Happy Colossus Adventure

Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970): Based on the first novel in a trilogy by D.F. Jones, this film somewhat jarringly stars Eric Braeden, now so much identified as Victor Newman on the long-running soap opera The Young and the Restless. 

Dr. Forbin has somehow convinced the U.S. government to hand over all control of its nuclear stockpile to the super-computer he designed, the eponymous Colossus. And it's surrounded by an impenetrable radiation barrier! So of course nothing can go worng...

It makes for an enjoyably sober piece of near-future science fiction. Look for a young Gordon Pinsent as the President of the United States of America! Recommended.

Happy Death Day 2 U (2019): Unnecessary but entertaining sequel to the more enjoyable Happy Death Day. It's sort of the 2010 of sequels, as it spends a lot of time explaining why the time loop happened in the first movie. Jessica Rothe is as charming and spunky as ever in the lead role. Christopher Landon directs again, this time taking over the writer's credit from Scott Lobdell. Affable might be the best way to describe this. Lightly recommended.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989): Amiable comedy without a huge number of laughs. Keanu Reaves and Alex Winter do a lot of heavy lifting because with the exception of George Carlin in a few scenes, this movie has the most undistinguished supporting cast in movie history. Or at least ostensibly big-budget studio movie history. But there is something admirable about a film the climax of which is an oral presentation on history that has to be delivered in an auditorium to one's entire high school. Now that's weird. Lightly recommended.

 

Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)

Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019): CAST AND CREDITS: The first post-Avengers: Endgame Marvel movie quickly skates over the ramifications of that movie's ending, which I think will soon be one of those 'Now let us never speak of those five years again!' things in upcoming Marvel joints. 

Tom Holland makes a good Peter Parker. Marvel has wisely emphasized Peter's mechanical and problem-solving genius, a welcome nod to Peter's status as a very clever fellow in the classic Steve Ditko/Stan Lee comics of the 1960's. Hey, that guy beat the Sandman with a goddam vacuum cleaner!!! 

Pretty much all the actors are charming, and Jake Gyllenhaal's Mysterio is a hoot. Even the tweaking of Mysterio's origin is funny yet convincing, though I sort of miss the idea of a character who was a visual and special effects movie guy. Maybe because he could have teamed up with Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's Stuntman. 

The whole thing plays like one of those Roger Moore James Bond movies where everything stays pretty light and jokey while Bond travels from country to country destroying priceless artifacts and occasionally landmarks. Recommended.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019): CAST AND CREDITS: Technically the third (!) film in a trilogy of Godzilla (2014) and Kong: Skull Island (2017) sees Godzilla once again playing hero against an invasive super-monster from outer space, the monster originally known as Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster in the old Toho Studios kaiju movies. 

I had a lot of fun. The tone remains fairly light throughout, striking a nice balance between the grimmer Godzilla (2014) and the light-as-hell Kong: Skull Island. The human characters are paper thin but generally not all that annoying. Mothra and Rodan also play major roles, while the movie also teases a King Kong/Godzilla buddy movie should a fourth film get made. Recommended.

X-men: Dark Phoenix (2019)

X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019): written and directed by Simon Kinberg; based on characters and situations created by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Len Wein, Dave Cockrum, Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and otrhers; starring James McAvoy (Professor X), Michael Fassbender (Magneto), Jennifer Lawrence (Raven), Nicholas Hoult (Beast), Sophie Turner (Jean Grey/ Phoenix), Tye Sheridan (Cyclops), Alexandra Shipp (Storm), Evan Peters (Quicksilver), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Nightcrawler), and Jesicca Chastain (Vuk):

X-Men: Dark Phoenix wasn't terrible. Certainly not enough for all the now-cliched Internet agita about it. Spoilers ahoy!

I wonder if it suffered at the box office in part because it uses Hollywood's ubiquitous Daddy-Daughter trope in a negative sense. Young Jean "Phoenix" Grey is abandoned by her father after Jean accidentally kills her mother because she hates the music Mom is playing on the car radio. Professor X chooses not to tell Jean that her father is still alive after the accident. This seems to me to be a good idea as Jean is only 8 and is traumatized. He slips up by never telling her as a teen or adult that her father is alive, but in his defense, Professor X is a busy man!

The main problem is that once Disney's acquisition of Fox was imminent, Disney clearly told Fox to change the ending of Dark Phoenix because it was similar to the ending of Captain Marvel -- Jean Grey was supposed to destroy a giant alien spaceship that had come to try to acquire the Phoenix Force for itself, saving the Earth and (seemingly) sacrificing herself in the process. This led to reshooting the climax a year after filming had originally ended.

The film-makers changed this woman vs. spaceship battle to a battle between the aliens on one side and the X-Men and human soldiers on the other side, all on a prison train. 

Because nothing says epic sci-fi confrontation more than a battle in and around the apex of 19th-century travel technology.

Of course, this led to an interesting plot hole. Is the spaceship still in orbit? Because the answer would seem to be 'Yes,' given that we saw the aliens come to Earth in the now obligatory meteorite-like landing pods.

So it goes.

Perhaps needless to note at this point, there's no Daddy-Daughter issues in the original comic book Dark Phoenix Saga. Jean's parents are loving and accepting of her mutant powers, and when she gains the Phoenix powers, the saga plays out as a cautionary tale about absolute power corrupting absolutely, along with self-sacrifice. Realizing that the Phoenix Force could never be controlled, Jean commits suicide. Or does she? That was a story for another day!

Lightly recommended.

The Highwaymen (2019)

The Highwaymen (2019): written by John Fusco; directed by John Lee Hancock; starring Kevin Costner (Frank Hamer), Woody Harrelson (Maney Gault), Kathy Bates (Ma Ferguson), and John Carroll Lynch (Lee Simmons): 

It's 1934 and Bonnie and Clyde cut a swath through Texas law enforcement. Enter retired Texas Rangers Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson, tasked with trying to bring the homicidal gang to justice. 

At their ages, Harrelson and Costner play off one another beautifully as what are basically old gunslingers on one last hunt. The landscapes are beautifully shot. There's also a nicely under-stated, droll sense of humour to some of the proceedings. But there are also moments of horror, just as there were in real life. 

As in Arthur Penn's landmark 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde, this film plays fast and loose with a few historical facts, though fewer than Penn's film, which romanticized the dangerous duo. Kathy Bates, John Carroll Lynch, and William Sadler offer strong support as secondary characters. Some may find this overlong; I found it elegiac. Recommended.

Shazam! (2019)

Shazam! (2019): Shazam (aka Captain Marvel) created by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck; written by Henry Gayden and Darren Lemke; directed by David F. Sandberg; starring Zachary Levi (Shazam), Mark Strong (Sivana), Asher Angel (Billy Batson), Jack Dylan Grazer (Freddy Freeman), and Djimon Honsou (Wizard): 

Shockingly enjoyable movie about the original Fawcett Comics Captain Marvel (ie. THE Captain Marvel), moved to the present day and made somewhat goofier than the great 1940's version whose adventures were no worse than second-best in terms of superheroes in the 1940's (Jack Cole's Plastic Man was first; Will Eisner's Spirit didn't have super-powers).

Shazam is an acronym for Solomon (Wisdom), Hercules (Strength), Atlas (Stamina), Zeus (Power), Achilles (Invulnerability), and Mercury (Speed). Well, when it comes to Captain Marvel (now Shazam), anyway -- Mary Marvel and Black Adam, to name two, have the same acronym but different names from mythology.

The whole thing is a 'low-budget' by superhero standards ($90 million) movie aimed solidly at mid-teens. Billy Batson is invested by the wizard Shazam with the powers of, well, Shazam because DC gave up on using 'Captain Marvel' because they didn't trademark it back in the 1950's or 1960's. Shazam is now Earth's defense against magical menaces, sort of a jollier Dr. Strange. 

Billy Batson, a sort-of orphan, has to learn to accept his supportive new foster family led by Freddy Freeman, once a disabled newsboy in the 1940's and now, not working, just as Billy no longer works as a radio host. Child labour laws, am I right, guys?

Zachary Levi is the result of Billy saying 'Shazam.' In the comics, he was generally written as a sort of adult version of Billy with super-powers -- they didn't share a consciousness. Taking a cue from Big, Shazam now possesses Billy's 13-year-old consciousness in a super-powered adult body. Hijinks ensue as Billy and Freddy test out the beer-buying powers of Shazam, among other things.

Much revisionism is heaped on the villain of this piece, Sivana, originally a diminutive mad scientist and now a large, imposing Mark Strong wielding magical powers derived from long-time Shazam foes The Seven Deadly Sins. And I don't mean the Traveling Wilburys song! But Strong always makes an, um, strong villain. 

I'm not a huge fan of all the revisionism heaped on Captain Mar... er, Shazam... in the recent Shazam miniseries by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. And all of those revisions seem to get info-dumped into this movie, especially over the last 45 minutes. Oh, well. Things play a lot jollier here than in that miniseries, and Billy is much more likable.

The whole thing is nonetheless light and entertaining and often quite visually inventive. It's clearly marked throughout as part of the DC Movie Universe, and the end credits foreground this. Superman does cameo in the live-action stuff, but not Henry Cavill either because he refused or because DC is pivoting away from the dark days of David Goyer and Zack Snyder's DC movies to something more earnest and light. 

Hopefully being freed of the demands of an origin story will allow a second Shazam movie to soar and not crash. There's also a brief (unnamed) reference to the 'first,' fallen Shazam champion, Egypt's Black Adam. Dwayne Johnson has been attached to a Black Adam movie for years; the box-office success of Shazam! seems to have jump-started that movie, or at least a Black Adam role in the next Shazam! film. Recommended.

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Avengers: Endgame (2019): written by everybody; directed by Anthony and Hoe Russo; starring everybody: 

Basically the most expensive Season Finale in TV history, blown up by steroids, super-soldier serum, and Gamma Rays to the size of a Behemoth. 

There's no point watching it unless you've seen (and enjoyed) at least 15 or 16 of the previous Marvel films. It pretty much sticks the landing without giving the audience much in the way of a sense of wonder or the Sublime. It's the $300 million blockbuster as basic comfort food, enjoyable and mostly bland. Recommended.

The Wandering Earth (2019)

The Wandering Earth (2019): written by Gong Ge-Er, Frant Gwo, Liu Cixin, Junce Ye, and Yan Dongxu; directed by Frant Go; starring Wu Jing, Li Guangjie, Chuxiao Qu, Ng Man Tat, Jin Mai Jaho, Qu Jingjing, Mike Sui, Arkady Sharogradsky, and Lei Jiayin:

A somewhat lunatic Chinese blockbuster mashes together the apocalyptic world-saving shenanigans of films that include Armageddon and Deep Impact with many micro-lessons in being a good Communist.

The sun has gone crazy, so the people of Earth team up to build 11,000 11-km-high rockets to push the Earth out of the Solar System to safe haven in the nearby Centauri system. OK! 70 years into this escape attempt, the Earth starts getting pulled into Jupiter's gravity well because Jupiter's gravity has "spiked." What is the deal with gravity in this movie?

Much heroic action on the part of Chinese soldiers, scientists, and Common People must be taken in order for Earth to escape Jupiter and get out of the Solar System. The CGI is pretty good, especially in depicting the space scenes.

You really can't subject The Wandering Earth to even a cursory scientific analysis. It's ridiculous. Oddly, in the midst of all the astronomical and physical impossibilities, the film uses the term 'Roche Limit' correctly. Hurray for science! Recommended.

Captain Marvel (2019)

Captain Marvel (2019): based on characters created by Stan Lee, Arnold Drake, Jack Kirby, Gene Colan, and many others; written by Nicole Perlman, Meg LeFauve, Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck, and Geneva Robertson-Dworet; directed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden; starring Brie Larson as Carol Danvers /Captain Marvel, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Ben Mendelsohn as Talos, Jude Law as Yon-Rogg, Annette Bening as Supreme Intelligence/Mar-Vell, Gemma Chan as Minn-Erva, Lee Pace as Ronan, Mckenna Grace as Young Carol Danvers, Djimon Hounsou as Korath, and Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson:

What's weird about Captain Marvel is that it's more like a Joss Whedon project than Whedon's two Avengers movies. Relentlessly light in tone, Captain Marvel is basically a buddy comedy featuring Carol 'Captain Marvel' Danvers and a young, mid-1990's Nick Fury, played by a CGI-youthanized Samuel L. Jackson. 

Disney seems to have spent all the de-aging CGI money on Jackson, as a de-aged Agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) often looks like a nightmare from the Uncanny Valley.

This is the first Captain Marvel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though the Carol Danvers Captain Marvel is the third or fourth so-named hero in Marvel history (and not the original Captain Marvel -- that is the 'Shazam'-uttering Fawcett Comics hero soon to appear in a movie called Shazam; after DC acquired the rights to that Captain from Fawcett, they forgot to trademark the name, thus leading to Marvel debuting their then-male Captain Marvel in the late 1960's).

It's a mostly fun, light snack. It's overly long in the climax department, as pretty much every blockbuster now is these days, relentlessly ticking off items on a Checklist of Closure. Brie Larson is fine as the good Captain, though she's not given much to work with beyond a surface jokiness. Jackson seems to be delighted to be doing comedy work, as do Jude Law as Marvel alien Kree mentor Yon-Rogg and Ben Mendelsohn as the alien Skrull leader Talos. Recommended.

Glass (2019)

Glass (2019): written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan; starring James McAvoy (Kevin Wendell Crumb), Bruce Willis (David Dunn), Samuel L. Jackson (Elijah Price), Anya Taylor-Joy (Casey Cooke), Sarah Paulson (Dr. Staple), Spencer Treat Clark (Joseph Dunn), and Charlayne Woodard (Mrs. Price):

In this sequel to 2000's Unbreakable, M. Night Shyamalan returns to his own private world of super-heroes, super-villains, and the ordinary people all around them. A very subdued Bruce Willis reprises his Unbreakable role as reluctant superhero David Dunn, 19 years older and now getting an assist from his now-adult son playing Oracle on the earpiece.

Samuel L. Jackson's Elijah Price -- aka Mr. Glass -- has been doped up in a psychiatric wing for the last two decades or so after Dunn handed him over to the police for his role in the deaths of hundreds. A third super-powered piece has been added, however -- James McAvoy's super-powered multiple personality/Alter The Beast from Split (2016). Dunn is on his trail for the kidnapping and murder of a couple of groups of teen-aged girls, racing the clock before The Beast kills his next kidnap victims, a group of cheerleaders.

M. Night Shyamalan manages some pretty interesting twists here, though many found them obnoxious or off-putting. His take on super-heroes seems to me to be a complaint against the homogenized corporate movie-super-heroes who took over the box office since the release of Unbreakable. Indeed, the first 'contemporary' superhero universe movie came out the same year -- Bryan Singer's X-Men (2000). 

M. Night Shyamalan's heroes and villains mostly have to obey the laws of physics, More importantly, he posits them -- especially his superheroes -- as Folk Figures about whom the classic superhero comic books were myths and legends once-removed. Does this mean that there's a sinister global conglomerate that seeks to control those with superpowers as if they were just some sort of product?

Well, we'll see. Glass may have a controversial ending, and M. Night Shyamalan as always does some things that seem, well, a little goofy. Nonetheless, this is a fine film both featuring and about superheroes, supervillains, and the idea that in a world of crushing media conformity, magic may still exist -- real magic, dangerous magic, and maybe the real hero of a piece doesn't become apparent until the very end. Highly recommended.

Cold Pursuit (2019)

Cold Pursuit (2019): adapted by Frank Baldwin from the film Kraftidioten written by Kim Fupz Aakeson; directed by Hans Petter Moland; starring Liam Neeson (Nels Coxman), Laura Dern (Grace Coxman), Micheal Richardson (Kyle Coxman), William Forsythe (Brock Coxman), Nicholas Holmes (Ryan), Elizabeth Thai (Ahn), Glen Gould (War Dog), Julia Jones (Aya), Tom Bateman ('Viking'), Tom Jackson (White Bull), and Emmy Rossum (Officer Dash): 

A very enjoyable bit of black comedy dressed up as one of Liam Neeson's revenge dramas. Neeson's Nels Coxman is a laconic small-town Colorado snowplow driver who just won Citizen of the Year for that town. But the murder of his son by Denver drug criminals sends him out in search of revenge using his very specific set of skills... snowplow driving!

Well, OK, there's maybe not as much snow-plow-related mayhem as I would have liked (though the last one is a doozy). Neeson seems to have a bounce in his step throughout as he's given something more than revenge to deal with. Coxman is out of his depth at times when it comes to killing, kidnapping, and general mayhem. But he keeps trying. And his revenge sets off the sort of cascade of criminal death epitomized so brilliantly in Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (Or Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, if you wish).

Director Hans Petter Moland is remaking his own film here, Kraftidioten, relocating it from Scandanavia to the Rockies. He does a nice job for the most part -- the snow sure looks great, and I really like a recurring bit showing how Coxman disposes of the bodies early on. And it's nice to see Tom Jackson in this and Season 3 of Cardinal because everybody loves Tom Jackson. Recommended.