of destruction and devastation that settles in the pit of your stomach like a rock. We’ve all seen the scenes of the football field collapsing and the overhead shots of bridges getting blown to hell, but that doesn’t soften their impact, especially when Hans Zimmer’s rumbling score joins in. It is through heavy scenes like this that you have to wonder if these new alliances will even make a ripple against Bane’s tidal wave of terror.

While The Dark Knight Rises has plenty of jaw-dropping action sequences, the film is carried off into greatness by the performances of everyone involved. The standouts are definitely the new kids on the block, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The one who steals the movie (fitting for her character) is Hathaway’s Selina Kyle, who is never once referred to as Catwoman. A Robin Hood figure dressed in a black body suit and goggles, Kyle is firecracker as she slinks through this boys show. She gets a kick out of seducing rich men and then taking them for all that they have. While Hathaway is great, she gets some competition from Hardy’s Bane, a hulking terrorist with a fang-like gas mask bolted to his face. While Hardy is given the nearly impossible task of following up Heath Ledger’s Joker, he holds his own as an equally sadistic “liberator” who manhandles anyone who tries to go up against him. Rounding out the new kids is Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s beat cop Blake, a good guy who catches the attention of Commissioner Gordon, and Marion Cotillard’s Miranda Tate, a Wayne Enterprises investor who is desperately trying to shake Bruce Wayne out of his funk.

Then we have the veterans who all exit Gotham City in plenty of style. Bale shines even brighter here as Wayne, now a gaunt recluse who has shut himself out of the world in the wake of what the Joker took from him. You will want to stand up and cheer when Bruce finally leaves the halls of Wayne Manor and hits the streets once again as the Batman. As Batman, Bale brings a ferocity that we haven’t yet seen from him as Batman. We briefly glimpsed it in the interrogation scene in The Dark Knight but here; Batman is a predator that is foaming at the mouth. Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox jumps at the opportunity to get Bruce back in the crime fighting game. He gets to unveil Batman’s latest “wonderful toy” The Bat, a prototype flying machine that is beyond nifty. Caine’s Alfred gets the most emotional moments of the film as he pleads with Bruce to not confront this new evil that is ripping Gotham to shreds. He gets one specific scene with Bruce Wayne that will hit you in the gut like a wrecking ball. Then there is Oldman’s Gordon, who is suffering from the fib he has told about Harvey Dent. You will fight back geeky applause when Batman and Gordon finally reunite after eight years.

Sadly, The Dark Knight Rises does have a few flaws, which are mildly distracting. One in particularly really bothered me but I won’t reveal it here because many may label it a spoiler. There is also one character that is left slightly undeveloped, which was a shame because it would have improved the twist at the end of the film. Despite the flaws, Nolan once again holds up a gritty reflection of our current political backdrop. While I don’t think it was intentional, Nolan touches upon the Occupy Wall Street movement and the 99% rising up against the 1%. The film was written just slightly before the protests but you have to hand it to Nolan for picking up on the tensions. He also can’t resist touching upon terrorism, the theme even heavier here than it was in The Dark Knight. While I am reluctant to say too much about the film because the less you know going in, the better it will be, I can promise you that the last hour of this film is why we go to the movies. You will fight the urge to leap out of your seat and throw air punches as Batman and Bane battle for the fate of Gotham City. I’ll admit that I was fighting back tears in the final moments of the film, Nolan wrapping everything up in the finest way possible, which meant the world to this Batfan. While its few flaws may make it fall short of being a masterpiece, The Dark Knight Rises is easily the best Batman film ever made, the best blockbuster of the summer, and the best film of 2012 so far. If you want my opinion, epic doesn’t even scratch the surface of what Nolan has delivered here. It is a commanding tour de force that will almost make you forget to breathe. A must-see.

Grade: A

The Dark Knight (2008)

by Steve Habrat

After seeing 2005’s Batman Begins, I was convinced that director Christopher Nolan would be unable to top what he did in the arresting stage setter. The impossible was proved very possible when Nolan unleashed his darkest vision yet in 2008. The Dark Knight was a white-hot comic book thriller that blazed across the movie screen with such power, it was almost sublime. With The Dark Knight, Nolan not only raised the bar for any comic book film to come in its wake, but he also unleashed the late Heath Ledger’s Joker, a brilliant and demented demon of a villain that was the truest portrayal of the Clown Prince of Crime yet. The film was labeled a must-see for Ledger’s performance alone, many forgetting to even concentrate on the blistering story that left audience members traumatized by the end of the film. Nolan weaves a spellbinding crime epic that steamrolls the viewer with its constant twists and turns throughout its epic runtime of two and a half hours. And the real beauty of all of this? The film is a massively bleak superhero movie that doesn’t find our hero triumphing over the evil thrown his way. It was such a bold move on Nolan’s part and handled with such subtlety that many may have missed the fact that Batman didn’t walk away the victor.

For the three people out there who haven’t seen The Dark Knight, here is brief rundown of the overall plot. Set shortly after the events of Batman Begins, Batman (Played by Christian Bale) and Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Played by Gary Oldman) have the scum of Gotham City shaking in their boots. There also happens to be a new D.A. in town by the name of Harvey Dent (Played by Aaron Eckhart), who is anxious to join Batman and Gordon’s war on crime. Running out of options, the mob finds themselves approached by The Joker (Played by Heath Ledger), a sadistic killer in clown make-up who guarantees the jumpy thugs that he can flush Batman out of the shadows and kill him. The mob reluctantly agrees to accept his offer but they soon learn the error of their ways when the Joker is let loose on the streets of Gotham. As the body count rises, the Joker demands that Batman take off his mask and show the world who he really is. Refusing to give in to the demands of the unhinged terrorist, Bruce Wayne approaches Wayne Enterprises CEO Lucius Fox (Played by Morgan Freeman) to provide him a slew of new gadgets that will help him battle the Joker. With the Joker refusing to give in and growing more powerful with each passing second, Batman realizes that the only way to stop this scarred madman is to break his one rule and kill the Joker.

When it was announced that Heath Ledger would be playing the Joker, the news was met with mixed opinions. Many were intrigued, but they didn’t feel the actor would be able to topple the work that Jack Nicholson did in 1989. Others were downright horrified that this pretty boy actor would be tackling one of the most iconic villains of all time. I definitely fell into the first group until I saw a few leaked photos of the late actor with his face smeared with some of the most ghoulish make-up imaginable. It looked absolutely perfect to the point that I didn’t even care if his skin wasn’t permawhite. That was the LAST thing on my mind. Then I saw the first trailer and I was instantly sold. Ledger gives such a detailed performance that it almost takes a few viewings to really catch all the small details. His performance takes hold in his eyes, which appear to be black with evil. He smoothes back his greasy locks of grown out green hair while he consistently sucks at the bubbly scars that contort his mouth into a horrific smile. When he speaks, every word he snarls sounds like he is mocking the person he is speaking to and he always has a come back. He is an unpredictable force that really grabs you by the shorthairs.

While Ledger steals the show, Bale once again really delivers something special. He slips back into Bruce Wayne with ease while Nolan encourages him to really expand his character. Here we really see Bruce’s mixed emotions about the Batsuit and the toll it is taking both physically and mentally. His physical body looks shredded, bruised, battered, and bloody. He sleeps through meetings at Wayne Enterprises and groans while putting a dress shirt on as he explains to Alfred that Batman has no limits. When the Joker emerges on the scene, things really get brutal for Bruce, especially when the Joker begins claiming lives of those who are close with Bruce. The control that Ra’s Al Ghul taught him in the previous film begins to slide wildly off the rails. Just wait until the Batman interrogates the Joker in one of The Dark Knight’s most intense sequences. The only thing keeping Bruce on the right track is Alfred (Played by Michael Caine), who once again acts as the fatherly voice of reason. He continues to push Bruce, even when things go from bad to absolutely awful. It is the small moments between Alfred and Bruce that cut the deepest.

Then we have Eckhart’s Harvey Dent, who is always unfairly overlooked when anyone talks about The Dark Knight. The emotional decay that consumed Harvey over the course of The Dark Knight is absolutely hypnotic. He starts out as such a stand-up guy and it is easy to like him. He keeps his square jaw held high in the air, even as one mobster after another takes shots at him. His slip into evil is perhaps the most heartbreaking aspect of this entire film. Maggie Gyllenhaal steps in for Katie Holmes as the love of Bruce and Harvey’s life, Rachel Dawes. Gyllenhaal is a much stronger actress and Nolan continues to ease her around the clichéd damsel in distress. She gets a terrifying stare down with the Joker that finds him strutting up to her, sticking a knife against her cheek, and whispering, “Wanna know how I got these scars?” Oldman does more outstanding work as Gordon, the last good cop in Gotham City who is forced to turn on his ally over the course of The Dark Knight. This time around, he is filled with even more desperation and grit to try to turn the city around. Rounding out the all-star cast is Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox, who is forced to join Batman’s unending battle with the Joker. He is another character who begins to question his relationship with Bruce/Batman, but he is also faced with the same task as Alfred—keeping Bruce in the fight.

The Dark Knight is loaded with enough earth shaking action that will blow your mind. There is a somersaulting semi here and stomach churning mass evacuation of Gotham there. The set pieces are bigger, all due to the stunning use of IMAX cameras that filmed multiple action scenes. The stage is set with an edge-of-your-seat bank robbery that still manages to floor the viewer, even if they have seen it multiple times. The Dark Knight also manages to be smarter than its predecessor, really going heavy with the cracked reflection of our post 9/11 world. It asks moral questions about fighting terrorism, touching on surveillance and torture. What lengths should we go to dealing with terrorism? The Joker also becomes a purple-suited reflection of Osama bin Laden, a horrifying force that suddenly pops up to wreck havoc, leaving twisted wreckage in his wake as he giggles over other’s pain. This reflection really becomes obvious when the Joker begins making threats to keep Gotham City gripped in chaos. Nolan is also interested in ideas of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. “You and I are destined to do this forever,” says the Joker to Batman. He means it too. The Dark Knight manages to be the defining film of the Bush era and a shaky snapshot of our paranoid times. Smarter, darker, and downright unforgettable, this is Nolan’s masterpiece, a film with an art house approach and a blockbuster scale. The Dark Knight proves that superhero films can be high art and can have profound things to say about society. This is, was, and ever shall be a game changer of a movie.

Grade: A+

The Dark Knight is available on Blu-ray and DVD.

Batman Begins (2005)

by Steve Habrat

After Joel Schumacher and the money hungry Warner Bros. put the final bullet in the Batman franchise in 1997, the character lay dormant for many years at the studio, sitting on the shelf collecting dust. Every so often, rumors would emerge that the studio was trying to get a Batman project off the ground but you knew nothing would come of any of these rumors. There were also whispers of a Batman/Superman mash-up but that was also unlikely due to how long Superman had been sitting on the bench. Plus, if you even mentioned Batman in a normal conversation, it was followed up by laughs and eye rolling. Then the news came that upcoming filmmaker Christopher Nolan, the director of solid but small thrillers like Memento and Insomnia, was planning to reboot the Batman franchise and take it back to its darker roots. This was glorious news to anyone who was a Batman fan. In 2005, the world was graced with Batman Begins, a darker, meaner, and deadly serious adaptation of the Dark Knight that stayed furiously true to the DC comic book origins of the character. Audiences were a bit hesitant to flock to the film at first but as positive word of mouth leaked out, Batman Begins slowly became a big hit. It was a hit that made up for the Batman & Robin atrocity while also proving to both mainstream audiences and Batfans that there is still plenty of life (and brains) in this masked vigilante. It was untapped potential that the world would be starving for, they just didn’t know it yet.

In the wake of the death of his parents, millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne (Played by Christian Bale) travels the world to study the behavior of criminals. He is soon detained in Asia where he meets the mysterious Henri Ducard (Played by Liam Neeson), who works for a shadowy organization called the League of Shadows. Ducard promises to train Bruce in ways of battling crime and if he can make it through the grueling training, he can join the League of Shadows, which is led by the equally peculiar Ra’s Al Ghul (Played by Ken Watanabe). Bruce makes it through his training but as he discovers the sinister true intentions of Ra’s Al Ghul and the League of Shadows, he escapes and heads back to Gotham City, where he is reunited with his faithful butler Alfred Pennyworth (Played by Michael Caine). Once he lands in Gotham, Bruce reveals to Alfred his master plan for saving Gotham City, which is gripped by organized crime and corruption. Bruce also tries to work his way back into the family company, Wayne Enterprises, which is slowly deteriorating at the hands of slippery CEO William Earle (Played by Rutger Hauer). Once back at Wayne Enterprises, Bruce meets longtime family friend Lucius Fox (Played by Morgan Freeman), who shows Bruce a number of prototype weapons that were shelved by Wayne Enterprises. With access to a slew of nifty gadgets and Alfred and Lucius on his side, Bruce puts together his alter ego that he plans to use to strike fear in the criminals of Gotham City. He also begins trying to form an alliance with Sergeant Jim Gordon (Played by Gary Oldman), the last good cop in Gotham City who hasn’t given in to corruption. With all the pieces in place, Bruce hits the streets as the masked vigilante Batman and his war on injustice begins.

Throughout the two hour and twenty minute runtime of Batman Begins, director Nolan breathlessly explains all angles of Bruce’s transformation into Batman. Both Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher failed to ever really explain where Bruce was getting all these snazzy vehicles and these high-tech weapons to battle the evildoers of Gotham City, which was always a bit frustrating to me. Furthermore, how did he ever get so good at being stealthy and how did he get so powerful in a fistfight? Nolan covers all of that and more, which was incredibly exciting as a fan of Batman. We also get a psychological look at Bruce Wayne, who is consumed and driven by fear and anger, emotions that he is taught to control. He blames himself for the death of his parents, angry that he got scared in the theater that fateful evening. Fear is ultimately the theme of Batman Begins, with Bruce’s father Thomas (Played by Linus Roache) explaining, “all creatures feel fear”, wise words that would lead Bruce to create Batman. Nolan uses this theme of fear to reflect our post 9/11 world, where American citizens are gripped by the fear of terrorism and attacks by rebel organizations that lurk in the shadows. He goes on to reinforce the idea that fear can be one of the most powerful weapons on the face of the earth, more powerful than bullets, bombs, fists, or roundhouse kicks. Entire cities can collapse through mass panic, a heady idea for a summer blockbuster.

With the psychology and reflection of a world gripped by fear firmly in place, Batman Begins can focus on the performances, particularly Bale’s Bruce Wayne. For the first time, a Batman film actually puts the most emphasis on our conflicted hero, who grapples with his identity once he pulls the cowl over his face and begins his never-ending battle. Bale is a whirlwind of emotions from the first time he is on the screen. He suffers from nightmares of a traumatic childhood event that sparked his fear of bats. We see him consumed by vengeance and anger as he contemplates assassinating Joe Chill (Played by Richard Brake), the man responsible for the murder of his parents. He coldly shuts out the affection of Alfred, who desperately tries to reach him before he disappears on his quest to study criminals. His metamorphosis under Ducard is equally gripping as Bruce learns to control his emotions, a discipline that paves the way for the awakening of Batman. This exploration of the character goes on for slightly over an hour before Bruce finally unleashes his alter ego on Gotham City but you will never once find yourself clamoring for the Dark Knight to finally emerge from the shadows. Nolan said that he wanted us to really care for the man behind the mask and he absolutely meant it. Once Bruce becomes Batman, he also has to become the reckless playboy for the paparazzi, a third side to a character that already has two interesting faces. With the reckless playboy, Bale really gets to let loose and have some fun, but the pain and longing creeps in.

Then we have the supporting players who compliment Bale quite nicely. The second best here is Michael Caine’s Alfred, who has looked after Bruce ever since they buried Thomas and Martha Wayne. He is an authority figure, coming down on Bruce after he witnesses a destructive chase between Batman and Gotham police department. We also have Lucius Fox, a gentle “Q” who looks the other way when Bruce asks him to show him the Tumbler, a heavily armored tank prototype that becomes the Batmobile. The best exchanges in the film are between Bruce, Alfred, and Lucius. Gary Oldman’s Sergeant Gordon also gets the proper attention that his character deserves, which was a huge relief for Batfans disappointed with the way Pat Hingle’s Gordon was handled in the previous films. Oldman really gives a reserved performance that ranks as one of my favorite in Batman Begins. The love interest here is Rachel Dawes (Played by Katie Holmes), who has caught quite a bit of criticism for her performance here but I fail to see where she is so bad. She only becomes the damsel in distress one time throughout the film, a strong gal who holds her own when one of the film’s main villains bears down on her. The bad guys here are Dr. Jonathan Crane/The Scarecrow (Played by Cillian Murphy), mob boss Carmine Falcone (Played by Tom Wilkinson), and a figure from Bruce’s past that I won’t reveal here if you have never seen the film. Murphy’s Scarecrow is a real weasel of a villain, one who really uses fear to manipulate and intimidate. Wilkinson’s Falcone is a nod to Batman’s first appearance in Detective Comics #27, a snarling mob boss who controls the law in Gotham. There is also the superb Liam Neeson as Ducard, a father-figure mentor who hides a devastating secret that will rock Bruce’s world.

Batman Begins is heavy on the human drama and the raw emotions but it also delivers plenty of thrilling action to satisfy the summer movie crowd hungry for explosions. An extended car chase will get the adrenaline flowing and a massive prison break that unleashes hundreds of psychos into the streets of Gotham will have you holding your breath. There are plenty of twists and turns in Batman Begins that will keep you guessing about certain characters, with a slow build plot of destruction that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand at attention. The film is relentlessly dark, disturbing, and violent, with plenty that will terrify the children who will want to see it. Batman Begins does come with a few flaws, mostly in the way that Nolan cuts his fight scenes. They are marred by a strobe light approach that makes some of the battles incomprehensible, which was slightly disappointing. Flaws aside, Batman Begins is still an absorbing, chilly look at Batman’s rise, our post 9/11 jitters, and the psychology of a hero. It restores honor to the Batman name and makes fans everywhere proud to stand behind the Dark Knight.

Grade: A-

Batman Begins is available on Blu-ray and DVD.

Feature: Steve’s 5 Most Anticipated Movies of 2012

It’s going to be a huge year at the movies, folks. If the world is really ending in December, Hollywood is going out (hopefully) strong with an A-list year. I will be like a kid in a candy store and my inner fanboy will be going crazy. Here are the five films I absolutely cannot wait to see in 2012. These are the films I will sacrifice sleep and my other job to see. I will be in line at midnight for these movies and that, my dear readers, is a promise.

 

5.) Skyfall

Let’s be honest here, the last Bond film was, well, meh. Quatum of Solace felt like heated up leftovers that should have been part of Casino Royale rather than their own stand alone film. Enter moody director Sam Mendes (American Beauty), Javier Bardem as a villain, and Bond going up a much more personal threat and you have the makings for what sounds like a seriously cool Bond flick. Oh, and Miss Moneypenny and Q are most likely in it. Truth is, Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond actor and I love the grittier take on the classic character (It is actually the truest interpretation of Bond (FYI.). I’m crossing my fingers for a car chase that is as cool as what opened Quantum of Solace (It was also the best part of that forgettable film) and a cutthroat swagger that Casino Royale possessed. Bring on more Bond!

 

 

4.) The Amazing Spider-Man

Yes, it does feel a bit early for a reboot of the webslinger but I know you were let down by Spider-Man 3 too. Still a touchy subject? I thought so. Going the darker route (At least that first teaser was pretty grim looking), I’m curious to see what director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) does with the source material, as the ominous new poster boasts this will tell “The Untold Story”. Hmmm well I think Raimi covered most of it in his origin tale Spider-Man. With the revelation that is Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) taking over as the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, the It-Girl of the moment Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, and Rhys Ifans as new baddie The Lizard, this should shape up to be a truly unique vision of Spidey. With tighter jeans and maybe The Smith’s on the soundtrack.

 

 

3.) Django Unchained

Quentin Tarantino is FINALLY making an all out spaghetti western and it should be nothing more than talky and awesome. What is sure to be drenched in gruesome violence, Tarantino loves this movement in westerns and I’m positive he will do it sweaty and squinty-eyed justice. Rumored to be loosely based on the classic Franco Nero and Sergio Corbucci western where the hero drags a Gatling gun around with him in a coffin, I’m sure Tarantino will do one better and up the ante to absolutely extreme. Boasting a cast that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Samuel L. Jackson, Christoph Waltz, RZA, Sacha Baron Cohen, Kurt Russell, Don Johnson, and Tom Savini, this thing will go down as a cult legend.

 

 

2.) The Avengers

I was lucky enough to see some of the sets and filming for this superhero mash-up in downtown Cleveland and I have to say, this will be extremely impressive. Oh, and have you seen the first trailer for it? There should be plenty of shit-talking to each other (Iron Man and The Hulk are rumored to verbally spar. Captain America also appears to get a few jabs at Iron Man), epic science fiction action, and globe trotting awesomeness, The Avengers will be shape up to be the only worthy challenger to my number one pick on this list. Shrouded in secrecy (I was lucky enough to get to see what appeared to be some sort of UFO crashed in the middle of a Cleveland street) and sure to satisfy the ultimate fanboys, this will be a must see just for the towering premise (Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, and The Hulk all in the same movie. Woah!). I will be sporting my Captain America tee while I get in line for this about two days early.

 

 

1.) The Dark Knight Rises

Being a HUGE Batman fan, how could this not be my most anticipated film of the year? For all the nitpicking I hear (We can’t understand Bane! Catwoman looks lame!), my response is go see the Prologue that is now in theaters along with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. It will blow your mind with the epic scope and bone shattering action. And Bane isn’t that hard to understand, he just sounds like an even more demented German Darth Vader (Wrap your head around that!). Nolan has promised this will be the final installment in this franchise so I’m sure we are in for a showdown for the ages. If you haven’t seen the badass new trailer that is playing before Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, you are missing out and are probably the only human alive to have not seen it. Based on everything we have seen, this looks to be even more haunting, darker, vicious, and destructive than 2008’s The Dark Knight, . The Hobbit may make a slight dent and The Avengers will take swipes, but this will be, without question, the biggest film of the year. I promise you that. Strap yourself in; things will go from epic to out of this world in The Dark Knight Rises.

Sucker Punch (2011)

by Steve Habrat

After all the gun smoke had cleared and the credits crawled across the screen, it became crystal clear to me how Christopher Nolan settled on Zack Snyder for the reboot of Superman: Snyder simply showed him Sucker Punch. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that Nolan gushed over it either. Sucker Punch is a trippy puzzler that sends you stumbling from the theater to debate what the hell just happened with your friends, which is quite similar to what Nolan did with his towering Inception. But where Inception pulled off it’s elusiveness with refined sophistication, Sucker Punch takes the dirty, dusty road where dragons swoop from above, girls in fishnets wield 50 calibers, WWI zombie German soldiers leap from trenches, and our heroes bop around in a WWII bomber. And that is just naming a few of the oddities that Snyder lobbed into his obvious pet project. I’m sure by this point you’ve seen the other reviews of Sucker Punch and, to use a term from Mr. Obama, the film has taken quite a “shellacking.” Sure it’s big, loud, and completely overblown, but I oddly found myself enjoying the madness. What actually appalls me is that Battle: Los Angeles, a film that makes no attempt to be about anything except blowing everything up, actually received better reviews than this film did! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! Did we see the same movie?

Maybe I was rooting for Snyder to actually pull off the impossible. Everyone under the sun has seen the unruly trailer. Snyder seemed like he wanted to shove every possible genre of film into one film to make one hulking masterpiece. One that encompasses everything from the kung-fu films to epic medieval fantasies. I truly found Sucker Punch to be a noble, and at times, refreshing attempt at it even if it was beginning to show signs of collapsing on itself. The film also has had a slight hypnotic affect over me in the sense that I am confident that there is more to this particular film than first meets the eye. The first time seems to be a shock and awe campaign to pin you to your seat but the more my mind wanders back and evaluates the little touches, the more I’m lured into wanting to uncover more about it.

I won’t dive to deeply into the plot of the film because some of it is up to you to piece together, but the film follows the starry-eyed, pig-tailed Babydoll (played by Emily Browning), who is admitted into a mental institution by her unhinged stepfather after she accidentally shoots her baby sister. It’s here that she falls under the care of the at times menacing and at times motherly but always vampy Dr. Gorski (played by Carla Gugino). Behind the walls of the institition, she embraces her new life in a brothel and learns to dance for the seedy men that come to drool over the young girls. Babydoll soon joins forces with the tough-as-nails leader Sweet Pea (played by Abbie Cornish), Sweet Pea’s gung-ho little sister Rocket (played by Jenna Malone), the uneasy “pilot” Amber (played by Jamie Chung), and the big guns specialist Blondie (played by Vanessa Hudgens). The gang rapidly starts plotting an escape from the institution/brothel and through their wildly untamed imaginations, envision elaborate dream-missions to find the supplies they need to break out of the big house.

While the film marvelously finds a perfect balance between the hectic dream worlds and the rotting walls of the institution, the film tries to cram so much in that points are a little to overpowering. There is an incredibly inspired sequence that takes place on a WWI battle field complete with zombified German soldiers wearing ghastly gasmasks, biplanes falling in flaming ruin from the sky, earth shaking explosions and a lofty android walker with a rabbit face that Amber maneuvers into a outrageously bad ass death machine. It’s a truly breathtaking action sequence that is worth the trip to see the movie alone. Sadly, the film stumbles when it ventures into the realm of medieval fantasy in a war sequence that smashes WWII together with the Lord of the Rings. I give it credit for being atypical but it’s shockingly monotonous and lacking in any sort of looming danger. This leads me to my next compliant, which is the fact that all the girls are magically scrappy superheroes. There is never any concrete justification and we are supposed to just embrace it. One sequence that is especially irritating is when Babydoll confronts three giant samurais. She flips through the air so repeatedly that I almost wanted to shout “ENOUGH ALREADY! WE GET IT!”

Ultimately, Sucker Punch overcomes the obstacles and still manages to be engaging. I still found myself consumed by much of it and the writing, although uneven, is never less than interesting. The dialogue is good but not great and the premise alone never lost me. The performances’ by the young actresses are finely tuned and convincing. I was extremely worried that they would be wooden. The standout is without question the wounded Rocket. She kicks ass while nursing the burden of a broken heart. I actually breathed a huge sigh of relief that the film never descended into a perverse fantasy for Snyder. While the girls are adorned in fishnets and lingerie, the film is surprisingly tame. We never get a glimpse of the burlesque dance sequences and instead are substituted with the dream world. An even bigger relief is that the film counters Snyder’s fixation with masculine heroes. I enjoyed the girl power feel that he explores this time around. It’s more substantial than his homoerotic bloodbath 300. It still comes in third to his colorful Dawn of the Dead remake and spacey adaptation of graphic novel juggernaut Watchmen. On top of it, Snyder further refines his coarse camerawork and his fluid montages of slow motion into real time. It all flows so gorgeously and it’s impossible not to eat it all up.

The aspect that truly wounds Sucker Punch is the ending where, like Watchmen, it crams all of it’s “profound” ideas in a brushed over climax that feels curiously unsatisfying. This is where the film truly flat lines. It piles on nonsensically cryptic monologues on top of some obvious visual symbolism. The film is convinced that it is a fine wine that will be savored as the taste sticks in your mouth. Unfortunately, it’s just a high-end, calorie-loaded beer that is surprisingly tasty in the beginning. A taste that you and your buddies exclaim about for the first few sips but when you reach the bottom of the bottle, you just gulp down the last drops to finish it. It wasn’t as refreshing as the first few half but it wasn’t impossible to polish off. You’ll oddly find yourself wanting to experience it all again to peel back some more layers and it will make for some good conversation in the long run.

Grade: B-

Sucker Punch is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.

In Time (2011)

by Steve Habrat

Imagine if Stanley Kubrick and Christopher Nolan got together and decided they were going to make a futuristic version of Robin Hood set against a Clockwork Orange-esque wasteland. The new techno thriller In Time, directed by Andrew Niccol, has a lot on its mind and plenty to say. Unfortunately, it’s reduced to rambling, off on a tangent and showing no signs of stopping. To be fair, In Time has an interesting premise; a few original bursts here and there that save it from being disposable filler at the local theater. The film exhaustively tells us that time is precious, blah, blah, blah. Well my time is precious too and this film was given way too much time to peer down at me from it’s soap box and preach. That is what In Time was built for—to preach. Lucky enough, the film had the good fortune to be made and released during the Occupy Wall Street protests, which is another element that works in it’s favor. For as ambitious as this film is, it never obtains the epic, morose scope that Nolan produces or the multilayered psychology Kubrick gave us.

In Time shows us a world where humans stop aging at twenty-five. Once they hit the said age, a digital clock on their forearm begins ticking and humans have to earn more time to survive. Rather than money, your job pays you in seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, etc. Time is also used as the currency, where the more time you have, the longer you live. The world is also divided up into time zones, where a sinister police force called the “Timkeepers” can monitor how much time is in the specific zone. These time zones also separate the wealthy from the poor.  Will Salas (Played by Justin Timberlake) comes from the slum Dayton, where one evening while visiting a seedy bar, stumbles across a wealthy man Henry Hamilton (Played by Matt Bomer) with a hundred years on his clock buying drinks for the crowd. A group of local gangsters called “Minutemen” set their eyes on him and threaten his life. Will narrowly saves Henry and hides him in a local warehouse where Henry explains to Will that he is one hundred and five years old and no longer feels the desire to live. While Will sleeps, Henry transfers all of his time to Will, making Will wealthy over night. Henry commits suicide and Will is captured on surveillance for suspicious behavior in the wake of the suicide. That evening, Will’s mother Rachel (Played by Olivia Wilde) does not have enough time on her for a bus ride and is forced to walk home. While desperately trying to reach Will for more time, her clock runs out and she dies in front of Will. Will sets out to drain the wealthy of as much time as he can, along the way meeting wealthy timelender Phillipe Weis and his beautiful daughter Sylvia (Played by Amanda Seyfried). Will is also being pursued by a relentless timekeeper named Raymond Leon (Played by Cillian Murphy).

Not an easy film to sum up, In Time does have a webbed storyline, but that’s not its problem. The film is often condescending, always assuming the viewer lacks the intelligence to follow what is going on. It’s under the impression that we can’t put together its unconcealed political message. It then drives its point home with such force, you almost want to shout “ENOUGH!” The film empties its narrative quickly, leaving the well dry for the last forty minutes of the movie. It’s just run, check in to hotel, steal more time, chase, repeat. There are characters that are not fleshed out enough, cramming them in at the beginning and then tossing them out the second Will meets Phillipe and Sylvia. I’m all for an intelligent thriller/blockbuster, but In Time thinks it’s a bit too smart. It also seems to demand that we take it seriously, but it’s difficult when the film is burdened with hammy acting.

After the film ended, one of my friends that accompanied me to our showing said he doesn’t think Justin Timberlake is capable of carrying an entire movie. He’s not a seasoned pro yet. I couldn’t agree more with this statement. He’s still an amateur in the acting game and trying to carry a film like this couldn’t have been the easiest task for him. When his mother bites the dust, Timberlake drops to his knees, wailing, and looks slightly like he is smack in the middle of a violent bowel movement. I didn’t buy his anguish and it’s unintentionally funny. This is not to say he doesn’t wield any talent, but he needs to stick to supporting roles until he really sharpens his acting a bit. He sometimes slips into overdramatics, attempting to embody the ominous hero but coming up short. He has yet to shake his pretty boy image.

The rest of the cast of In Time does an ample job with what they have to work with. Wilde does a reputable job for the little she is given as Will’s mother. I sometimes think she is capable of more than she produces, sometimes being reduced to just a pretty face and nothing more. You can’t help but bat an eye at some of the films she chooses to star in. Seyfried does fine work, working with something far more substantial than Twilight wannabe turds like Red Riding Hood. The vet here in all the sci-fi techno babble is Cillian Murphy as Raymond Leon. Murphy is a truly gifted actor that is always just below the radar. I wish he would get another major leading man role, as he always knocks it out of the park when he is in front of the camera (Seriously, just look at 28 Days Later, Red Eye, Batman Begins, and Inception!). Murphy does a good majority of the heavy lifting, even if he does look like he raided the wardrobe of The Matrix.

At the end of the day, In Time is an average thought provoking attack on capitalism and class rank. It also slips in some existential hooey but it’s fairly elementary and you will be just waving it off. Reluctant to embrace what it truly is, which is simply a futuristic Robin Hood thriller with some minor ideas and dressed in all black, it’s a decent little ride. You won’t be taking any of it home with you, replaying any major action sequences in your head, or raving about any performance outside of Murphy’s. You will be left wondering how Timberlake’s Salas magically morphs from desperate kid in the ghetto to ass-kicking superhero. Don’t concern yourself with it too much, you’ll never be told. In Time is uneven and bumpy, making me wish that I didn’t invest forty minutes of my time in the final act. If you’re in the market for a film in which all the actors and actresses look pretty, look no further than In Time.

Grade C+