LOGAN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Dreadfully Directed Action Scenes Drag Picture Down

It sure would be nice to see this grizzled mug in a real movie.

Logan (2017)
Dir. James Mangold
Scr. Mangold, Scott Frank, Michael Green
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant,
Richard E. Grant, Dafne Keen, Eriq La Salle, Elizabeth Rodriguez

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Logan is the best X-Men movie ever made, but that's not really saying much since all of them have been pretty unwatchable to date. This "final" installment in the long-running film series based upon the Marvel Comics adventures of crime-fighting mutants has one big thing going for it - star Hugh Jackman.

Living in hiding as an anonymous limousine driver in Texas, our title character is slowly dying from the adamantium coursing through his veins. His ability to heal from wounds is seriously affected by this. He's caring for the dementia-riddled telepath Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who lives secretly in a dusty, rusting old factory just across the border in Mexico. Logan reluctantly becomes the chief protector of little girl Laura (Dafne Keen), a "wolverine" mutant just like he is. Pursued by the evil cybergenetic mutant Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) and scumbag Transigen Corporation mad scientist Zander Rice (Richard E. Grant) and the mutant-tracking Caliban (Stephen Merchant), our three heroes hit the highways and byways of America in search of a mutant paradise called Eden (existing across the northern border in Canada, no less).

It's a road movie punctuated by several ultra-violent set pieces.

Cute little girl a baby Wolverine with deadly moves.

The picture isn't really any good - the action scenes are all directed mostly in closeups and medium shots with far-too-much herky-jerky camera moves and ADHD-infused editing and the script defies the most basic logic of the premise it sets up. Since Logan is all too aware that they're being meticulously tracked, it seems especially dopey that he allows himself, the old man and little girl to hunker down with an innocent farming family for an evening on the road to Mutant Mecca.

Surely he knows deadly harm will come to the family - and, of course, it does.

There isn't a single unpredictable moment in the whole narrative. Given the overwhelming portent of co-writer and director James Mangold's mise-en-scene, it's also obvious that Logan and Xavier are doomed. Given that it's a superhero movie and that more sequels and/or a reboot are just around the corner, it's also obvious that the little girl and a whole whack of her mutant kidlet friends will beat the bad guys and make their way to asylum in Canada.

The predictability factor in movies like this goes without saying, so it seems silly to dump on Logan just for that. What can receive a nice smelly turd-release is that the movie fails as a decent rollercoaster ride since Mangold simply has no talent for staging action scenes - all of which are a total mess. Given the astonishing craft of action movies like John Wick and its sequel, when will the studios realize they need to hire directors who know how to direct action? The math on this is pretty simple - long shots, longer takes, first-rate stunt work, a solid sense of geography and edits that are "story" influenced, not merely kinetic.

Well, the math might be simple, but it takes the cinematic equivalent to Einstein to pull it off with aplomb (something Mangold is bereft of). Not that previous X-Men helmsman Bryan Singer is God's Gift to cinema, but even he has certain basic skills to carry this sort of thing off with a relative degree of competence. What Singer lacks is anything resembling a distinctive voice. Mangold, for better or worse, has one - his pictures all have a dreariness to them that borders on, interesting (not really a compliment), but which tends to have some effect in his chamber pieces like Cop Land, his 3:10 To Yuma remake and even his first foray into X-Men territory The Wolverine. He's kind of like Christopher Nolan, but with far less in the way of pretension (and unlike Nolan, he occasionally displays something resembling a sense of humour - a bit dry, but it's there at least).

Logan does, however, have the estimable Hugh Jackman at its core. Jackman has genuine star power. The camera loves him and he's a much better actor than most of his films allow him to be. And Good God, the man is aging beautifully. Clint Eastwood has thirty years on the guy, but Jackman is giving that delicious old coot a decent run for his money in the brawny decrepitude department.

Someday, Jackman will star in a real movie. Maybe he will even play Clint Eastwood's son or baby brother someday. I look forward to that movie.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ** Two-Stars

Logan is in wide release via 20th Century Fox.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 - Review By Greg Klymkiw - The Spidey Reboot Cash-Grab Strikes Back Again

Lovers Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone)
share a chuckle over not requiring much genetic Oscorp shenanigans
to transform them into a spider monkey and pekinese respectively
in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 CASH-GRAB STRIKES AGAIN.

FOXX ROXX ELECTRO

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) *1/2
Dir. Marc Webb
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Sally Field, Colm Feore, Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz, Paul Giamatti

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I expected the worst and got the almost-watchable. In this day and age, that's something resembling a blessing with the cacophony blaring from multiplexes across the world, thanks to a seemingly endless parade of comic book movies. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this shamelessly unnecessary cash-grab reboot, so soon after Sam Raimi's iconic trilogy, is something that pleases me, but it's a smidgen better than its immediate predecessor and has a few meagre offerings to keep one from slashing one's wrists.

This is basically the mushed-together take on the Marvel Comics' "The Death of Gwen Stacy" (Emma Stone) story arc that shoehorns itself into the picture with the addition of two new villains to the silver screen (Jamie Foxx's Electro and Paul Giamatti's The Rhino) and dabbles with the Spiderman/Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) and Harry Osborn/Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan) friendship/rivalry. Given that most of these woeful comic book adaptations feel like grocery lists, allow me to respond in kind.

On the plus-side:

- Marc Webb's direction seems a pubic-hair more sure-footed than the last outing. He directs one of the major action set pieces with a great deal of skill (Electro's first showdown with Spidey in Times Square), holds back on indulging himself in a ridiculous number of music video-style montages (which, in the last picture made me want to punch someone in the face) and whilst not displaying (save for the horrendous music-vid habit) a discernible voice as a filmmaker, he appears to have all the makings of a hack (hinted at in ASM 1). All that said, maybe that one action sequence was directed by second-unit dudes.

- Jamie Foxx is a terrific villain in the grand tradition of this comic book. In his pre-villainous stages as the cretinous computer geek engineer who is mercilessly exploited by the evil Oscorp assholes, he elicits a modicum of sympathy. Foxx also brings any number of subtle, intelligent hints at bearing an obsessive psychopathy mixed with the easily-manipulated traits of geekery prior to his transformation into Electro - shadings of character that will fit very nicely once he's terrorizing the Big Apple.

- Paul Giamatti is hilarious as The Rhino. Alas, I miss the notion of this character looking more like a real rhinoceros (albeit upright on two legs) than a high-tech robotic incarnation.

On the down side:

- The entire affair continues to be lacking in anything resembling necessity, other than yielding huge grosses.

- Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy is starting to lose what little appeal she held in ASM 1. Seeing her in the role last time out had some novelty appeal, but here, her character is saddled with a few too many whiney "I've got to find myself" traits which she only redeems when she proves to be an invaluable ally to Spidey and is sacrificed to his crime-fighting efforts. Worst of all, her makeup and hair handlers have somehow accentuated her Pekinese qualities which would be fine if she literally transformed into one, but as she doesn't, it's more than a tad boner-deflating (unless one's a practitioner of zoophilia).

- Andrew Garfield is still a woeful Peter Parker. I find it almost impossible to look at him. He's quite repulsive with an annoying hedgehog tuft of hair upon his oversized gourd-like cranium, further accoutred with a thin, misshapen long face that's seemingly being winched to ground level, then topped off with weasel-like eyes, crooked smirk and shrivelled proboscis with its perpetually upturned tip, all of which result in a seemingly irremovable sneer. I won't even get started on his spindly Ichabod-Crane-like body. Feel free to discover that all on your lonesome. Upchuck with abandon.

- The movie is 142 minutes long. There's no apparent reason for this save for ineptitude on the part of the filmmakers not realizing that the entire narrative, such as it is, had a lot of excisable material.

- Like ASM 1, the movie is sans snarling newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson. Considering how much time is wasted on longueurs, it's an egregious omission if there ever was one.

- The entire buried flashback plot involving Parker's Dad (Campbell Scott) is ultimately way more interesting than anything else in the movie and seems to demand its own movie.

- Sally Field wants us to really, really like her, but we just want to really, really slam her face against a water fountain. Repeatedly, 'natch!

- The film's attempts at humour are forced, not funny and furthered in vomitous qualities due to Garfield's horrendously pinched vocal range - especially when he's tossing off the one-liners.

There you have it, smart shoppers, the ultimate critical grocery list representing this relatively useless comic book movie with useless leads, terrific villains, hack direction and too many dull stretches that were entirely avoidable.

If this all sounds like your trough of slop, knock yourself out.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is in every multiplex all over the world.

Please consider supporting the maintenance of this site by ordering direct from the links below in case you are planning to buy the spectacular Blu-Ray box set of the Sam Raimi "Spider-Man" trilogy or the individual titles on Blu-Ray that include an Ultra-Violet Digital Copy (though best to buy from Amazon.com than the stupid Amazon.ca that seems to have its links mixed up as per usual) or the DVD box set of the phenomenal and very strange animated Spiderman cartoon TV series from 1967:

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Will I EVER like a comic book movie? Well, if they're directed by the likes of Sam Raimi, Zack Snyder and Robert Rodriguez, the answer's YES!

This is MY Captain America Golden Age and no movie has yet come close.

Scarlett (UGH!!!) Johansson
in a Captain America movie is
SACRILEGE!!!

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) *1/2
Dirs. Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Starring: Chris Evans, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson,
Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I do have a bias when it comes to comic book movies and it's simple: I want them to capture the spirit of the comics I loved when I first discovered them. I am, however, not curmudgeonly-narrow-enough to dismiss said pictures if they're directed by real directors with something resembling panache. God knows I love all three Sam Raimi Spiderman movies (even part 3) because they not only capture the essence of Marvel during MY primetime enjoyment of the comics during the 60s and early 70s, but they're all superbly directed. Zack Snyder's Man of Steel rocked my world because it not only captured the DC items I loved in the 60s, but came closest to the first brilliant season of the George Reeves TV series which was dark, nasty and noir-like. Oh yeah, and Snyder can direct rings round most filmmakers. His work on graphic novels like 300 as well as that of Rodriguez's top-dips into such adaptations like Sin City kick major, royal ass from stylistic standpoints.

All the others pretty much stink (though Jon Favreau's first Iron Man was watchable, Kenneth Branagh's Thor was decently written and even well directed except for the action scenes and Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk had tons of visual panache, decent tone, though a disappointing script). The big reason the contemporary comic book movies drive me nuts is that they usually offend my bias, but are also miserably directed.

Captain America: The First Avenger fell into a disappointing, but not terribly offensive middle ground for me. Director Joe Johnston is an agreeable enough hack. His action scenes were relatively comprehensible (though a tad dull) and thankfully weren't of the herky-jerky variety (used by losers who mask their directorial incompetence with way too many poorly composed closeups and ludicrous lightning cuts). Unfortunately, aside from the great Hugo Weaving as The Red Skull, the movie seemed woefully all over the place in terms of tone and, of course, the screenplay left a lot to be desired.

And so, that brings us to the equally humdrum Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Tonally, it offends my bias, but at least the action scenes have some decent fight choreography that Anthony and Joe Russo manage to shoot in focus with a few nicely composed fixed-camera positions and minimal rapid-fire cuts. Like the first instalment, it features a terrific villain, though here it's not the super-villain, but the slimy political weasel played really well by Robert Redford.

Alas, the rest of the movie stinks.

At least the Russos keep the camera still enough to display the fight
choreography. Not that it matters much, since the movie is Dullsville.

The I-could-care-less plot involves Cappy Am (Chris Evans) embroiled in some tiresome hijinx involving Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) being assassinated by Bucky-Barnes-incarnation The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) and slimy Redford being behind a plot to take down SHIELD and the Cap needing to team up with the tediously uninteresting Black Widow (Scarlett "UGH - get off the screen, already" Johansson) and the ridiculous Falcon (Anthony Mackie), a character who, in the 70s Marvel Comics started to turn me off to Captain America. This all results in a bunch of decently directed action scenes with virtually no dramatic investment for us since the plot is as perfunctory as they get, lacking any of the truly haunting tone the pre-Falcon Marvel comics had.

Call me a sourball. I don't care. I'm getting sick of these pictures. Given how dreadfully directed The Avengers, Iron Man III, Thor: The Dark World and the completely useless Amazing Spiderman reboots have been (and don't get me started on the Christopher "One Idea" Nolan Dark Knight garbage), I'm feeling like life is getting too short to watch anymore of these unless real directors are attached to them.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is in wide release from Walt Disney Pictures.

IRON MAN 3 - Review By Greg Klymkiw

Iron Man 3 (2013) *
Dir. Shane Black
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce, Don Cheadle, Ben Kingsley, Rebecca Hall, Jon Favreau, Stephanie Szostak, Miguel Ferrer, William Sadler

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The best thing about this lame sequel in an increasingly tedious franchise is SIR Ben Kingsley's first scene as mega-villain The Mandarin where the character's true colours are exposed. Sir Ben prances giddily into a bedroom equipped with two half-naked babes and crows with delight over his satisfying 20-minute bowel movement. We (predictably, I might add) discover Kingsley's character is little more than a failed regional theatre actor engaged as a public front for the real villain, mad scientist madman Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce). Only a gibbering gibbon wouldn't figure out within the first ten or so minutes who's actually behind the acts of terrorism that send the world into high-panic mode. This is also the only genuinely funny moment one will derive from the sheer drudgery of having to get through all 130 minutes of this dull, bloated superhero picture.

What we get is this. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr. with especially grotesque facial hair a la Reveen the Impossibilist) is withdrawing obsessively ever-further into his experiments. Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow - looking less equine these days, but still clod-hopping about as if she were a nag willingly on her way to the glue factory) is left to run the Stark Industries Corp. Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) has been promoted to head of security and annoys everyone by insisting they wear I.D. badges. Aldrich Killian, Pepper's unrequited admirer from long ago brings a business proposition to her and is subsequently turned down.

The Man They Call REVEEN is Tony Stark - IRONMAN

The Mandarin begins hijacking the airwaves to deliver warnings of doom and present as-they-happen acts of terrorism. When Happy is a victim of one of the attacks and lies vegetable-like in the hospital, Tony Stark makes it clear he's out for vengeance. The Mandarin destroys Tony's mansion. Our multi-billionaire superhero goes into hiding to regroup and is befriended by a cute kid who also helps him. Pepper gets kidnapped. The President of the United states (William Sadler) gets kidnapped.

Will Tony be up to the challenge?

You bet he will.

With the help of second banana Col. Rhodes (Don Cheadle - acting more and more like a grim-faced Stepin Fetchit), the obnoxious cute kid and his robot Jarvis (Paul Bettany's voice in full C3P0-mode), Iron Man/Tony rescues everyone, but not before we're forced to endure endless de rigueur herky-jerky action scenes that feel like they were directed by a chimpanzee on Benzedrine.

Iron Man 3 is just as haphazard and dull as Iron Man 2, but seeing as the picture is more of a sequel to the utterly abysmal The Avengers, it might actually be the worst of the lot.

No, let me take that back. Nothing's worse than The Avengers save, perhaps, for The Green Hornet. Director and co-writer Shane Black has acquitted himself reasonably well in the past as a competent scribe for action pictures, but seeing as his best script is still Lethal Weapon (the acclaimed script for his directorial debut Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang is too aware of its "cleverness" for my taste), he's ultimately - when you do the math - little more than a hack.

Iron Man 3 is a long way down from Jon Favreau's first Iron Man picture - an amiable, somewhat fresh and very funny outing. This one is insufferable, but as it's in the same mould as most other recent superhero Goodyear Blimps that new generations of movie-goers are perfectly happy to embrace, it's poised and destined to rack up huge grosses.

I need a palate-cleanser after seeing this, so I'll probably slap on one of Sam Raimi's terrific Spider-Man pictures. At least he's a real filmmaker. (And if you are planning on seeing the movie, you can save some dough by seeing it flat screen since the 3-D is annoying and doesn't add anything - as per usual, really.)

"Iron Man 3" is in wide mega-release all over the planet.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - This bland, barely competent and utterly useless cash-grab reboot of the series is best left ignored.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) dir. Marc Webb

Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Martin Sheen, Sally Field, Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz, C. Thomas Howell and Stan Lee

*1/2

Review By Greg Klymkiw

There's really no reason for The Amazing Spider-Man to exist save for greed.

Sam Raimi delivered the greatest motion picture comic book trilogy of all time with his magnificent Spider-Man movies starring Tobey Macguire as the webslinger in 2002, 2004 and 2007 respectively.

What made Raimi's work special (aside from his DNA-hardwired filmmaking genius) is that he adhered to the spirit of Spidey prime-time from the 60s and 70s era of Marvel Comics (which I devoured and collected ravenously as a kid). His use of CGI came closer to the spirit of Harryhausen stop-motion magic in that it all had a delicious other-worldly quality to it, he was not afraid of sentimentality, he balanced a straight-faced approach with over-the-top comic book elements and in the masterpiece of the trilogy, he went for broke with his trademark sense of humour that veered from darkly vicious to looney-tunes-insanity in S-M-2 and brilliantly juggled a multitude of villains throughout the series, but most notably in S-M-3.

The Amazing Spider-Man is reasonably well-made. This, however, doesn't mean it's all that good.

Its bland, tasteful hack-manship slides down one's gullet not unlike the ease with which sewage spills into water treatment tanks. With by-the-numbers direction that delivers the all-too-familiar Spidey origin story (which Raimi already did with so much force and panache), we basically get a slight reworking served by little more than semi-competence to render the movie barely watchable.

As a kid, Peter Parker is delivered secretly in the night by his Mom and Dad (Campbell Scott and Embeth Davidtz) to his Uncle Ben, played by Martin Sheen - a reasonable, though not entirely successful facsimile of the late Cliff Robertson and Aunt May, etched by the, uh, "likeable" Sally Field instead of the wonderful Rosemary Harris (imagine Marjorie Main in place of Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois in Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire and you'll get some idea of how dreadful Field is). Yes, Miss Field, we do NOT really, really like you this time.

Mom and Dad are then "accidentally" killed while Dad's best friend and former research partner Dr. Curt Conners (Rhys Ifans) continues their cutting edge work while Peter is raised in relative obscurity by Captain Willard and The Flying Nun.

Scott and Davidtz as Peter's Mom and Dad are such great actors with clear chemistry that I kept longing for some cool flashbacks to delve into life before the events of the movie to visually enhance a lot of the information deposited upon us like so many verbal turds. These actors and characters are so sadly, unimaginatively underused I'd like to think they'll be seen as more than cameos (in flashback) in the inevitable sequels. Better yet, a prequel with Scott, Davidtz and Ifans - directed by Sam Raimi, who felt he'd gone about as far as he could with Spidey in the trilogy, would frankly be amazing.

But, I digress.

Peter grows up into a plucky teenage science nerd, rendered rather annoyingly by Andrew Garfield, an actor saddled with an almost perpetual sneer and lacking Macguire's fresh-faced, sensitive, teen-heartthrob quality. Pete's got an erection for the gorgeous, sexy, leggy Gwen Stacy. As played by the genuinely brilliant Emma Stone, what young (or old) lad wouldn't be trying to hide the bulge in his pants? Stone is so good, one wishes this was a better movie.

I also have a special request to Lars von Trier to cast Stone - mostly naked - in a new movie, not unlike Melancholia that starred Kirsten Dunst, Peter's love interest Mary-Jane Watson from the Raimi films. In fact, every time the Spidey series is rebooted, von Trier can provide us with an art film featuring mega-nudity from whatever ingenue happens to be boinking and/or holding a torch for the webslinger.

But, I digress.

When Pete gets bitten by a radioactive spider he develops mega-super-powers, inadvertently causes the death of his beloved Uncle Ben, then seeks Ben's killer, while Aunt May shrewishly worries about Pete's mysterious nighttime sojourns. Our webslinger goes on to collaborate with Dr. Connors on some experiments a la his Dad in better times, locks horns with Gwen's anti-vigilante, Spidey-hating cop Captain Stacy (well played by Denis Leary) and after some perfunctory derring-do he does battle with the film's primary villain, The Lizard.

Allow me now to make another request to Lars von Trier. Just as you did with Willem DeFoe, perhaps you could cast a Spidey villain or two in an absolutely horrific, stomach-turning horror art-fest as you did with Anti Christ. Both Leary and Ifans are perfectly poised to appear in such a potentially great motion picture.

But, as per usual, I digress.

While Peter is a photographer, he does NOT work for The Daily Planet newspaper and the movie is bereft of the crusty Spidey-hating editor J. Jonah Jameson.

No J. Jonah Jameson? "The horror, the horror."

The only new addition, save for the casting of Stone, Leary and Ifans, is a supporting character who plays a pivotal role in two genuinely welcome moments and is played really nicely by 80s heartthrob C. Thomas Howell.

The bottom line is that The Amazing Spider-Man is strictly a case of been-there-done-that which is especially frustrating since Raimi's final film in the original trilogy is only 5 years old and that for the past decade his take on the franchise has been so indelibly etched upon the psyches of moviegoers - almost iconic, really - that this barely competent lame-duck seems like an unfortunate cash-grab.

Are contemporary audiences so stupid that they require these endless reboots? Are they so bereft of attention spans that they need a pallid re-telling of Spidey's origin so soon? Have they become such lambs-to-the-slaughter suckers they'll contribute readily to putting money in the pockets of the unimaginative business school graduates pretending to be studio moguls?

The answer it would seem is a resounding "Yes!"

One of the more annoying things about this reboot are the ridiculous montage sequences set to a raft of pathetic pop tunes in a music video style. This, I suppose has more to do with the fact that Marc Webb's canon, as it were, includes one loathsomely quirky feature (500) Days of Summer and about 100 music videos mostly by groups I've happily never bothered listening to (nor, frankly, have even heard of) and only a handful of musical artistes that vaguely register on my oh-so cultured palate (the intolerable Green Day and P. Diddy, etc.).

That said, Webb HAS directed music videos for Hilary Duff and Miley Cyrus - a ringing endorsement to be sure.

"The Amazing Spider-Man" is currently in mega-wide theatrical release all over the world. It's also in 3-D and IMAX 3-D. I've seen the IMAX 3-D version which is no doubt superior to the Real-D and other regular 3-D formats and can safely say you should save some money and only watch the 2-D version as seeing it in 3-D makes absolutely no difference.

Please consider supporting the maintenance of this site by ordering direct from the links below in case you are planning to buy the spectacular Blu-Ray box set of the Sam Raimi "Spider-Man" trilogy or the individual titles on Blu-Ray that include an Ultra-Violet Digital Copy (though best to buy from Amazon.com than the stupid Amazon.ca that seems to have its links mixed up as per usual) or the DVD box set of the phenomenal and very strange animated Spiderman cartoon TV series from 1967:

THE AVENGERS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Dull, poorly directed superhero picture will appeal to those desperate for all the state of the art spectacle money can buy. All the rest, can stay away.

The Avengers (2012) dir. Joss Whedon *
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Stellan Skarsgård, Gwyneth Paltrow

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Call me a curmudgeon.

Call me a spoilsport.

Call me a snob.

Just don't call me Shirley.

The Avengers bored me to tears.

Anyone with an attention span will, I hope, have the same response.

There's not much to say. Asgard's shamed, exiled Loki (Tim Hiddleston), hooks up with some aliens to steal a cube of power in possession of Earth. He hypnotizes Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Professor Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) into helping him. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) pulls in Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and The Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) to team up and fight the power from the outer reaches of the universe. The super heroes squabble. They kiss and make up. They fight the bad guys. They win. The Earth is free.

Television writer-director Joss Whedon tosses out a few marginally smile-cracking lines, a serviceable plot and typical contemporary blockbuster direction - the sort of thing TV directors and other filmmakers bereft of any real cinematic voice employ. Endless closeups, more shots than Sergei Eisenstein would have ever imagined being used (and he used plenty), a ridiculous number of cuts, no sense of geography, good fight choreography butchered by excessive cutting, a grating, pounding soundscape, a thunderous score and a whole lot of thunder signifying not much of anything.

The whole affair is executed with a cudgel. It's depressing to realize that audiences have become so numbed by bad filmmaking they'll have no difficulty embracing this generally loathsome effort.

I love a good superhero picture. God knows, Sam Raimi's magnificent Spider-Man trilogy was infused with the spirit of Marvel in the 60s, a big heart, a terrific sense of humour, great special effects and first-rate action direction.

Joss Whedon, however, is no Sam Raimi. That is to say, he is not a filmmaker.

Like the woeful J.J. Abrams, Christopher Nolan and others of this overrated, untalented ilk, Whedon is a hack. There's nary a single shot in the film that suggests he has a filmmaker's eye and though he apparently has a good reputation as a writer in television (I don't bother to watch television), he clearly hasn't got what it takes to generate a script with the sweep and true spectacle needed for a feature.

Iron Man and Thor both had miserably-directed action scenes, too. The difference, though, is that both had first-rate writing which allowed the casts of both to deliver fun, fully-fleshed out performances. The Avengers has a whole mess of good actors doing not much of anything. However, I did enjoy Hiddlestone as Loki - so deliciously pouty and mean-spirited and definitely an interesting departure from the usual suavely smarmy villain. His petulance is positively infectious - especially in a scene where he demands hundreds of people to bow before him. Ruffalo displays good potential to be Bruce Banner/The Hulk in his own movie, so this was also a nice surprise.

But Whedon is really not much of a director. At least the first Iron Man and Thor managed to make sure that the non-action sequences weren't directed with a whole mess of back-and-forth closeups, but had an excellent variation of shots - including, God forbid - medium two shots. The direction of these scenes allowed the non-action stuff play out in wholly engaging ways. Not so, here. The Avengers seldom lets up from the action - all of which is directed like a patchwork quilt, and the dialogue scenes are not only badly directed, but feature one piece of uninspired conversational regurgitate after another.

The whole thing just slams you with the force of Thor's hammer and the Hulk's fists - turning you into ground hamburger meat.

Speaking for cows the world over - it's no fun going through the grinder.