So, here we go: I watched Alien a few years ago, and I found it kind of boring. I liked Sigourney Weaver in it, of course. Ian Holm and Tom Skeritt were good. I found some of the scenes kind of creepy, especially the one with the alien-busting-from-that-dude’s-stomach. (It’s kind of funny to watch the original scene after growing up with the Spaceballs version—like, why isn’t the little alien singing yet? You mean that doesn’t actually happen?) I may try Alien again at some point—if pacing is my major problem with a movie, then I’ll usually give it a second chance, because sometimes I need to see a film twice to really appreciate how the story moves. But still, my initial reaction? Eh. Not that impressed.

However, Aliens? The cleverly named sequel? Thankfully, that was a lot more fun.

*Spoiler-Free. Originally posted in February in my LJ.*

It’s cool to watch a woman who can pull off both badass and vulnerable in the same movie. You know who doesn’t do it? Jessica Biel in Blade III. You know who does? Sigourney Fucking Weaver, baby.

These are the facts: Ripley and her cat take an unintended 57 year long nap after their last encounter with the big bad aliens. When she wakes up, life pretty much sucks: no one believes her story; she has horrible nightmares every night; she’s stuck with bad 80’s hair, etc. Also: the aliens might be back. While Ripley was busy sleeping, colonists were busy landing and terra-forming the Planet of Doom from the first movie. Now, they’ve suddenly gone all radio-silent, and with the upper-ups thinking, Well, shit, maybe Ripley’s not so nutsoid after all, Slimy Paul Reiser comes in to offer Ripley a consultant’s spot on a trip back to Hell. Ripley, quite appropriately, says, “Fuck off.”

That is, until the plot demands that she changes her mind. Apparently, Ripley has to face her fears. She’ll never get on with her life if she doesn’t face her fears. You know what will also impede her getting on with her life? DYING. Ripley’s a bad ass, all right, but her decision-making skills seriously leave something to be desired.

To round out the team, we’ve got a funny little kid named Newt who’s frankly cuter when she isn’t talking, Michael Biehn as the stoic soldier/flirty love interest, Bill Paxton as the considerably less stoic soldier/funny man, and Lance Henriksen as someone who doesn’t talk like he’s got graveyard dirt lining his throat. It’s a little bizzare, but you learn to go with it. Apparently, there are roles outside of cops and random psychopaths on the road.

For me, Aliens kicked Alien‘s ass in a major way. I know they’re going for two different feels—the first one’s a more haunted house thing, while the sequel’s more in your-face-action, but I thought that the sequel had so much tension and brutality that it worked as a genuine sci fi/action/horror instead of a one genre movie masquerading as two (like I imagine Jason X is, although admittedly I’ve never seen it. Still, it’s just horror in the stars, right? Or Leprechaun 4? That’s comedy masquerading as both sci fi and horror, yes?)

I have to give massive props to a few people, namely Bill Paxton for, one, adding a considerable amount of levity that helps balance out the movie and, two, being the awesome character who just flips the fuck out. I’m serious, man, cowards unite! I adore good survival instincts in a man, just like I love male characters who throw hissy fits and freak the fuck out in genuine freak the fuck out situations. These are good qualities in a movie character—they give you something to relate to. (I also don’t mind women panicking when there’s cause to. It’s just more common to make a female the hysterical one in the bunch, and make all the men stoic. I like my boys excitable.)

Also, Sigourney Weaver’s awesome, like I said before, for pulling out traumatized victim in the beginning and lady who’s got her alien-killing shit together later on. And, surprisingly enough, she isn’t the only badass female in the movie (cause, you know, badass women usually only come in one, like the Asian friend or the black friend.) Jenette Goldstein plays the unit’s Latina chick who, honestly, reminds me of Roselyn Sanchez from Basic. Her character isn’t nearly as developed as Ripley’s, but I nevertheless buy her as the kickass soldier, and she’s fun to watch. In a mostly unrelated note, I desperately want a T-shirt that says “You Fucked With the Wrong Mexican” on it. Maybe when Machete comes out.

And, yes, props to JC as well (that’s James Cameron, not Jesus Christ, although lately, aren’t they kind of the same in the media’s eye?) I know, this isn’t fair. I haven’t even seen Avatar yet (probably tomorrow, I swear) but lately, every time I hear Cameron’s name, I kind of want to throw up a little. Maybe it’s because his award speeches always sound so pompous. Or maybe I’m just tired of the whole ‘he created an entire language’ nonsense. I mean, really? Anyone remember Elvish from Lord of The Rings, or Klingon from Star Trek? What, it’s not the sign of destined geeky virginhood anymore if James Cameron does it? Fuckers.) Anyway, my problems with the man aside, the guy can make a pretty decent movie, and not only is Aliens a lot of fun, it actually makes the Better Than The Original Movie List. There are, of course, other sequels that do this: Empire Strikes Back, as the obvious example, but it’s still a decent accomplishment. So props to JC as well.

So, what’s the moral of the day?

Nightmares suck. But unless Freddy Krueger is laughing it up in your brain, nightmares ain’t gonna kill you. So, instead of going back to the planet of doom where there is almost CERTAINLY a massive alien infestation waiting for you, why don’t you instead do . . . something else. Anything else. For Christ’s sake, even Barry Watson isn’t this stupid. At least he didn’t have any kind of current evidence suggesting that the boogeyman he “imagined” was alive and kickin in his childhood home.

Fuck facing your fear, man. I’m sticking with the damn cat.

I really enjoyed Mission Impossible. I was highly disappointed by Mission Impossible 2. I didn’t even bother to see Mission Impossible 3.

Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol?

Yeah, it was actually a lot of fun.

SUMMARY:

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his small, ragtag team of spies are framed for blowing up the Kremlin. The president activates GHOST PROTOCOL (caps added for emphasis), shutting down the IMF. It’s up to Ethan and co. to clear their names and catch the real bad guys. Also, save the world. Wouldn’t be a proper action movie without saving the world, after all.

NOTES:

1. First—and I’m sure this question gets asked a lot—but do you ever think a spy receives his assignment and is all like, “You know, I choose not to accept this mission. I choose to go vacation in the Bahamas instead. Or maybe play some golf. Or what about that mission where I get to chill in Venice for a while and pretend to be a tourist? I’ll take that mission, okay? Awesome, cool, thanks. It’s good to have such an understanding boss.”

2. Now, on to actual things. Tom Cruise is getting older, which apparently makes some people wonder if he’s viable as an action movie star or not.

Excuse me?

Which seems a little silly to me—I mean, he’s only turning 50 this year. Bruce Willis is 56. Mickey Rourke is 59. Harrison Ford is 69. I think Cruise has some time left before he’s geriatric and feeble.

Well, whether he’s ancient or not, Tom Cruise is fairly enjoyable here. He’s a solid lead for the series, has a few funny lines, and interacts well with everyone else on the screen. You certainly can’t accuse him of taking it easy on the job. Apparently, he did all his own stunts in Dubai, which—crazy. And when he’s running, there’s none of this lightly jogging bullshit. He’s really running hard . . . which is, sometimes, unintentionally hysterical because some people just look funny when they run. There’s this one shot of him sprinting through a sandstorm that just cracked all of us up. (Us being me, my sister, and my friend Lindsey.) I can’t even properly describe it to you. This is the best picture I could find, but it doesn’t quite do it justice.

This is my Serious Face.

3. Although it’s worth noting that while Tom Cruise is still viable as an action star, Ethan Hunt himself might be getting too old for the series. He misses like, I don’t know, three of his jumps or something. Seriously, he just keeps leaping for things and not quite making the mark. I think he has depth perception problems.

4. It is ridiculous how much of the super spy tech doesn’t work in this film. Pretty much every awesome gadget fails rather spectacularly at an inopportune moment. If James Bond had to deal with this shit, he’d be dead in under a minute.

5. As far as supporting cast goes:

Simon Pegg

There’s just something very natural about how Simon Pegg does comic relief. Other actors, they sometimes seem like they’re trying too hard to be funny—not that they aren’t funny, exactly, but that they’re just so obvious about it, like, oh, so you’re the guy who makes the jokes, got it. But Simon Pegg seems to be sort of effortlessly hilarious. He has a good chemistry with all the other actors in the film, and he nails all his dialogue. Loved him.

Paula Patton

This is the first role I’ve ever seen Paula Patton in, and overall, I thought she did well with it. I could buy her as a kickass agent—I mean, as far as I can buy anyone who looks like that going into spywork instead of, say, being a model or something. She looks good holding a gun, she doesn’t pout, and there’s only one line delivery that made me cringe a tiny bit. Her fight scene with this assassin chick is fairly fun, so . . . yeah. Thumbs up.

Jeremy Renner

There’s been speculation that if Tom Cruise decides to retire from the MI series, the torch will be passed to Jeremy Renner. I would be 100% okay with that. I loved him in this movie. Brandt is kind of kickass and awesome and all that good stuff . . . but he’s not entirely stoic, either, which I thought was absolutely hysterical. There’s this one scene where he’s supposed to basically jump down into a giant, rotating fan, and the special spy suit he’s wearing will keep him from being shredded. Well, with the way that all the gadgetry has been failing thus far, it’s no wonder that Brandt hesitates for a full minute before jumping. He’s all, so, jump now? Like, really? Like . . . right now? Loved it.

If the series does continue with Renner at the helm, I hope that Brandt stays like this: dangerous . . . but not exactly unflappable.

6. There’s a saying: a film is only as good as its villain. Thankfully for Ghost Protocol, that’s not really true at all. I mean, it’s a cool saying, and a strong villain is a huge asset to any movie, but there have been plenty of good films out there with subpar villains, and this is one of them. It’s not a question of acting. There’s just not a lot of time devoted to the bad guys. You get a ten second glimpse at the Big Bad’s particular brand of crazy, and that’s about it. The vast majority of this film is focused on the team.

Now, the movie works because you like the team—they’re funny, and the actors have a good chemistry with one another—but I do wish a little more attention had been paid to the Big Bad. Awesome bad guys are a lot of fun. Besides, an interesting villain can only serve to make the ending more climactic.

7. The action scenes are mostly fantastic. The scene everyone’s been talking about in Dubai is well worth the hype. You really get a good sense about just how tall this damn building is, enough to make any acrophobic lean back in their seat and go, Okay, yeah. Yeah, no thanks. (And supposedly, this scene looks amazing in IMAX. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen anything in IMAX in my life. I’d have to go to the city for that, and none of my friends ever want to go to the city just to see a movie. It’s hard to blame them.)

8. I have to say, though, that I kind of hate how the Kremlin looks when it blows up. I feel like I’m never impressed when they blow up buildings in movies anymore. It always looks fake to me, and I always end up disappointed.

9. Like many action and horror movies, this is another one of those films were people survive horrifically awful car accidents with a vague limp that lasts for about three seconds. The bad guy should be dead a good thirty minutes before the movie ends. Instead, he’s out of the wreck and gone in the time it takes Ethan to park the car. And the big fight scene, ha! Admittedly, when one of our heroes does something suicidally stupid to save the world, (s)he has the decency to look like they can never move again for a few minutes there. On the other hand, (s)he should be dead. No question. The airbag only helps so much, people.

10. Finally, some quotes before I get into spoilers.

Brandt: “23 minutes till door knock.”
Ethan: “The countdown isn’t helping.”
Brandt: “I’m just saying.”

Brandt: “The rope isn’t long enough.”
Ethan: “No shit!”

Benji: “Why am I Pluto? It’s not even a planet anymore.”
Brandt: “Well, Uranus is still available.”
Benji: “Ha. It’s funny cause you said anus.”

Ethan: “We’re going into the Kremlin.”
Benji (laughing): I thought you said the Kremlin for a minute there . . . I thought you said the Kremlin for a minute there . . . okay.”

Benji: “Easy way to remember: blue is glue.”
Ethan: “And when it’s red?”
Benji: “Dead.”

Benji: “I’m telling you, we can get to it from outside.”
Ethan: “We?”
Benji: “I’m—I’m on the computer.”
Brandt: “I’m just the helper.”

Benji: “Fine. Fine. There! We’ll just screw the whole thing up . . . on purpose.”

Now, for some Spoilers . . .

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

The movie begins with the lovely Josh Holloway. Don’t get attached to him.

Josh Holloway plays Trevor Hanaway, an IMF agent who survives jumping off a building only to be killed by a pretty blonde assassin named Sabine. He gets shot something like five times, and yet there is a suspicious lack of blood anywhere near his body, fueling my hope that he’s only pretending to be dead and is, in fact, a secret bad guy. Sadly, this is not the case.

Meanwhile, Ethan Hunt is languishing away in some prison in Moscow. Jane Carter (Patton) and Benji Dunn (Pegg) bust him out, although Ethan doesn’t entirely cooperate with them at first. See, Benji basically engineers a prison riot to distract from Ethan’s escape, only Ethan decides to stroll straight on through the riot so that he can rescue his prison buddy too. Benji’s reaction to this is hilarious. Did I mention I love Simon Pegg?

. . . although, I do feel the need to point out that Benji is totally responsible for getting this guard dead. Well, they don’t technically show the guard get killed, but . . . seriously, he’s totally pushing up the daisies. See, Benji releases the electronic lock on some random prisoner’s cell. A guard comes in to investigate. Benji then releases the electronic lock on another random prisoner’s cell. The two prisoners, now encircling this guard, proceed to beat the living shit out of him. And, sure, Benji makes a funny face, like, oooh, ouch, sorry about that, mate . . . but this dude didn’t just get a kick to the family jewels, you know? He’s, like, curled in a ball on the ground, and these guys are using him to play a very violent game of soccer. Best case scenario? This dude doesn’t walk again, period.

But, you know, that’s okay. Because Benji feels bad about it, and Ethan gets out and, really, that’s all that matters, right?

Almost immediately after the prison break, Ethan gets a new mission . . . because having 48 hours to do nothing but shower, sleep, and catch up on episodes of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is apparently not in the job description of secret agent man. He, Jane, and Benji infiltrate the Kremlin, hoping to locate some important files about this evil dude codenamed Cobalt. Unfortunately, the bad guys purposefully blow the team’s cover to the authorities. Ethan aborts the mission, and everyone evacuates the Kremlin right before the bad guys blow it to holy hell.

Jane and Benji escape because they’re awesome. Ethan is less lucky. He gets knocked out by the blast and wakes up in a hospital with this Russian agent dude Sidorov glaring daggers at him. Sidorov’s actually kind of funny, but he doesn’t get a lot of screen time to work with, unfortunately.

Anyway, Ethan escapes from Sidorov. He hitches a ride with the IMF Secretary (Tom Wilkinson) and IMF analyst Brandt. The Secretary tells Ethan that Russia is blaming America for the bombing, and that the president has invoked GHOST PROTOCOL. (It’s just more fun to type it like that.) Ethan is supposed to go back with them to the US . . . unless, of course, he resists arrest, knocks out the Secretary and Brandt, and escapes to go clear his name. Brandt is clearly taken by surprise with this plan and looks none too pleased with it, as you might imagine. However, before Ethan can overrule his objections, the bad guys are back and shooting at their car. The driver and Tom Wilkinson are both killed almost immediately. Brandt and Ethan escape. Ethan, you might notice, spends a decent amount of this movie escaping from things.

Ethan and Brandt do a hobo-train-hop, only this is no ordinary train—it’s actually all that’s left of IMF. It’s also apparently where they store all the shit technology that needs to be red-tagged for maintenance. And since Benji and Jane are already on board, the team’s all there! Yay!

Ethan and co. figure out who the bad guys are: Hendricks (formerly known as Cobalt), who believes that in order for the world to be peaceful and happy, we need to nuke the shit out of it first, and Wistrom, his lackey. Hendricks has a nuclear launch device. Now he needs the activation codes. And where are the activation codes, you might ask? Well, pretty little assassin Sabine has them, which is why she killed Josh Holloway in the first place. The meet is set in Dubai.

So the team goes to Dubai and everything pretty much all goes to hell. I’m not going to detail  the whole plan right now because I don’t feel like it, but here are some highlights:

1. Every single bit of technology decides to fail the team for no good reason.
2. Brandt, mysteriously, is a better fighter than most analysts.
3. Jane, who’s been eager to kill Sabine in order to avenge Josh Holloway, does indeed kill Sabine when she kicks her out an open window on the, oh, bazillionth story.

Wistrom gets away with the device, and Ethan pursues him through the city in the middle of a fairly sudden sandstorm. Is this how sandstorms actually operate in Dubai? Cause, seriously. Scratch Dubai off the list, if that’s the case.

Ethan manages to pull a little fake skin away from Wistrom’s face at one point, making me think, YES! The bad guy IS Josh Holloway! Go Carlie! But after Wistrom manages to survive a car accident that should, at the very least, have paralyzed him from the waist down, he gets away and tears off his mask, revealing that he’s actually . . . Hendricks.

And I’m like . . . okaaay? Cause, first, the whole point in having henchmen is so you don’t have to do all the dangerous gruntwork. And secondly . . . who cares? The bad guy isn’t who you thought he was! He’s . . . the other bad guy . . . who you already knew was bad. Er. Surprise?

So, the team gets into a giant tiff about secrets and how spectacularly bad things went and blah blah blah. Ethan storms off in a huff, and Brandt tells the others that Ethan was in jail because his wife was murdered by some Serbian hit squad, and Ethan killed those Serbians. Also, that Brandt had been assigned to protect the couple, and he knew the Serbians were coming, but since things seemed under control and he was ordered not to tell Ethan, he said nothing. Whoops.

Ethan figures out that Wistrom and Hendricks are scheduled to meet in India because they need to use this satellite or something. So the team goes to India. Jane gets to seduce this annoying rich guy for intel, while Brandt gets the unenviable job of jumping into an oven. Here’s the clip where Brandt and Benji are discussing the job.

Hee. Love.

A bunch of chasing and shooting ensues. Wistrom shoots Jane. Benji shoots Wistrom. Ethan and Hendricks fight each other on this series of platforms—are they in a car dealership or something? I honestly can’t remember, just that there are a ludicrous amount of cars around. I think Hendricks does a suicidal swan dive off of one of the very high platforms in order to keep Ethan from disarming the bomb. The rest of us might have given up at that point, or maybe tried to leap from platform to platform in a futile attempt to reach the bomb anyway . . .  but this is why we are not secret agent men. Because we lack giant, steel cojones. Or because we have brains. Whichever you prefer.

Ethan (of the giant steel cojones and lack of brains) decides that the only option available to him is to get in a car, drive it off the very same platform, fall a bazillion feet in the air, and crash it nose-first into the ground . . .  where he promptly dies because come on, what the HELL.

Okay, fine, Ethan somehow manages to live. He drags himself out of the car, proclaims, “Mission accomplished!” and hits the stop button on the bomb. Only it doesn’t work because the rest of the team hasn’t done their part yet. Ethan’s “I-don’t-understand-why-aren’t-you-working” face is kind of hilarious. He keeps hitting the thing until, finally, the teams come through and the bomb is deactivated. Of course, that’s when Sidorov walks in and is like, “Oh, so you really are on my side, huh?” Ethan weakly nods. Sidorov: “Hospital?” Ethan weakly nods again.

The denouement: Ving Rhames pops up for a minute to laugh at Ethan for actually saying “Mission accomplished!” which . . . awesome. That’s just awesome. That might be my favorite cameo since Bill Murray in Zombieland. Then, Ving leaves, and Ethan talks to Jane, Benji, and Brandt, telling them that every bit of gadgetry failed to work on this mission except the team which . . . ugh. Significantly less awesome. You don’t need to feed me the moral, you guys. I’m practically choking on team spirit right here. Ethan wants everyone to stick around and continue working together.

Jane and Benji are all in, but Brandt still needs to tell Ethan his deep, dark secret. Which proves quite unnecessary because Ethan knows who Brandt is and, furthermore, his wife is still alive. They faked her death, and the whole murdering Serbians story was just a cover to get Ethan into the prison where he could learn more info about . . . um, Hendricks, I think? Anyway, Brandt’s happy that he didn’t completely fail his job now, so he’s in too.

Michelle Monaghan cameos for a very brief second as Ethan’s wife, and they look at each other from a distance. Then Ethan goes on his next mission. And seriously, people . . . don’t secret agents ever get vacations?

CONCLUSIONS:

A lot of fun. A little silly in parts, but that’s what action movies are for, right? Good cast, good stunts, enjoyable story. Could have had a more interesting villain, though.

MVP:

Jeremy Renner

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORAL:

It doesn’t matter when technology fails on you. Teamwork will save the day!

. . . except if that technology is an airbag. Cause, apparently airbags will never fail on you. They will save your life . . . even if you fall over fifty feet, head-on, to the pavement far, far below.

Yeah. That happens. You’ll walk that shit right off.

(Also: being a secret agent man sucks. Sure, the job apparently comes with camaraderie and all, but you also have to deal with shitty equipment, faking the death of your spouse, a very good possibility of your own, far more actual death, and absolutely no vacation days. Unless you count prison in Moscow, of course.)

The Avengers was awesome. This must be said. (And then repeated. And then possibly even sung.) But The Avengers is not the only gigantic superhero movie coming to a theater near you this summer. There’s a certain trilogy by Christopher Nolan that has to wrap up, which means I have a fair number of reviews to finish before July 28th.

So let’s get back to it, shall we?

I definitely have all kinds of childhood nostalgia for this movie. Doesn’t make the Missile Penguins any less stupid, though.

DISCLAIMER:

Spoilers again. Sorry. This might end up being true for all my Batman reviews. I’m being lazy. I have The Avengers fanfiction to read, dammit!

SUMMARY:

Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Penguin (Danny DeVito) team up to try and frame, humiliate, and kill Batman (Michael Keaton). Because it’s always about the lengthy emotional turmoil for these guys. Supervillains just never walk straight up and shoot anyone in the head anymore.

NOTES:

1. We might as well just start with the real reason everyone loves this film:

It has very little to do with Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, or even Christopher Walken—although Christopher Walken is always fun, particularly with awesome headgear like this:

—but let’s be honest here: this movie is ALL about Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman. She is awesome. She is beyond awesome. She has the kind of throaty, sexy voice that I would kill for. Also, the body. Sweet Jesus. If I could wear that outfit . . . well, I’d probably be making money at a very different profession, is all I’m saying.

Seriously, though, I love Pfeiffer for both how she portrays Selina Kyle and Catwoman. Pre-transformation, Selina is meek, sure, but she’s not exactly some vapid, wilting little flower. I love that she shocks this evil clown with his own taser after he’s unconscious. And then giggles! Giggles! Love. This. Scene. Also, if you can’t relate to the “Oh, I forgot, I’m not married” and “Selina, it’s you mother, call me . . . Selina, it’s your mother, why haven’t you called me”—well, then, I just don’t believe you’re a real person.

Selina is not just one character trait attached to a pair of legs, which is one of the reasons I like her. Also, she’s just an incredible Catwoman. It seems like it shouldn’t be so hard, being both dangerous and sexy, but some actresses seem to latch onto the sexy part and forget about the whole badass element. Pfeiffer does not. She is beautiful, dark, and awesomely crazy. I expect Anne Hathaway is going for a completely different type of Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises, and that’s fine—in fact, it’s probably the right choice—but she still has her work cut out for her, shoes to fill, what have you.

Oh, and for the record, if I could dress up as anything, anything, for Comic Con or Dragon Con—you know if I had the body for any costume and the eyebrows for any hair color? This is what I’d wear:

This is what happens to your hair when you go crazy and/or full-on villain. Seriously. It’s been well documented by Hollywood.

2. Sadly, I don’t like the Penguin quite as much as I used to.

The Penguin’s kind of a problematic character in almost every version of Batman that I’ve ever seen. I know some people were angry about how he was reinterpreted here—traditionally, the Penguin is much more aristocratic and gentlemanly and somewhat less a demented-sewer-carny-freak—but I’ve always found him to be terribly boring. (Perhaps its in the name. Is there any way he could have picked a less frightening altar ego? What, was Hummingbird taken? This is like when you name your hockey team the Mighty Ducks or the Senators or something. Like, what? How am I possibly supposed to take you seriously with a name like that?)

So, I don’t really mind that this Penguin is significantly different from the traditional version. I have a thing for evil circuses—I don’t know, I just do—and I kind of like Danny DeVito’s performance, except . . . we’re already starting our downhill slide into cartoon villains and their dreadful puns. I mean, clearly, it’s going to get a lot worse in the later films, but still: “I was their number one son, and they treated me like number two?” Ugh. There are Penguin moments that I definitely like, but sometimes, I wish they would scale back just a bit on the, ah, supposed humor because I think I want him to be creepier than he actually is.

3. Also—and please keep in mind that the closest I’ve ever been to a real circus is Cirque du Soleil, once—what’s up with The Poodle Lady?

Seriously? Bearded Lady I’ve heard of, but Poodle Lady? Is that even legitimately a thing? Also, can I just tell you how much she cracks me up near the end of this film? So, so much. She’s just so monotone. “Something is coming. Very large. Very fast.” I don’t even know why, but I always have to chime in when she says this. It’s the little things, I guess.

4. Actually, I have to chime in with another character too: Chip, Max Shreck’s ridiculously tall son.

Chip is having a bad day.

Chip is played by Andrew Bryniarski, who you might have seen in any number of things. Horror movie fans might be amused to discover that he plays the most recent incarnation of Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Street Fighter fans (hey, I know you’re out there) might remember him as the rather spectacularly cast Zangief. And Browncoats? Do you remember this guy?

Yup. All the same guy.

I think Andrew B’s downfall in this movie is playing Christopher Walken’s son. Walken, as everyone on the planet already knows, has kind of a distinctive voice, and I think Bryniarski tries to, at least in part, imitate it. This simply cannot be done, however, which leads me to giggle like a fiend every time I watch Chip say, “Dad, go, save yourself! Dad, go!” It’s not something I can put into words, exactly, but this tiny, little moment gives me such joy. He just sounds so ridiculous. I will always hold this moment close to my little geek heart.

5. May I just say, though, that I am surprised Max bothers to go with the Penguin near the end of the movie at all, effectively sacrificing himself for Chip? After all, at the beginning of the film, Max does run away when Chip (hilariously) tells his father to save himself. He just takes off and leaves his son behind with about seventeen guns trained on Chip’s face. (Okay, it may be three. Still. That’s three more guns that I bet you would want trained on your face.)

I’m just saying. Father of the Year may not be in the cards for Max Shreck this 1992, despite this random fourth quarter conversion to the sorta-good side.

6. One of the most interesting things about Tim Burton’s Batman films is how little Bruce Wayne is featured in them. In the first half of this movie, for example, Batman’s barely even around. He shows up to fight a few guys, sure, but we don’t follow him very much, and I don’t think we even get Bruce’s POV on anything until at least an hour of the film has already gone by. It’s not a complaint, exactly; it’s just interesting: the first two Batman films are atmospheric and dark and host some awesome villains, but they are not exactly what I’d call introspective. In a way—and I know I’m going to get some serious heat for saying this—Batman Forever and Batman and Robin actually attempt to delve deeper into Bruce Wayne’s psyche than Batman and Batman Returns do. Admittedly, they don’t do a very good job of it, but still. Superhero films of today are usually very much about the hero, but Tim Burton’s superhero films? Not so much.

7. Sometimes, I feel like a lot of Danny Elfman’s music sounds the same (which was why I was so shocked to realize he did the music here—ostensibly from The Wolfman but possibly more well-known from the trailer for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) but I do really like his score for Batman Returns. I get portions of “Selina Transforms (Part 2)” stuck in my head every time I watch this movie.

8. Where this movie starts to fall down for me? Near the end with the Missile Penguins.

Plotting isn’t this movie’s strongest feature, but most of it works for me—right up until the part where Penguin’s plan to kidnap the first sons of Gotham fails (which is his own fucking fault—but we’ll get to that) and he decides to give a speech and send off his beloved penguins on a suicidal mission to blow up the city. I mean, first, the speech is just stupid. It’s like watching Robin Williams give his speech to the toys in Toys, only it actually makes less sense. Then, the whole plan is just ridiculously dumb, and his entire showdown with Batman is depressingly anticlimactic.

Thankfully, the real showdown is between Selina Kyle and Max Shreck.

9. About that showdown between Selina Kyle and Max Schreck—well, hell, you can just watch it here.

Damn youtube won’t let me embed. Well, here’s a picture if you don’t want to follow the link.

There are no words for how much I love this scene. I love that there’s a moment where you think Batman might actually talk Catwoman down, and I love that Catwoman kills Shreck anyway. I love how she kills Shreck. I love the whole nine lives thing—is it really explained? No. Does it need to be? No. I love love love Catwoman’s laugh. I basically just love Catwoman.

Some other favorite moments in the film, almost all of them including Catwoman:

A. The aforementioned scene where Selina Kyle shocks the clown who took her hostage . . . and then keeps the taser.

B. Selina Kyle’s nervous breakdown and subsequent destruction of her ridiculously pink apartment.

C. Alfred glaring at Bruce while trying to piece an invitation back together. Also, any time Alfred snarks. I love snarky Alfred.

D. Bruce snarking back at Alfred for letting Vicki Vale into the Bat Cave that one time. Cause yes! YES! That was such a stupid scene.

E. The Ice Princess trying to remember whether the Christmas lights come on before or after she pushes the button.

F. Selina and Bruce’s dance at the masquerade ball. Ooh, look, youtube has that scene too!

I swear to God, this is the only romance in the entire live-action Batman series—from West to Bale—that has any kind of chemistry at all.

10. But since we’re talking about the good moments, we also need to talk about the stupid moments as well. And, no, I don’t just mean the Missile Penguins—though those are plenty stupid—I mean the ridiculous amount of times that one of these characters does something semi to outrageously moronic. Let’s take each character one at a time, shall we?

A. Selina Kyle

I know. After all that time I spent praising Catwoman? Yes, well, as awesome as Michelle Pfeiffer is, Catwoman does some pretty dumb things. I guess I can forgive her for waving her gun around in a crowded ballroom and telling Bruce about her plan to kill Max—I’m not exactly sure why she thinks he’s just going to be cool with that, but she’s clearly a wee bit crazy right then, so maybe she’s not thinking too clearly at this stage of the game.

But nothing excuses her actions earlier in the film before she got thrown out of a window. Right before, in fact. Max tries to kill Selina, see, because Selina discovers his top secret, nefarious power plant plans, and Max knows that Selina’s discovered them because she tells him. Seriously, she just keeps rambling on and on, and I guess she’s supposed to be nervous or something, but honestly, this is just downright suicidal. If she was at least attempting to blackmail him, I could understand that, but Selina appears to be telling Max everything she knows for absolutely no reason of any kind. And you know what happens when you do something like that, don’t you?

Yep, you get shoved out a window. And if you’re very, very lucky, you get resurrected by cats.

B. Max Shreck

Of course, Max is kind of an idiot here too. Clearly, Max has no problem killing people to get what he wants, and I take no serious issue with that—bribing Selina might have been less messy in the long run, but there’s an eloquence to his solution, after all: dead secretaries can’t talk. (Of course, witnesses aren’t exactly a remote possibility when you shove someone out of a tall building in the middle of a city, but whatever. It’s the middle of the night. Max got lucky. Fine.) But here’s the real important thing about killing somebody—there’s usually this little thing called a body left behind.

When Selina shows up to work the next day (or maybe the day after—I can’t remember the exact chronology) Max is shocked to see her, since he surely remembers killing her very, very recently. But this means one of two things: one, he didn’t think to dispose of the body—because a dead employee outside his building isn’t going to cause suspicion or anything—or two, he did go to dispose the body, saw that Selina was missing, and just assumed roaming wolves ate her. As they do.

Not only that, but Max tells Bruce Wayne—before Selina pops up again, very much alive—that his assistant is taking vacation time—vacation time! If you weren’t going to clean up the body, I guess you could at least try and tell the cops that Selina had committed suicide or something—I mean, that could potentially be plausible—but apparently Max instead pushed his nosy secretary out of a window and then expected the body to just magically disappear. Seriously, that’s a lot of faith to put in roaming wolves. Max, you’re kind of an asshat. Where did you learn how to whack somebody? Body disposal is a very integral part of any good murder. No wonder The Penguin got his little, webbed hands on your dead partner’s body. Honestly.

C. The Penguin

It’s not just that the Missile Penguins are ridiculous in theory. It’s that their execution is stupid. After Batman easily turns them back against the zoo—and how did he prepare for that particular eventuality, anyway, like who thinks I better come up with a strategy in case this week’s archnemesis turns his feathered friends into suicide bombers—Batman frightens and angers the Penguin by threatening to blow up said feathered friends. The Penguin screams, “My babies!”, attacks, and manages to get his hands on the remote control . . . where he promptly hits the launch button himself. Er, what?

If Penguin’s concerned for the well-being of the penguins . . . well, not only was his plan stupid from the get-go, but how does it change anything if he’s the one who pushes the button instead of Batman? If he’s worried about his own life . . . he’s standing probably five feet away from Batman when he sets off the charges. Not exactly great odds for either of them. If he still wants to try and blow up Gotham . . . why does he push the button at all?

And this isn’t even Penguin’s most idiotic lapse in judgment.

Back up twenty minutes: Bruce, Selina, Max, Chip, and various other Gothamites are at the masquerade ball when Penguin pops up in one of these:

Where do you find giant rubber ducks anyway? I kind of want one.

For awhile, the Penguin seems to be the most unlikely mayoral candidate ever, but his real plans have always been to snatch every privileged firstborn son of Gotham and murder all of them in the sewers below. This is not a very nice plan, but it’s not a terrible one either, as these things go. No one has any inkling on what he’s up to, not Shreck, not Catwoman, not Batman.

Which is why Penguin has to arrive at the party and announce what he’s doing to the whole crowd . . . before the kids have actually been kidnapped.

If Penguin hadn’t told everyone about his top secret plans, Batman would never have known about them. If Penguin had just stolen the kids and murdered them quietly that night, saving the boasting and gloating for the following morning, then Batman wouldn’t have been able to save them because he’d have been too busy trying to work things out with Selina Kyle. (Possibly or possibly not on some empty nearby couch.) And sure, Penguin’s there to take Chip, Max’s firstborn (and very grown up) son. But Penguin didn’t even have to say why he was taking him. He’s got a genuine beef with Max—there was no reason to tell everyone that ALL their kids were in danger. This is just stupid on a James Bond villain level. Actually, I think it’s even worse than that, and that shouldn’t even be humanely possible.

D. Batman

So, Bruce tells Max early in the film that he doesn’t trust him, that he knows Shreck’s pal Penguin is an evil crime boss—he just can’t prove it. (Batman’s distrust of the Penguin happens far too quickly for my tastes. He goes from I-hope-that-poor-deformed-man-finds-his-parents to evil! EVIL! in about four seconds, presumably because Max calls Penguin a friend on a news report. I might be suspicious of Max’s friends too, but it seems to me, in this case, that opportunism would be a lot more likely than the actual truth.) Now, I can’t really understand why Bruce would tell Max this—tactically, keeping information or suppositions like this close to the chest until you can prove them is a much smarter play—but hey, it’s just a questionable, not absurdly dumb, decision.

Then we get to the puzzling matter of the Missile Penguins. Again. When Penguin pushes the button and sets off the missiles, he is attacked by a swarm of bats (swarm??? flock??? too lazy to Google) and promptly falls to his death. (Well, pretty much to his death.) Now, this is one of those justice-is-served moments because this is exactly what Penguin did to the Ice Princess, and while I’m normally all for savoring the oh-sweet-irony revenge moment . . . did Batman really go to the trouble of rigging the bats to burst out at the Penguin and not bother to, you know, disarm the missiles while he was at it? Or did I just misunderstand something?

Here’s what I know I didn’t misunderstand: Batman bitches Alfred out for revealing his secret identity (and rightly so) earlier in the film, but then goes around and does the same thing himself . . . to Max Shreck!

If you’re actually watching the clips I’ve been linking, you’ve recently watched this scene: Batman’s trying to get through to Catwoman, to keep her from killing Max Shreck . . . an honorable goal, I guess, although Batman doesn’t seem to have a lot of trouble killing people in this movie. (Watch it again. He totally sets one of Penguin’s henchmen on fire.) And sure, tearing off his mask is very symbolic and all, and Catwoman already knows who he is, so Bruce isn’t really in any danger here . . . except, oh yeah, Evil Max Shreck is still in the room.

At least, at least Vicki Vale liked Bruce Wayne and wouldn’t have immediately screwed him over without a niggling doubt or two. Max Shreck, on the other hand? Are you kidding me? Batman’s secret identity would be out before they escaped the sewers. It wouldn’t matter if he was going to prison or not. Shreck would manage to use this information to ruin Batman—and Batman’s just going to be the one to hand it over?

I think you owe an apology to Alfred, Bruce.

11. Another example of learn how to shoot your gun: Shreck, not killing Selina is one thing. She has nine lives. Inexplicably. But Batman? He’s really only got one, and you just manage to graze him in the neck? For shame, Max Shreck. For shame.

12. Quotes. Many, many quotes.

Selina: “Well, that was . . . very brief. Just like all the men in my life.”

The Penguin: “The heat’s getting to me. I’ll murder you momentarily.”

Selina: “It’s the so-called normal men that always let you down. Sickos never scare me. At least they’re committed.”

Catwoman: “How could you? I’m a woman.”

Ice Princess: “The tree lights up, and then I push the button! No—no, wait, wait, wait. I press the button and then the tree lights up.”

Catwoman: “You’re the second man who’s killed me this week, but I’ve got seven lives left.”
Batman: “I tried to save you.”
Catwoman: “Seems like every woman you try and save ends up dead . . . or deeply resentful. Maybe you should retire.”

Bruce: “Security? Who let Vicki Vale into the Batcave? I’m sitting there working, and I turn around. ‘Oh, hi Vic, come on in.’”

Penguin: “Why is there always someone who brings eggs and tomatoes to a speech?”

Alfred: “Sir, shall we change the channel to a program with some dignity and class? The Love Connection, perhaps?”

Jen: “Our research tells us that voters like fingers.”

13. Finally, I know I’m far from a foodie—I have many, many peculiarities when it comes to eating—but I gotta say, I’m with Bruce on this one: cold soup? Yeah, no thanks.

CONCLUSIONS:

Silly at times and falls apart a bit at the end—but Catwoman makes this movie. Catwoman is this movie.

MVP:

Michelle Pfeiffer. As if there was any doubt.

CHARACTER WHO MOST DESERVES TO BE SLAPPED WITH A BIG, DEAD, SMELLY FISH:

Batman. Although he has a lot of competition.

GRADE:

B

MORAL:

Keep your fucking mouth shut. Honestly. Between Penguin announcing his plans to kill babies, Selina Kyle announcing her plans to kill Shreck, and Batman announcing his true identity to Max . . . it’s like no one understands the meaning of the word secret anymore.

Also, learn how to sew. You’ll never make an awesome vinyl catsuit and mask out of your raincoat if you don’t learn how to sew.

Finally. I thought I’d never finish this thing.

I don’t think the movie’s perfect — I certainly don’t think it’s as good as The Dark Knight — but it is, ultimately, a very satisfying end to a trilogy.

SUMMARY:

Eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne is a recluse, Batman is no more, Harvey Dent is still dead but at least has his own holiday, and a shit ton of bad guys are behind bars. Unfortunately for Gotham, Bane (Tom Hardy) has come to get this party started up.

NOTES:

1. Let’s start with our villains (or anti-villains):

Catwoman

So, let’s be clear: no one’s beating Michelle Pfeiffer as Best Catwoman of All Time. Which is fine because Anne Hathaway didn’t try to do that: she’s her own Catwoman here, and she’s completely awesome: manipulative, intelligent, beautiful, dangerous. Often badass heroines in movies aren’t handled very well: they’re bitchy instead of strong, or they’re sexy but not actually competent. Hathaway handles the balance really well, though, and I’d credit her (and not Nolan) for how great Catwoman is. The role isn’t written horribly or anything — she’s got some decent lines — but there’s nothing inherently awesome about the part. It’s really up to Hathaway to bring Selina Kyle to life, and she does.

Best moment? Selina pretends to be terrified and starts screaming at the top of her lungs when the police bust in. That was hilarious. That was the moment she sold me on Catwoman.

Bane

Oh, Bane. Bane, on the other hand, is a lot more complicated.

My problems with Bane’s voice are two-fold.

A. The Accent

Everyone says that Bane sounds like Sean Connery, but I didn’t actually hear that. I did have an idea about what he was trying for, but I can’t talk about that above the spoiler section. Also, according to IMDb, I was wrong anyway. Either way, though, the accent feels . . . unnecessary, thrown in.

Still, to Tom Hardy’s credit, I do like a lot of his line deliveries despite the accent. He does manage to come off as menacing in a number of scenes . . . when I’m not constantly being distracted, that is, by the second problem . . .

B: The Mask

Now, I’ve talked to a few people about The Dark Knight Rises, and so far I seem to be the only one to have this particular problem, so bear that in mind. But. You know how sometimes you’re watching an old movie on TV (or, for that matter, a video on youtube) and the sound goes all wonky and suddenly the words don’t match the lips anymore? That’s kind of how I felt watching Bane. The voice was so clearly dubbed — his words were practically echoing around the screen — and they often didn’t seem to match the little bit of the face that you could see, and it made me constantly aware that the voice wasn’t actually coming from him. I don’t know that it would have bothered me as much if his whole face had been hidden behind a mask . . . you know, like Darth Vader or something . . . but something about watching his eyes, like, occasionally widen a fraction with this booming, dubbed dialogue . . . I don’t know, I just felt the disconnect really jarring.

2. Also, for your consideration, this is me doing my extremely low-budget Bane impression:

How many times does he stand like this during the movie? Eight? It was a little ridiculous.

3. Christian Bale continues to be the best live action Batman, despite The Voice. Actually, The Voice has clearly been toned down a bit for the third film, and thank God. I know there are arguments for it, but I still maintain that if my reaction to a superhero’s voice is to giggle, it’s just not working.

Christian Bale also sells pain particularly well — I love it when actors aren’t afraid to break Stoic Face, especially in situations where Stoic Face is absolutely ridiculous — and there are a few great scenes with him and Michael Caine where there Tears and Feelings. I got choked up once or twice, those bastards.

4. Another new element: Joseph Gordon-Levitt

I am strongly of the opinion that adding Joseph Gordon-Levitt to your film can never hurt your movie. It certainly doesn’t here. On paper, I’m not convinced that John Blake is anything that special, but on screen Gordon-Levitt makes him pop. There’s one scene in particular — and boy, will we be talking about that scene in the Spoiler Section — where I only buy the completely ludicrous material because he sells it so damn well. The fact that I accept that scene at all is a huge testament to Gordon-Levitt’s talent.

5. I’ve seen The Dark Knight Rises twice now, and I liked it even better on the second viewing. That being said, there are a few bits of the film that I think are problematic. To be fair, most of my issues are fairly minor. For instance . . .

A. Bruce’s Injury

Bruce leans on his cane. Also, notice the Beard of Angst. It’s a well-known scientific fact that a man can’t be unhappy with his life if he hasn’t even bothered to grow an angst beard.

When we see Bruce again for the first time, he is walking around with a cane (that he does or doesn’t seem to need all that badly, depending on the given scene — when he’s dancing with Selina Kyle, for instance, he seems to be doing just dandy without it). But how did he injure himself? One guest at a party says it was an accident, but that’s never confirmed or described in any kind of detail. It could just be age and cumulative damage — being Batman will probably tear the body up — but when we left Batman in The Dark Knight, his leg seemed fine, and that was his last night as the Caped Crusader.

Like I said, it’s a fairly small thing, but it did bother me because there is a big discussion in the movie if Bruce Wayne is still physically capable of being Batman eight years later, and I think a line or two of exposition about the leg would not have been a bad idea.

B. The Passage of Time

Again, fairly minor, but there’s a significant passage of time during the film that’s mostly depicted by the sudden appearance of snow. I mean, it’s not awful, but considering that there’s a pretty important deadline attached to these events, I would have liked to have felt the passage of the five months better. As is, it’s a bit jarring.

I have other problems I want to discuss, but those all include spoilers so they will have to wait. For now, let’s talk about Nolan’s aesthetic.

6. Christopher Nolan seems to be particularly fond of very neat movies. Not neat like awesome (although they mostly are) but neat like tidy, orderly, structured. Almost everything that happens in one of his films is set up a couple of times, which often gives the endings of these films an almost inevitable feeling, like there was no other possibility but the one he led you to. This is neither a compliment nor a complaint (although it could be either or both, depending on the context), just something I’ve noticed in his work that I find interesting.

7. Finally, here are some quotes before I get to the real, spoilerific meat of this review:

“When Gotham is ashes, you have my permission to die.” – Bane

“So, that’s what that feels like.” – Batman

“The shadows betray you because they belong to me.” – Bane

“About the whole no guns thing . . . I don’t feel as strongly about it as you do.” – Catwoman

“You’ll just have to imagine the fire.” – Bane

“Do you feel in control?” – Bane
“I’ve paid you a small fortune.” – Daggett
“And this gives you power over me?” – Bane

“You don’t get to judge me just because you were born in the master bedroom of Wayne Manor — ” – Selina Kyle
“Actually, I was born in the Regency Room.” – Bruce Wayne

If you haven’t seen the movie, stop reading this review and go see the movie. Everyone else?

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

So, we have a lot of ground to cover. Sit back. Relax. This may be a sprawling nightmare of recap.

Okay, so it’s Harvey Dent Day. (I can’t even type that without smiling.) The cops are all slapping themselves on the back because organized crime is virtually nil, thanks to the Dent Act, which gave the police force some teeth. Also, it allowed them to deny parole to a bunch of people. Remember that because it’s sort of important.

The only cop who’s not exactly feeling the mood is Jim Gordon because in these movies Jim Gordon has always been something of a melancholic bastard.

Jim Gordon: Professional Melancholic Bastard. You know, that could make a great business card.

Also, Gordon’s been lying for eight years and his wife has left him and blah blah blah. He’s written a speech to tell the citizens of Gotham the Truth, but he decides not to at the last minute and tucks the speech back into his jacket. That’s important too.

About the same time: Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne meet when she steals his mom’s pearls and, more importantly, his fingerprint. (But let’s not ignore those pearls entirely. After all, it’s the only thing Mrs. Wayne is really known for. I bet if you did a poll across the world, more people would be able to identify what type of necklace Mrs. Wayne wore than her first name. Do you know her first name? Don’t Google, you little cheater.)

Anyway, so Selina proves that she’s awesome amoral by attacking Cripple Bruce. She easily escapes. It turns out that she’s selling the fingerprint to Bane’s people for some made-up technology called Clean Slate, which does pretty much exactly what you think it does. Bane’s people betray her because that’s what bad guys do; also, they tell her that Clean Slate doesn’t really exist. That’s not actually true, though. Bruce Wayne has control of Clean Slate, and later uses it to get Catwoman on his side.

Also, there is flirting. These two have nice chemistry, which is wonderful considering the total lack of chemistry Christian Bale had with both Katie Holmes and Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Meanwhile, Bruce is having big money problems. He ran his fortune into the ground on this big environmental plan to provide clean energy that supposedly flopped, although it turns out that the device basically works just fine; it just happens to be only two steps shy of becoming a nuclear bomb. Whoops.

Bane makes Bruce’s money problems considerably more significant when he robs a stock exchange and bankrupts Bruce. To keep Evil Little Shit Daggett from getting his hands on the energy device, Bruce turns his company over to Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard). Miranda is shown where the device is and how to flood it. That’s important too. I should just start highlighting significant plot points to remember.

Miranda also happens to be Bruce’s other love interest. One minute, they’re business partners, and the next they’re having sex in front of his giant fireplace because nothing turns Miranda on, apparently, like a little rain and a guy who’s just gone bankrupt. I was fully prepared to be annoyed about this — I mean, honestly, they haven’t even been hinting at a romantic attraction between these two — but her motivations were much clearer by the end of the film, so I was eventually won over.

And it doesn’t hurt that Marion Cotillard is so damn adorable. Seriously, I watched this one interview with her, and she was just precious.

It’s a good thing that Bruce has a night with Miranda, though, because otherwise his life is pretty much shit right now. Bankruptcy isn’t fun by any means, but what’s worse is that Alfred has left him. See, Alfred doesn’t approve of Bruce getting back in the superhero game because he thinks Bruce is going to get himself killed.

See how sad Alfred looks? Damn you, Bruce, for making Alfred sad!

There’s a really good scene between the two of them right before Alfred leaves where he begs Bruce to find some other way to help Gotham, but Bruce, of course, won’t listen. My sister and I were arguing about this scene, actually, because she felt that there was no way that Alfred would ever actually leave Bruce. I, on the other hand, think that leaving was Alfred’s last bid to save Bruce, that it was the only power he really had over him. It’s a move for self-preservation as well — it’s too hard, sometimes, to watch someone self-destruct. I think Alfred felt like he was out of options. And I just really like the scene a lot — Michael Caine and Christian Bale are phenomenal in it. First moment I got a little misty-eyed.

After Alfred runs off, Selina Kyle agrees to take Batman to Bane, but it ends up being a trap. Bane kicks Batman’s ass all around the sewers and breaks his back. I was so impressed that this actually happened — and mid-movie, no less. I figured they’d allude to it, but I didn’t know if they’d actually go through with the spine-crunching. Good on them.

Bane takes Batman to the hell-on-earth prison from whence he came.  It’s basically a giant ass hole in the ground with a pretty view of blue skies, and apparently, there are no guards. If you can climb out of the prison, you’re a free man, but no one can actually do it. (Except for the one kid who did — but we’ll get back to that in a moment.) This prison keeps giving you hope and then keeps taking it away from you — which is, shockingly, analogous to what Bane plans to do to Gotham.

So, here is Bane’s overcomplicated plan: he turns Bruce’s nifty energy source project into a nuclear bomb and tells Gotham that he’s given the trigger to some random citizen. The citizen will detonate the bomb if anyone tries to leave the city or if anyone from outside the city tries to interfere. Bane isn’t looking to be King, though — he wants to give Gotham a revolution, to strip the rich and corrupt of their power and give it back to the people. (Mayor Nestor Carbonell is killed at the football game. Poor Nestor and his fabulous natural eyeliner. I was amazed he made it past The Dark Knight, though.)

And the cops can’t do much to help because the vast majority of them are trapped underneath the ground, save John Blake, Jim Gordon (who’s been shot), and Arrogant/Cowardly Turned Last Minute Redemptive and thus Dead Meat Officer Matthew Modine.

It’s never hard to recognize Dead Meat. Did the character have a fourth quarter conversion from Total Schmuck to Minor Hero? That’s almost always spells doom.

However, unbeknownst to Gotham (but knownst to us), the bomb will go off in five months anyway, whether the people in the city behave or not. So I get it — Bane will give Gotham hope just before he crushes them — but there’s a part of me that really wishes this was just a revolution and not all a big deception. I’m not sure why. I guess it’s just more interesting — and maybe a bit simpler. Going through all of this when you’re just going to blow up the city anyway — I don’t know; it strikes me as a rather fantastic waste of time.

But getting back to the story: Bruce, quite naturally, wants to escape his own prison, but first he has to fix his own broken back. While that’s happening, we learn a little about the legend of the one person who actually has escaped: a child who was born in the prison. The child turns out to be Ra’s al Ghul’s offspring, and Liam Neeson comes back for a nice little hallucination cameo. Also, Bruce automatically assumes that the child is Bane, and really, I should have known better. I should have, because I damn well know that al Ghul’s kid is Talia . . . but I think I was so disgusted by the prospect of Bane al Ghul that my ire overcame my common sense.

Because when Bruce says that Bane is Ra’s Jr.,  I about had a seizure in my seat. It’s not really a canon thing — my only problem in that regard was the change in Bane’s ethnicity, and being honest, my disappointment was tempered by the casting of Tom Hardy because I’m shameless — but it’s just such a stupid bit of cliched nonsense. Of COURSE Bane is the only child of Ra’s al Ghul, I thought. Of COURSE he is.

(And remember when I said Tom Hardy didn’t sound like Sean Connery to me? Well, he didn’t really sound like Liam Neeson, either, or at least he wasn’t using the same accent, but there were a few words that had a similar cadence to me, that had me thinking of Neeson before we even heard about the possibility of Daddy al Ghul. Since I thought that was an intentional choice, it seemed actually quite clever, but apparently my brain was making all that up because, according to IMDb, Hardy based the voice on some Irish boxer or something.)

Anyway. While Bruce languishes away in his prison, the remaining cops above ground try to organize some kind of resistance. Oh! I haven’t talked about John Blake yet. This is the problem with movies like this — recapping them in order is a pain in the ass.

Okay, rewind to much earlier in the film: Jim Gordon gets shot.

Particularly nice about this: he doesn’t fully recover in three days, either. Yay for injury continuity!

Officer John Blake goes to Bruce Wayne and tells him about Gordon. Wayne’s like, why you telling me? Blake’s like, cause, dude, you’re the Batman. I know. And how does Officer Blake know all about Bruce Wayne’s deep, dark secret? Through shitty writing.

Well. Actually, to be fair, the first part isn’t shitty. This is Blake explaining how he’s an orphan.

“Not a lot of people know what it feels like to be angry in your bones. I mean, they understand . . . foster parents . . . everybody understands . . . for awhile. Then they want the angry little kid to do something he knows he can’t do, move on. So after awhile they stop understanding. They send the angry kid to a boys home. I figured it out too late. You gotta learn to hide the anger, practice smiling in the mirror. It’s like putting on a mask.”

See that, that’s all great. I actually love that. But then we go further. Because when Bruce Wayne visits their boys home one day — and, okay, “Bruce Wayne, billionaire orphan? We used to make up stories about you, man” is pretty awesome too — Little John Blake sees the anger in Bruce’s own eyes and just figures it out.

And I’m sorry; I’m sorry, but this is such bullshit. They could have had John Blake discover that Bruce was Batman in a hundred different ways — one of the easiest might have been to simply notice that Bruce apparently became a recluse about the same time that Batman disappeared, like, smooth, Bruce — but they had to make Blake look in the guy’s eyes and just KNOW? Ugh. That is so lazy. Recognizing a shared pain is one thing, but discovering a superhero’s secret identity through the angst he sees in the windows to the soul is quite something else. I hate this so, so much.

The only thing that makes this scene manageable is that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is so damn good in it. Despite my squirming and eye-rolling at this total narrative nonsense, Gordon-Levitt makes it work because he sells that rippling undercurrent of fury so well. (If you want to see him do more of that, go watch Manic. It’s not a perfect film — the shaky cam grates on my nerves after a while — but Gordon-Levitt’s excellent in it. In one scene, he’s just sitting there, and rage literally seems to be pouring off of him.)

Anyway, so fast-forward again. Bane gets hold of Gordon’s secret speech about Harvey Dent and reads it to Gotham. Blake is mighty pissed at Gordon about the cover-up. Not big on corruption, that one. Bane also busts open the jail, freeing a whole bunch of scary inmates including Catwoman and, presumably, Scarecrow.

I heart you, Scarecrow!

Every movie should have Cillian Murphy in it, even if he’s just a cameo. I was so delighted when he came on screen, sentencing people to exile or death. Of course, people who choose exile have to try and make it across the frozen lake, which they never can, so it’s pretty much the same thing. When Jim Gordon gets captured, he chooses death over exile. Cillian Murphy, smirking, sentences him with “death . . . by exile.” LOVE.

(Also, fun fact: this is the first Christopher Nolan movie where Cillian Murphy has not had a bag over his head at some point or another.)

Back to Hell on Earth: after Bruce’s back heals up, he tries to escape the prison. He makes it on his third try when he foregoes the safety of a rope. (Fortune favors the bold and all that.) Thankfully, Bruce makes it back to Gotham just in time to save Gordon as he walks out on the ice. In ludicrously convenient timing, he also saves John Blake before Blake can get shot to shit by some flunkies. He doesn’t come in time to save John Blake’s partner, but no one really cares about him because he’s not introduced until the movie’s halfway over and, actually, I’m not even sure if the character gets a name. I probably wouldn’t even have noticed except that I recognize the actor, Reggie Lee, from Prison Break of all things. (Also from Prison Break: Wade Williams, who played a prison guard here, a prison guard turned convict there, and Black Mask in Batman: Under the Red Hood. I love weird connections like that.)

Bruce also enlists Selina Kyle’s help to stop Bane, despite the fact that she led him into a trap last time. Selina points this out to him. Bruce is like, yeah, that was disappointing, but whatevs, I believe in you. It’s a funny scene, and they have excellent chemistry to make it work, but I still can’t help but flail around in incredulity at Bruce’s poor decision making skills. This woman nearly led you to your death. She did lead you to a broken back and a horrifying prison out in the middle of nowhere. So . . . let’s exchange friendship bracelets? Bruce, you confuse me.

Well, regardless. Batman frees all the cops from the underground. They fight Bane’s people in the streets. Batman and Bane square off again, and Batman gets the upper hand until Miranda Tate shows her true colors by stabbing him in the side. See, Marion Cotillard’s not really Miranda; she’s Talia al Ghul. Like I said, it’s truly embarrassing that I didn’t know this ahead of time, but we all have our off days. I was incredibly grateful, though, because Miranda being the bad guy solved a few problems for me: Bane being al Ghul’s child for one thing, and Miranda jumping Bruce out of nowhere for another. It also makes this whole elaborate plan to destroy Gotham and thus fulfill her father’s mission slightly more doable . . . but I still feel like it’s kind of overcomplicated. Of course, that’s the League of Shadows M.O., right? Why make things sensible?

Talia tells Batman that it’s the slow knife that cuts the deepest, right as she tries to detonate the bomb, but the cops have managed to block the signal for another eleven minutes. (Hey, any CW students: deadline!) Bruce tells her that maybe the knife is too slow. Heh. Bruce for the win.

Talia tells Bane to keep Batman alive so that he can see Gotham burn right before he dies. Then she leaves. Bane (smartly) decides to ignore this plan and tells Batman that he’ll just have to imagine the fire, which is quite possibly my favorite line ever. Of course, it’s almost swallowed by Selina Kyle roaring back on screen and killing the shit out of Bane. Go Selina. Bye, Tom Hardy.

While all this is happening, John Blake is trying to evacuate two buses of orphaned kids who more or less represent all of the innocence in Gotham. The guards on the bridge won’t listen to him, though, and eventually blow the bridge in half so that no one can escape. JGL gives a spectacular little tantrum, which I particularly love because Blake is described as a hothead two or three times, and it’s nice to see moments where all that anger he’s supposed to be hiding comes out to the surface. Have I mentioned that I like Joseph Gordon-Levitt yet?

We then go back to Bruce and Talia and the car chase scene. The good guys are trying to get the bomb back to reactor, where Lucius Fox can disarm it. Talia does not want that to happen, of course. Unfortunately for her, she isn’t as good at car chases as she is at stabbing people. She rather spectacularly crashes her truck and dies. Before she bites the big one, though, she floods the reactor so that the good guys can’t bring the bomb back there. About this:

A. I like how the flooding was nicely set up way back in the beginning of the film. Like I said before, if it’s one thing Nolan understands, it’s structure. Everything is balanced just so in his movies, particularly this one. It does have the potential to make his movies a bit predictable, though. (Although, obviously, this one wasn’t for me.)

B. Lucius Fox’s “Oh dear” at the prospect of drowning is hilarious. Also, I’m glad he makes it out alive. Also, I’m kind of amazed he makes it out alive. When The Dark Knight came out, Mek and I figured that either he or Rachel would bite it, and thankfully, Rachel did. But we didn’t figure Fox’s chances in Part III were great. I’m glad we were wrong.

C. I suspect that Talia dies in a car accident because they just couldn’t have Batman kill a woman. However, I don’t really mind, if only because it’s nice to see that a car accident that would clearly kill somebody actually does kill somebody. You know, not everything can just be walked off.

So, Batman’s only option is to fly the nuclear bomb out of Gotham. Unfortunately, his Bat Plane or whatever it’s called doesn’t have autopilot. (This was set up too, and again, it should have been an obvious set-up — a clear variant of having to detonate the explosives manually — but I don’t know. Maybe all my critical film-watching skills were just shot to hell with my brain making Batman squee noises.) Batman flies away, and in the distance we see the bomb explode. And now . . . it’s a nuclear bomb, right, so there ought to be some kind of fallout from that, yeah? At the very least, we have a lot of poisoned fish nearby, right? Whatever, I don’t really care that much.

Finally, the denouement:

1. Batman is finally recognized as a hero. Thanks, Gotham, for getting your shit together once he’s dead.

2. Alfred comes home for Bruce’s funeral. Alfred cries. I fight valiantly not to break into tears and embarrass myself. I can’t help it. Old Man Tears get me almost every time.

3. Alfred goes to his cafe in Paris, or wherever it was he used to go, back when Bruce was legally dead (er, for the first time). He always hoped to see Bruce there with his family, even though they wouldn’t say anything to each other. (If you’re thinking this sounds an awful lot like what Ben Affleck wanted in Good Will Hunting, well, I’m right there with you. Also, why is it so important that they don’t talk to each other? I mean, I get the whole point, that Alfred’s just relieved that Master Bruce is alive and happy, but does that really preclude them from saying a very quick howdy? I don’t possibly see how.)

Anyway, Alfred goes to the cafe and sees that Bruce is very much alive, after all. (He had fixed the autopilot. It could have been cheap but wasn’t, since we were told early on that he was capable of doing it.) Bruce is with Selina Kyle, which we cheer for because they’re awesome together, even if I assume they would still have massive, massive trust issues.

4. John Blake quits the force because he can’t deal with the corruption and whatnot. He inherits the Bat Cave. This is awesome. In fact, this is so awesome that it makes me wonder what a fourth movie with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Batman would be like because the idea of this righteous, hothead, young cop as the Dark Knight is really interesting, and I would see that movie in a hot second. Of course, I don’t think it’s actually going to happen, not with these people, anyway. Nolan’s been pretty vocal that this is his last Batman film, and I’m not sure I see JGL doing it without him. Still, I’d be excited if it were a real thing.

Considerably less awesome, however, and in fact my least favorite thing about the entire movie:

Before Blake finds the Bat Cave, he has to pick up . . . something. I don’t know. It’s something Bruce left for him, I think, so that he could get into the Cave. I can’t remember; it’s late. The point is, the woman can’t find Blake’s name in the database anywhere. Blake’s like, oh yeah, try my birth name. And I’m like Score! It’s going to be Tim Drake, right? It has to be Tim Drake. Cause see, in the comics, Tim Drake is one of the Robins . . . the third, I think . . . and he happens to be the one who figures out that Bruce Wayne is Batman. (For a real reason, not because he saw it in Bruce’s fucking eyes, but whatever.) And hell, Blake basically rhymes with Drake anyway, and it just seemed like such a cool little thing for fans, right?

But no. Instead the woman says Blake should use his first name. She likes Robin.

And ugh. UGH.

This is so fucking clunky and dumb. I don’t care if it’s a tiny moment; it’s a tiny unnecessary moment of complete and utter fail. Blake’s legal name didn’t have to be Tim Drake — I just thought it was a cool idea — but to make it Robin? Robin? I’m pretty sure I groaned out loud in theater when I saw this. I may have buried my face in my hands. Christopher Nolan might as well have just popped up on screen and said, “Get it? GET IT?” I kind of wanted to cry. Also, this is surprisingly the one thing Nolan didn’t bother to set up — like, there’s no scene earlier in the movie where Blake is having trouble accessing something because of legal name issues or whatever. It makes me wonder if this tiny scene was a last minute add-on that they debated even having in the movie.

I really wished they hadn’t.

CONCLUSIONS:

Very strong end to a trilogy, which can’t be understated. So many trilogies crash and burn at the end. This one ties the three movies together nicely — but it’s not entirely flawless, either.

MVP:

Anne Hathaway

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+/A-

MORALS:

Greedy capitalists suck.

Surviving is not the same thing as living. Seize happiness while you can. Martyrdom is not all it’s cracked up to be. Pretend martyrdom, on the other hand, is fantastic.

Be more trustworthy. A person tricks you and leaves you to die? That’s totally the person you want to shag with in Paris. That is absolutely the best person to give your dead mother’s pearls too.

Ladies and gentlemen, the return of Tony Stark . . .

I haven’t completely made up my mind about a few things yet, but for the most part, I had a pretty great time watching this.

SUMMARY:

After the events of The Avengers, Tony is not in the best headspace: nightmares, insomnia, panic attacks, etc. The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) is not helping matters, what with his penchant for organizing terrorist attacks on American soil. When Tony calls him out, The Mandarin focuses his attention on Tony.

(His attention includes lots of explosions.)

NOTES:

1. I won’t say how, exactly, but this movie kind of won me over in the first couple of seconds. This story begins in 1998, and I guess I’m a sucker for a good junior high flashback.

2. More importantly, this is the first Iron Man film directed by Shane Black, best known for directing this movie:

And if anyone’s curious, I am perfectly willing to watch further collaborations between Shane Black and Robert Downey Jr.

Black has a great eye for balancing the comedic and the dark. Things go fairly bad for Tony Stark in this film, but the tone of the movie isn’t relentlessly bleak, and frankly, I’m grateful for it. Which isn’t to say that I don’t like grim superhero stories because I do. I don’t want to watch a movie and feel like it’s constantly backing away from anything remotely unhappy and morally ambiguous because it doesn’t have the balls to be complex. But I also go to the Iron Man movies with an expectation that I’ll have a certain level of fun. I want to laugh, and I did — a lot more than I did when I watched Iron Man 2. (Which, for my money, isn’t as bad of a movie as a lot of people claim, but is also easily the weakest of the trilogy.)

3. Also, the action is pretty great.

I’m glad I wasn’t spoiled for most of it. This is true for the whole movie, actually, not just the action sequences — often, the less you know about a movie going in, the better, even if the movie is shit. Especially if the movie is shit, actually: I remember the days before X-Men: The Last Stand came out . . . oh, those hopeful, innocent days, before our young, naive hearts were cruelly stomped upon and then butchered and eaten  . . . when they released a shit-ton of clips before the film came out, and I watched every single one, getting more and more excited until I realized I had watched the only particularly good parts of the movie.

I certainly hoped Iron Man 3 would be better than X-Men: The Last Stand – cause, good God, how could it not be — but I’ve learned my lesson well. When it seemed like there would be a new Iron Man 3 clip every other day prior to the film’s release, I decided not to watch any of them and damn my curiosity. It worked out for the best, I think.

4. I was surprised at how much time there was devoted to Tony Stark out of the suit. Don’t get me wrong: Iron Man gets a lot of screen time. There’s, ah, quite a bit of Iron Man to go around, really. But I think maybe the best parts of the movie were when Tony’s stripped of his armor and has to rely on his improv mechanical genius to figure out what’s going on and to get him out of shit. I loved that.

5. And the scenes between Tony and Harley are the best.

These two, back and forth. So damn funny. They play off each other so well, and there are so many good quotes here — good quotes that I’m probably going to search for in vain because finding the actual dialogue from a movie (and not just the edited shit from trailers) a couple days after it’s released is never fun.

But some of the shit Tony says to this kid — one line in particular — is pretty damn ballsy. Sure, Iron Man is about as irreverent of a superhero as you’re going to get, but still . . . not everyone could have pulled off this line, I don’t think. And yet, Robert Downey Jr. does. Because he is Tony Stark.

6. For how much longer? Hard to say. There’s been a lot of speculation about that lately, what with RDJ’s contract being up and, also, him edging up on 50. (Seriously, he’s almost 50? Damn, that man’s got some good genes.)

How many men near 50 do you know who can rock lederhosen? Honestly, how many men do you know who can rock lederhosen at all?

I know Robert Downey Jr. won’t play Iron Man forever. But man, can I tell you how not interested I am in seeing someone else take up the part? It’s funny — roles are replaced all the time. The Hulk’s been played by three different actors in under a decade. (Although, clearly, Mark Ruffalo is the best.) I really enjoy Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, and Jeremy Renner as Black Widow, Captain America, Thor, and Hawkeye respectively, and I’d be both disappointed and worried if they dropped out . . . but none of them so entirely epitomize their roles for me the way Robert Downey Jr. does with Tony Stark. I really do want to see RDJ do in other stuff, maybe even some movies that aren’t so blockbustery and action-packed with a capital A . . . but there’s a piece of my little fangirl heart that unrealistically wishes he could be the only Tony Stark ever, or at least for 25 years. (In Hollywood, that’s about the same as forever, right?)

7. All right, back to the actual movie. Let’s talk villains.

Sir Ben Kingsley plays the Mandarin, and there’s been a lot of talk about that. I’ll admit, I wasn’t wild about the casting prior to seeing the film, and his performance grated on me a little during the movie too, at least at first. (Actually, it wasn’t so much his performance as his voice — his voice was driving me nuts. Those ‘R’s’ he was hitting . . . UGH. I actually started trying to compile a list in my head of characters who had decent line deliveries despite their voices or accents, although it didn’t end up being a very long list. 1. The Mandarin. 2. Bane. And done.)

But I will say that by the end of the movie, I ended up really enjoying Ben Kingsley’s performance, and many of my initial concerns were alleviated. So, that was cool.

Guy Pearce is more of a slimy, sleazebucket of a bad guy, and he does the job pretty competently. I wouldn’t put him on a list of BEST VILLAINS EVER or anything, but he’s certainly respectable enough. (To be honest, I’ve never been wowed by any of the Iron Man villains — they’re usually okay but never, you know, amazeballs. I’d venture to say Guy Pearce is probably one of the better ones, though.)

8. This movie’s actually a bit on the long side — the run time is 130 minutes — but I didn’t really notice while watching the film. That, in and of itself, is a BIG point in its favor because I can get kind of antsy during shorter movies that I like when watching them for the first time, especially in theater.

9. Here are a few of those pesky quotes I mentioned earlier. (They probably aren’t exactly 100% accurate, either. It’s hard to double-check the exact words without paying another ten dollars and scribbling down a bunch of notes in the dark.)

Tony: “Dads leave, sometimes. No need to be a pussy about it.”

Tony: “Stop stopping.”

Tony: “I love you; I’m lucky, but honey? I can’t sleep.”

Guard: “Don’t shoot! Honestly, I hate working here. They are so weird!”

Tony: “I loved you in A Christmas Story, by the way.”

Tony: “I stole a poncho off a wooden Indian.”

Tony: “Are you guilt-tripping me?”
Harley: “I’m . . . cold.”
Tony: “I know. You know how? Because we’re connected.”

10. Finally, before spoilers, Iron Man 3 is set in late December. While it’s a little weird to watch a Christmas movie in theaters in the beginning of May . . . I don’t mind it at all because some of my very favorite Christmas movies – most of my very favorite Christmas movies, to be honest – fully embrace this trope: An Ass Kicking Christmas.

I’m saying, I don’t think Die Hard and Lethal Weapon will mind having another friend in my house this December.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

So, we begin with a voiceover . . . because Shane Black plus Robert Downey Jr. apparently equals funny voiceover, and hey, I’m okay with that. RDJ can rock a voiceover the way so few people can. We also begin with this song, which I have not heard in a long, long time. The pure surprise of hearing it here made me laugh really hard in theater.

Other than making me crack up, we’re mostly flashbacking to the 90′s to . . .

A) Introduce Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) and show how Tony Stark kind of, sort of helped spawn him into the Evil Supervillain He Is Today. Don’t get me wrong — 90′s Tony Stark? Kind of a tool. Still, standing up your roof date with a random creepy scientist isn’t exactly in the same league as, oh, I don’t know, somehow being responsible for the death of said scientist’s daddy. As far as the Genesis of a Supervillain goes . . . I’m saying, it’s kind of a weaksauce origin story. Thankfully, I don’t think I’m supposed to take it all that seriously.

B) Introduce Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall), who is enjoyable enough but also basically the second Bond girl in any Bond film. (We’ll talk more about her later.)

C) Give us a Yinsin cameo. Yay!

D) Show us that Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) is at least a decade behind the times, because it’s the late 90′s and for some unholy reason, he is still wearing a bolo tie. It’s all quite frightening.

(A quick note about Jon Favreau: I know he voluntarily stepped back from directing Iron Man 3, but it still seems like it could have been an awkward situation, acting in the third part of a franchise that he used to direct. So it’s particularly nice to see him here as Happy and all his power hungry, ID badge glory.)

We then flash to the present, where Tony is not dealing particularly well with everything that happened in New York. He’s attempting to cope by building a veritable shitload of Iron Man suits, which can now operate without anyone actually being inside them. Handy. Meanwhile, the Mandarin is taking over the airwaves to announce to the American public that he’s responsible for all these bombings that are happening. (Also, to mangle the holy fuck out of his R’s. Seriously, these hard R’s drive me nuts. What the hell accent is he supposed to be going for, anyway?)

Tony’s not involved at first — it’s apparently not superhero-worthy, at least according to War Machine Iron Patriot (Don Cheadle).

I personally think the rebranding is hysterical, but mind you, I’m not a purist, so I don’t really care about Iron Patriot’s true origins. The fact that I’m not a purist will be even more apparent later on, when we delve deeper into the Mandarin’s origins.

Anyway, Rhodey tells Tony some of this highly classified information at a nice little family restaurant with kids, like, literally standing at the table, waiting for an autograph. Asshole. (I kid. I like Rhodey, particularly now that he’s played by Don Cheadle. But seriously, maybe Ruby Tuesday’s isn’t the best place to have this discussion. Or whatever restaurant they’re actually at — wow, how did I pull Ruby Tuesday’s out of my ass? We don’t even have one around here. I’ve only been to one once, and I was annoyed because they’re hamburger buns were fucking wheat. But I digress.)

Unfortunately, Tony starts having a panic attack at this point and has to run out of Probably-Not-Ruby-Tuesday’s. One of my friends, who was very unhappy with this movie, didn’t like the panic attacks because she felt they were played for comedic effect. I sort of agree with that, but only to an extent — there is definitely levity in some of these scenes, but at the same time, even if I do laugh, I always buy the actual panic in Robert Downey Jr’s face. The whole movie rides that line between comedy and angst, and I think it does a pretty good job with it. I also just like that Tony is having panic attacks after the events of The Avengers, and it’s not at all because I wrote a fanfiction where that happened. Honest.

Anyway, Tony gets involved in the whole Mandarin business when Happy is nearly killed in one of the Mandarin’s terrorist explosions. (Happy was following one of Killian’s creepy henchmen, who I remember from the days when I used to watch 24. Of course, back then he didn’t have glowy fire eyes.) Happy — who, awesomely, likes Downton Abbey — ends up in a coma, and when Tony exits the hospital into a media frenzy, he calls the Mandarin out on national television, giving everyone his home address. It is a massively stupid thing to do, but again, RDJ sells it beautifully, all that anger and grief bubbling up just under the surface. What he does is reckless and dumb, but I totally buy it.

This is about when Maya Hansen pops up again, thankfully not with Tony Stark’s secret twelve year old lovechild. (That’s not my kind of fanfiction.)

She’s trying to get Tony to come with her to look at something urgently. Meanwhile, Pepper’s just trying to get Tony out of the house before the Mandarin takes him up on the offer for a one-on-one fight. This, of course, is when the Creepy Red-Eyed Henchman (James Badge Dale — his character must have a name, too, but I never caught it) and his cronies show up in their helicopters and blow the shit out of Tony’s Malibu home. Tony calls the Iron Man suit, where it awesomely attaches itself to Pepper.

This, by the way, is where not watching clips ahead of time works in your favor. Also, seeing Pepper in the Iron Man suit — and not like some feminized Iron Man suit, either, but just the Iron Man suit — is pretty awesome.

Pepper and Maya get out of there. Tony calls the suit back to him and eventually escapes too, although his whole home is destroyed, including his Batcave Basement Lab Chock Full of Iron Man suits. Everyone thinks he’s dead, but thankfully, he’s just in Tennessee. JARVIS had set up a flight plan there because of some lead on the Mandarin that I can’t be bothered to remember right now. Then JARVIS gets very tired and has to take a nap, so Tony’s pretty much on his own.

Thankfully, Tony teams up with Harley (Ty Simpkins), a local kid whose house he basically wanders into. Harley makes a pretty awesome sidekick, and if he would like to come back as a cameo in The Avengers – you know, I’d have no problem with that. Anyway, Tony does some detective work — oh, right, there was a big explosion here in Tennessee years ago. It’s not supposed to be the Mandarin’s work, but the heat signature matches or . . . something. I don’t know. Me, science, fail. Anyway, it turns out there’s this thing called the Extremis Virus, which is basically another super-soldier experiment gone horribly wrong . These particular soldiers are uber fast and strong and can survive all sorts of gnarly shit — the boss can even breathe fire — but sometimes they also horribly explode. So, that’s bad.

Tony has to take on a couple of these super soldiers, this chick with a scarred face and the previously mentioned Creepy Red-Eyed Henchman. Of course, Tony has to do all this without his suit, which makes it harder (and kind of more awesome). Eventually, he kills the chick and temporarily incapacitates CREH. He also gets JARVIS back up and running and tracks the Mandarin to some house in Miami. He uses his hardware skillz to get past the bodyguards and confronts the Mandarin . . .

. . . only to discover that the Mandarin is actually just some actor who’s being paid to make these little terrorist TV spots. This twist on the Mandarin has sparked some pretty massive Nerd Rage, but like I said, I’m not an Iron Man purist, as I never read the comics and there was no cartoon for me to obsessively follow in my childhood. And frankly, I needed that twist. The Mandarin wasn’t playing for me at all, but once it’s revealed that he’s just this guy who’s actually supposed to come off like a bad, Hollywood version of a a vaguely Asian emperor? That worked for me. It also helped me a little with the whitewashing of the character, since everything about this guy is fake anyway. (Although it’s fair to say that there’s really no reason that the actor playing the Mandarin still couldn’t have been Chinese. I’m torn, though — I do enjoy Kingsley here. It’s fun to see him in something so comic and so, well, not Gandhi.)

So, the man behind the curtain, of course, is Killian — and it turns out that Maya works for him. (They started working together the night that Tony stood Killian up.) This is unfortunate news for Pepper, who left with Maya after the Malibu attack. Annoyingly, I didn’t pick up on the fact that Maya was a bad guy until just before they told us, when she’s all like, “Thank you, Pepper,” and I’m like, Shit, she’s totally evil. Godammit.

(In point of fact, she isn’t evil at all. She’s one of those good bad guys who has a sudden change of heart because the hero reminds her that she has a {deeply buried} conscience. Then she does that dumb thing secondary villains sometimes do, when they massively overestimate their own importance and get killed for it. But that happens later. Anyway, I think the actress, Rebecca Hall, does a pretty decent job with her, even makes her likable, to an extent, but seriously, she’s just the second Bond Girl, and the second Bond Girl pretty much always dies.)

Let’s see, what’s next — oh yes, Killian infects Pepper with the Extremis Virus.

He also captures Tony and Rhodey, who both eventually escape. They figure out that Killian plans to attack Air Force One, and that his plan somehow involves the Vice President. They call to warn him, but the VP won’t be on Air Force One because, of course, the VP is in on the evil plan. This one I knew almost as soon as I saw Miguel Ferrer in the part. (Actually, William Sadler, who plays the president, is even more likely to play a bad guy, but VP’s are more likely to be evil than presidents. It plays better. Secretly evil presidents are kind of annoying. Remember how I used to watch 24? Yeah, I stopped well before the show ended. Also, spoilers. Sorry. But that show has been over for some time.)

Iron Man saves a whole bunch of the flight crew from Air Force One and finally takes out CREH, but Killian successfully kidnaps the President anyway, using Rhodey’s very own Iron Patriot armor. Tony calls every Iron Man suit he has left — they were hidden under the basement —  and uses them to attack. (This feels pretty convenient, and I’m not sure if I’m missing something here. They totally set up the number of suits, but why couldn’t Tony call these earlier, like when he goes to attack the Mandarin? I’m not sure if it’s just a plot hole for drama, or if there was a line of exposition that I didn’t quite catch.)

Rhodey saves the President. Tony jumps from flying Iron Man suit to flying Iron Man suit, attacking Killian and trying to save Pepper. After telling her that he’ll catch her, Pepper drops from something, and Tony . . . er, doesn’t catch her. She falls a few hundred feet into a fiery abyss. I assume she’ll be giving him shit for that forever.

Cause Pepper totally didn’t die. I entertained the notion, for half a second, but only because I’d read that the end of this movie had some big twist that would make Tony’s return in The Avengers seem . . . problematic. Ugh. I avoided clip after clip after clip, but a few hours before I go to see the movie, I get my EW in the mail with RDJ and Gwyneth Paltrow on the cover, and I’m like, ooh, I should read that. Ugh. Why, brain, WHY? Why did you do this to yourself? (Also, reviewers? Telling someone that there’s some twist too big to spoil is almost as bad as revealing the damn twist, sometimes.) Anyway, I figured Tony could give up being Iron Man after Pepper’s death or something, but I highly doubted it, especially with her being all Infected with Fire and whatnot.

Killian keeps coming back, so Pepper is forced to return from the dead and be TOTALLY AWESOME. And kind of hot. That’s not meant to be a pun. I’m saying, she’s damn good looking, kicking Killian’s ass. Never been this attracted to Gwyneth Paltrow in my life.

I love that she’s the one who takes out the bad guy, ultimately. I was hugely into the development of badass, Extremis Pepper –

– only to have it taken away from me a second later in VO, where Tony says he cured her or whatever. Which, honestly, I think is disappointing — I’d love to see more of Pepper where she isn’t just the constantly-in-danger girlfriend. You want to add female Avengers to the sequel? Add Fire Pepper! (My problem with adding female Avengers, mind you, is not that I don’t want more women — I just don’t want new characters, girls or boys. I’d much rather see more of someone who I already like than take the time to develop some new person I don’t care about. I would also take a super-powered Kat Dennings in a hot second.)

So, I’m — completely unrealistically — hoping we’ll find out later that Tony’s incredibly vague, one-line cure isn’t as complete as he thinks, and that Pepper gets to keep some nifty abilities, preferably without also exploding. Cause, admittedly, that’s a bad trade-off.

Tony blows up all of his Iron Man suits for Pepper as an early Christmas gift, and I’m like, okay, he’s doing that temporary, I-Quit-Iron-Man thing superheroes sometimes do between sequels, and I’m all fine with that. But then we get to the thing that’s causing people to fucking Flip Their Shit: Tony gets the arc reactor and the fragments of the bullet taken out of his damn chest.

Wow. Can’t say I was expecting that.

I also haven’t fully decided how I feel about it. As the end of a trilogy . . . you know, it totally makes sense. They do build the idea a bit in this movie, that Tony is Iron Man even without the suit, that he’s capable of being a hero without the armor, and if that’s the case, he sure as hell doesn’t need a bunch of shrapnel in his chest. As the end of a trilogy, it makes sense. But man, it’s a ballsy move. Tony Stark is always kind of supposed to be half an inch from death, you know? It’s that whole terrible privilege thing he was talking about in The Avengers. (I may have seen that scene about 18,000 times . . . I could watch Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo play off each other all day.)

And it’s just . . . without retconning the shit out of this ending, it’s hard to see how the character will continue on without the arc reactor. Obviously, he can just make more suits — Iron Patriot doesn’t need shrapnel in his chest to be Iron Patriot — but it’s . . . you know, I can’t even think of a great equivalent for it. It’s like bringing Batman’s parents back to life or something. It is so damn quintessential to the character, and I suspect I’ll have mixed feelings about it until I see how Joss Whedon handles it in The Avengers 2.

(And am I a bad person, that I kind of wish I’d been there to see Joss Whedon’s nervous breakdown that he must have had when he watched this movie? And I like Joss Whedon. I’m terrible. Absolutely terrible.)

I will tell you what I don’t have mixed feelings on, though: the end credits. The end credits are made of awesome. They remind me a little of James Bond end credits — this is actually what made me come to think of Maya as a Bond Girl. Anyway, they rock, maybe almost as much as the clip after the credits — and I usually hate the shit that comes after the credits. (I think The Avengers is the first movie that’s made it work for me, with the shwarma scene. Man, I loved that little scene.)

This one? Well, it’s awesome because it has SCIENCE BROS. Turns out, Tony is narrating this whole story to Bruce, which is too bad because Bruce is totally sleeping through it. Tony catches him. Bruce apologizes but reminds his buddy that he’s not a therapist.

Bruce: “It’s not my training. I don’t have the . . .”
Tony: “Time?”
Bruce: “Temperament.”

Heh. Then when Tony blithely ignores this and starts describing some incident from his teenage years, Bruce nods and throws his head back in exhaustion and resigned despair, and it’s just . . . perfect. I heart this little scene with all the fangirl squee in my soul. In fact, I like watching these two together so much that I’m considering trying Zodiac again, and I seem to remember that being an occasionally interesting but very long and ultimately somewhat dull affair. (To be fair, I’ve only seen it once. It could have total genius I’m forgetting about. Anybody’s thoughts on Zodiac? Maybe I can rent it and just fastforward to their parts. Yes, that’s totally something I would do.)

And thus concludes Iron Man 3. Next up: Thor 2. I’m . . . I don’t know, I’m just not expecting that one to be as good. We’ll see.

Maybe if Darcy suddenly gets superpowers.

CONCLUSIONS:

Strong end to a trilogy. Funny, action-packed, highly entertaining. Haven’t made up my mind about that end, though.

MVP:

Robert Downey Jr.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORAL:

Um. Don’t tell the geeky guy that there’s a pool on the school roof?

Mek and I liked The Thin Man so much, we decided to watch the sequel. The second of five sequels, actually: After the Thin Man.

This is a Baby Review, and be forewarned: there will be SPOILERS throughout.

1. The world is sexist, even for dogs. Why else does Asta accompany Nick and Nora everywhere, while Mrs. Asta has to stay at home with the puppies all the time? Mrs. Asta doesn’t even get to sleep indoors like her shaggy husband. If I were Mrs. Asta, I would be having an affair with the other neighborhood dogs too.

2. Also, why is it that almost every woman from the 1920′s or 30′s sounds like either Judy Garland or Lina Lamont from Singin’ in the Rain? (Yes, yes, Singin’ in the Rain was made in the 50′s, but it takes place in the 20′s.) I wonder if people in 2080 will think all of the actresses today sound like Drew Barrymore or Paris Hilton.

3. After The Thin Man was actually Mek’s pick, so I was especially delighted at her misery when James Stewart showed up in it.

James Stewart is only 28 years old in this movie, which is such a trip to see. Also, he plays the bad guy. I have seen Jimmy Stewart play an asshole before, but I have never seen him play a bad guy. It was kind of awesome, actually.

And yeah. Mek and I totally called it.

4. You might be curious about who takes down Jimmy Stewart. Well, maybe you’re not, but I’ll tell you anyway: Oddjob.

Okay, it’s not Oddjob. It’s Lum Kee (William Law) who — and I shit you not — disarms and knocks down Stewart by tossing his hat at him.

It is one of the more ridiculous things I’ve ever seen on film.

5. Selma (Elissa Landi) might be going on the list of Most Useless Cinematic Females ever.

Also, I’m amused at how a-okay she is at the end of the film, considering that her terrible, adulterous husband was murdered by the ex-boyfriend who was pretending to love her but had actually tried to frame her for the whole thing. But, you know, whatevs. Let’s just get another drink and have a good chuckle on the train.

6. At the very end of the movie, we find out that Nick and Nora are going to have a baby. I’m curious: you think that baby will bottle-feed or just drink baby-sized martinis?

CONCLUSIONS:

Enjoyable sequel, although I didn’t like it quite as much as the first one. Bit of a slower start, I think.

MVP:

Um. Let’s go with Jimmy Stewart. Just cause it was fun seeing him as a bad guy.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

Well, if I’m going by Selma’s example . . . don’t trust men? I mean, Jesus.

Earlier this year, I watched A Fistful of Dollars and really enjoyed it. I’d hoped I would like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly just as much.

And maybe I would have . . . if it hadn’t been three hours long.

SUMMARY:

In the midst of The Civil War, three men with varying levels of morality try to find a box with 200,000 dollars stuffed inside.

NOTES:

1. Okay, so it’s not that I didn’t enjoy this movie. I did. At least, parts — I definitely liked parts of the movie. But I also couldn’t stop staring at the clock because, my God, do I not feel this story justified a three hour film.

I knowing 70′s pacing is different from today’s pacing. I know westerns like their establishing shots. And I get that this movie is not just a western, but an epic western, which — in theory — is kind of cool. In reality, however, a three hour film is a long movie, and you need to have enough story to justify that kind of runtime. I don’t think The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly has that kind of story. It would’ve been a better film if it was at least a half hour shorter, and frankly, I don’t think it would’ve been all that hard to find material that could be cut.

2. Also, I’m still waiting to find out what the hell qualifies Blondie to be “The Good.”

There are three main characters in this movie: Blondie (Clint Eastwood) is kind of a bounty hunter? Drifter? Gunslinging scam artist? Anyway, he’s not exactly Mr. Law & Order . . . which is only to be expected, if you’ve seen any other movies in the Dollars trilogy. Still, I don’t know if I can make the argument that he’s considerably more virtuous than our other players. We also have an assassin named Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) — also known as The Bad — and a mouthy little bandit named Tuco (Eli Wallach) — also known as The Ugly. Which just seems mean.

Sure, Blondie takes off his jacket at one point and puts it over a dying soldier, but it’s not like he leaves empty-handed: he nabs his signature poncho from the dude once he’s dead. And yeah, he seems to have a moment of pity for Tuco after overhearing a conversation between the bandit and his brother. But he also screws Tuco over pretty royally earlier in the film and kind of deserves all the retribution he gets. So . . . yeah, I’ve got nothing. Maybe we should call it The Bad, The Bad, and The Bad, a tale of gold, greed, and violent bromance.

3. Cause seriously, Tuco and Blondie totally have an awesome dysfunctional bromance where it’s like, hey, sometimes we try to kill each other, but other than that we’re buds.

I love it.

4. I do feel, however, that there’s a bit of a missed opportunity when Blondie is traveling with Angel Eyes. Their on-screen time together is very brief and nothing particularly important happens in it. I wish the two actors had the chance to play off each other a little more.

In general, actually, I find Angel Eyes to be kind of disappointing.

He’s set up to be a much more compelling character than he actually is — you know, he has a code and whatnot, or hey, maybe it’s just a convenient excuse for bloodlust, but whatever. It’s interesting. After a while, though, Angel Eyes quickly becomes just any other black hat, and he’s given really no time for characterization. I don’t blame Lee Van Cleef for that — his performance is totally enjoyable — but I wish The Bad got a little more to do because he feels kind of like a third wheel here between The Good and The Ugly.

5. On the upside, Tuco’s pretty awesome.

I enjoy the hell out of all his cursing and conniving. He looks like a very fun character to play; he’s certainly fun to watch. There’s this one part when he’s in a mission, trying to wheedle information out of a very ill Blondie, and it’s hilarious. Eli Wallach is pretty awesome in the part. Also, he apparently almost died, like, three different times trying to make this movie.

I want to be very clear: I will do nothing of the sort for my art. I take writing very seriously, but the day it causes me to almost lose my head via a train or drink a bottle of poison? I’m leaving writing behind to join the godamned circus.

6. The score, unsurprisingly, is also made of win. I mean, there’s a reason this shit is so iconic. I’ve been meaning to buy myself some Ennio Morricone for my hodgepodge of an iTunes library. Maybe I’ll do that after I finish this review.

7. The music isn’t the only thing that’s iconic about this movie. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly features one of the most well-known Mexican standoff scenes in cinema history. It’s a good scene. I don’t really have much to say about it other than that, but it felt weird not to mention it.

8. Finally, if I die — I say if because I’m still secretly hoping that I might be an Immortal who rocks out to “Princes of the Universe” while lopping off a few heads — I hope my bones are laid to rest in a cool ass cemetery like this. Unlikely, I suppose, because this isn’t a real cemetery. Still, I think the spiral pattern is kind of awesome. I particular like the circular arena in the middle of it — maybe they have ghost cage matches there? Ooh, story idea.

QUOTES:

Blondie: “You see, in this world there are two kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig.”

Tuco: “Don’t die until later.”

Angel: “That’s a tidy sum. But when I’m paid . . . I always see the job through.”

Blondie: “Six, the perfect number.”
Angel Eyes: “I thought three was the perfect number.”
Blondie: “I’ve got six more bullets in my gun.”

Tuco: “I must tell you the truth, Blondie. In my place, you would do the same thing. It’s all over for you now. There’s nothing anyone can do anymore. It’s my fault! Mine, mine! I’ll tell you one thing, Blondie. If I knew that my last hour had come . . . I swear, in my place, in your place, I would do the same thing. I would tell about the gold.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Enjoyable but a lot longer than it needed to be.

MVP:

Eli Wallach

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B

MORAL:

Payback’s a bitch. Especially if it takes place in the desert.

I’ve been pretty much obsessed with The Avengers since I first saw it in 2012, so I knew I’d get around to seeing Thor: The Dark World at some point, despite the fact that Thor is easily my least favorite on the team, and also I just can’t seem to take “Dark Elves” seriously as antagonists for a superhero film. But when I started reading decent reviews for the movie — and found out that Marvel: Agents of SHIELD would have an episode featuring some kind of fallout from the film — I decided to bump up my timetable.

I enjoyed The Dark World. Really, I had a good time watching it, and I’ll expect I’ll buy it on DVD eventually . . . but I didn’t love it, either.

DISCLAIMER:

There will be SPOILERS for all Avenger-related films prior to The Dark World, including the most recent: Iron Man 3.

SUMMARY:

The Dark Elves are an enemy so ancient they’re presumed dead. But, yeah, they totally aren’t. So it’s up to Thor and co. to stop them from destroying the entire universe. (“Ah, the old ‘wipe out the world’ ploy.” Seriously, what’s with that villains? You need new motives, STAT.)

NOTES:

1. First, I feel like I should explain that I don’t dislike Thor. Actually, I think Chris Hemsworth does a fine job in the role, and I did enjoy the first movie quite a bit when it came out in theaters. (Although I haven’t actually seen it since, so I won’t be comparing this film with that one. I think I need a second opinion on both before I decide which was the superior movie.)

It’s just that I’m considerably more interested in the other guys on the team. Like, Bruce Banner was totally my darling in The Avengers, and I’ve been a Robert Downey Jr. Tony Stark fan since the first Iron Man came out five years ago. I’ve grown to really like Black Widow, and I’m interested in seeing more of Hawkeye, especially post-mind control. (Cause, you know, angst. I love my angst.) And while I had my share of problems with the first Captain America movie, I actually like Captain America himself, and I’m really looking forward to seeing more of his man-out-of-time stuff in The Winter Soldier.

Thor, though . . . I mean, Thor has Loki, who — let’s face it — is kind of the best, but other than that, I’m just not terribly invested in his emotional arc or really anything about his whole life on Asgard. (Despite the fact that I would kill for a movie that was a serious adaptation of Norse mythology. Or, well, any non-Christian mythology, really. Must it be all camp all the time, people?)

Anyway, I don’t have a ton of serious flaws with this movie — a few nitpicks, maybe, because that’s what bloggers are good for — but I expect that my general ambivalence towards Thor as a character kept me from feeling particularly invested in this story. (Cause, yeah. I wasn’t exactly worried that the universe was going to be destroyed. Oops, spoilers.)

2. Still, while I’m speaking of nitpicks?

Our Big Bad, Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), is possibly the most boring villain in a decidedly long line of boring villains from Marvel, especially when it comes to Avenger movies. I mean, Loki was good. (I say ‘was’ because he’s less of a straight villain in The Dark World and more of an anti-villain.) Beyond that, though? The Chitauri were boring. Laufey was boring. The Abomination was boring and stupid. General Ross was unconvincing, boring, and stupid. Red Skull was boring and such an utter waste of glorious potential that I still weep a little thinking about it. Obadiah Stane was, at least, somewhat fun in a cheesy sort of way, but he was definitely more of a caricature than a character, and he certainly never came off as sinister to me, or even particularly interesting. Ivan Vanko had moments of awesome but was ultimately disappointing. And I guess I liked Aldrich Killian well enough, as a slimy asshat kind of villain, but at best he’s a decent bad guy, not a great one.

I know Marvel is kicking DC’s ass in so many respects these days, but honestly? Their Big Bads are basically made of suck. So, Marvel: if you need examples on how to make your bad guys awesome, might I suggest taking a look at Nolan-verse? Specifically, this guy, this guy, this guy, or even this guy . . . because even though that last one is a little problematic, he’s still better than almost everyone in the above paragraph.

3. All right, back to the actual movie –

The best parts of this film are easily the scenes where Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston are playing off one another. Those scenes are kind of magic. The two actors have clearly built a good rapport with one another, and they are always a lot of fun to watch. I don’t know that this movie particularly challenges either of them very much in regards to acting, but they’re great on screen together anyway.

4. Most of the acting is relatively good, I think. I continue to enjoy Natalie Portman as Jane, although I may have liked her more in the first film. (It’s not really an acting thing, more of an arc thing.) Also, I still like Kat Dennings as Darcy . . . although did her voice change? Like get higher-pitched or something? She just sounds different to me. Anyway, I liked her and her intern. (Though . . . is Darcy seriously still an unpaid intern? Hasn’t it been a couple of years? Couldn’t she at least have been upgraded to assistant or something? Is Jane housing and feeding her or what?)

Also, thankfully, I like Sif so much more than I did in the first film.

She doesn’t have a ton to do in The Dark World, but the little she does have is done well. I wasn’t at all motivated to throw my Milk Duds at her face, which was pretty much the exact opposite reaction I had watching her in Thor. It made for a very welcome change.

And Rene Russo actually had lines! Like more than two, even! This was also a welcome change.

5. Stellan Skarsgard, on the other hand . . . well, I didn’t have a problem with his acting. But I’m not so sure about his subplot. I guess I’ll wait on the details until the Spoiler Section, but suffice it to say, he’s having a little trouble adjusting after getting his brain taken over in The Avengers. Which is fine, but I didn’t love how they did it, or at least I didn’t love how they resolved it. But I’ll get to that.

6. Actually, I’m having trouble coming up with things to talk about that don’t involve spoilers. There are a few plot conveniences that made me roll my eyes, but I can’t really discuss them here. There are also a few scenes I really liked, but I’d prefer to wait on those too. Oh! Did you guys know Zachary Levi was in this movie? Cause I sure didn’t. Even as I was sitting there, watching the credits, I was like . . . wait, Chuck was in this? Who the hell did he play?

This is who he played:

I guess Josh Dallas was too busy on Once Upon a Time to take up the role of Fandral again. I wish I could compare the actors, but since I barely remember Dallas in Thor at all . . . we’ll just say that Zachary Levi’s funny in this, and that he looks better as a brunette. (I know. I say that a lot. Look, I have to stick up for my fellow dark-haired peeps. It’s tough out there, everyone assuming you don’t know how to have fun.)

7. Finally — because I’m just going to give up and move on to Spoilers — I should mention that this movie’s actually pretty funny. Not that I was expecting it to be particularly dour or anything — although there are some fairly sad scenes — but the various one-liners and witty repartee is definitely one of the movie’s stronger features.

If you want to know the absolutely funniest moment in the whole movie, though, you’ll have to venture into Spoilers. And if you haven’t seen the film yet, please don’t. Don’t ruin it for yourself. This moment’s just too spectacular for that.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

This. This is the funniest moment in the whole movie.

I don’t know how long this scene’s going to last on Youtube, so in case it’s no longer there when you click: at one point, Loki turns himself into Captain America, and it is BEAUTIFUL. Seriously, Chris Hemsworth is a good looking man, and I love Tom Hiddleston, I do — the whole Cookie Monster thing alone makes me want to marry him — but somehow I came out of The Dark World with a bigger crush on Chris Evans than ever. This is a cameo made of WIN.

But to the plot! Okay, so a bazillion years ago, the Asgardians and the Dark Elves were at war. The Dark Elves planned to use their super weapon, the Aether, but the Asgardians — led by Odin’s daddy — stopped them cold. Malekith basically sacrificed the vast majority of his people so that he and a few others could escape and someday come back to get REVENGE. Meanwhile, Odin’s Daddy orders the Aether hidden far, far away so that no one ever finds it.

Guess what? Someone finds it.

Jane is back on Earth, attempting to move on after Thor’s long disappearance, and comes across this weird ass phenomenon which is a signal that all the realms are starting to come into alignment or something. (I don’t know. I forget the specifics. Physics is decidedly not my thing, even fake movie physics.) Also, she manages to get infected by the Aether. By the by, the Aether? Yeah, I couldn’t take it seriously at all. It’s this red, floaty, fluid-y stuff, and it reminded me of something that, unfortunately, I could never quite place. Despite this, I still had to stifle a laugh every time it popped up on the big screen and pretended to be ominous.

While Jane is going on awkward first dates and becoming Aether Jane, Thor is putting the nine realms back into balance or something. Basically, he’s kicking ass. He also tells this guy, Hogun, that he can go back to living peacefully with his family or something, and I all but had to sit on my hands to keep from pointing at the screen and screaming, “You’re next, buddy! Say goodbye to that sweet family of yours because the Grim Reaper is coming for you, sir.” I was sure that, in Malekith’s return to power, he would ravage the lands that Thor had just saved and totally kill his buddy.

This actually turned out to be quite wrong, as Hogan — who I’d entirely forgotten from the first movie — doesn’t come back until the very end of the film for maybe half of a second. I just thought you guys might want proof that I’m, very occasionally, incorrect about something. This was actually a nice thing to be wrong about, although of course this was before I realized we were going to be killing Thor’s mother as Motive for Revenge instead. (We’ll get there.)

So despite achieving all this victory and peace and whatnot, Thor still isn’t really happy on Asgard cause he’s older and wiser and his ladylove is still totally on Earth.

My misery is not just about Jane! Pop Tarts, too! Oh, how I long for a good Pop Tart!

He goes to spy on Jane with Heimdall (Idris Elba — who remains awesome though criminally underused) and discovers that something has gone wrong with his beloved. So Thor hops down to Midgard, picks her up, and brings her back to Asgard.

Odin voices his discontent in a particularly charming way — he refers to Jane as a goat — until he realizes that Jane has been infected with the Aether. (I actually didn’t like Anthony Hopkins as much as I did in the first movie, although I couldn’t tell you exactly why that was. Maybe his performance just felt more phoned in this time around? Or maybe my expectations were just that low last time? I don’t know. It wasn’t a big problem.) This is, of course, when the Dark Elves attack, led by Malekith and his Super-Powered Second Banana, Kurse (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje).

Kurse gets captured on purpose, which is one of those overdone tropes that can drive me nuts, but it’s not so bad here, mainly because it only takes a couple of seconds, and nobody tries to pretend that it’s anything but the plan. It’s not like Thor captured him personally and was like, “A-ha! A Dark Elf! I thought you were all dead. Well, regardless, I’ve foiled you now!” Anyway, Kurse escapes and frees several of the prisoners but leaves Loki in his cell after studying him for a minute and dismissing him contemptuously.

Loki, rather used to contempt, advises him on the best way to avoid the Asgardians anyway, which inadvertently leads to the death of his mother. Too bad for Loki because Frigga appears to be the only person he actually cares about and is certainly the only one who cares much about him.

Aw, Loki totally loved his mom. This was a nice scene.

And oh all right, Thor still loves Loki, and Loki probably still loves him. But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t — and haven’t — tried to kill each other too.

As an aside: I like an earlier scene where Frigga is trying to get through to Loki. I like all of Frigga’s scenes, as a matter of fact, although they were a bit transparent in setting her up as a Woman in a Refrigerator. I guess I should be happy we got them at all. A glimpse of personality is certainly better than none, especially since she had absolutely nothing to do in the previous film. Actually, Frigga’s pretty badass before Kurse murders her. She totally has Malekith at her mercy. Sadly, Kurse comes in and stabs her. Thor runs in too late, and Kurse, Malekith, and the Dark Elves conveniently retreat for a while, even though they could easily take the Asgardians at this point. (I mean, sure, Malekith’s been hurt. He needs to rest up on the ship for a bit, but there’s no reason Super Powered Kurse can’t keep stomping around, breaking Asgardian heads, until he kills everyone there and/or finds Jane Foster. It’s kind of dumb.)

On the plus side, this gives our heroes time to throw Frigga and all the other dead red shirts a Viking funeral. And I actually mean that — this is really a rather lovely scene, and I’m glad it was included because, in general, I kind of feel like The Dark World doesn’t give Thor enough time to grieve, particularly for Frigga. I mean, there are some moments, and yeah, he’s a warrior, and we don’t want to weigh down our fun action film with a ton of despondency; I get it, but . . . I don’t know. When Loki (supposedly) dies in the film later on, Thor seems a lot more bent out of shape about it. You know, the brother who tried to kill him, repeatedly, and also conquer the world Thor had vowed to protect. Whereas when his mother — who had never done any of those things — died, yeah, Thor was sad, but was he as heartbroken? Didn’t seem like it.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Thor realizes the Dark Elves really just want to get their hands on Jane, so he wants to take her away from Asgard to protect his people. Unfortunately, Odin — who famously sacrificed his own eye for wisdom — apparently took his stupid pills that morning and has decided that the best plan is to do absolutely nothing but wait for the Dark Elves to come back, and then the Asgardians will beat them this time, by George!

So Thor teams up with Loki and escapes Asgard with Jane. (Thor’s friends help him escape, but thankfully they aren’t all executed at once for treason or anything like that.) Thor, Loki, and Jane all go to Svartalfheim, the titular Dark World, and Malekith extracts the Aether out of Jane.

Thor tries to destroy it — because the Aether is supposedly more vulnerable in its liquid form, although I fail to see what evidence he has for such a supposition — and naturally does not succeed. Malekith basically ingests it and takes off to destroy the universe.

Meanwhile, Loki successfully manages to kill Kurse but supposedly dies in Thor’s arms. The scene between the two of them is nice and, I’ll admit, for a whole half-second, I was like, Loki, NOOOOOOOOOOO! And then my brain quickly came to its senses, and I was like, Oh, you’re just faking. Never mind then. Carry on.

Thor and Jane appeared to be abandoned on Svartalfheim — oh noes! — but thankfully they take shelter in the one cave on the entire planet that is full of shoes and has good cell phone reception because it is, of course, the portal to Earth. Between this and Star Trek,  I’m beginning to fear a new emerging trope, and if I find even one more example of it, I’ll be forced create a tag called The Only Little Cave in the World.

So, Thor and Jane team up with Darcy, Darcy’s intern Ian, and Erik. The thing with Erik: he’s been chilling in a mental hospital with Stan Lee for half the movie after having a nervous breakdown and running around Stonehenge buck ass nude. After Darcy and Ian bust him out, Erik steps outside into crazy Convergence Earth and is like, “Well, at least the world’s more insane than I am,” and chucks his giant bag of prescription medicine in the garbage.

Three things:

1. People. You don’t just chuck your giant bag of prescription medicine into the garbage. You return them to the pharmacy like a responsible person, flush them down the toilet like a slightly less responsible person, or sell them on the street like a morally irresponsible but financially savvy person. Honestly, Erik.

2. After throwing away his prescription medication, Erik seems to be basically fine. Like, he’s still odd and working in his underwear and whatnot, but he’s certainly not running-around-Stonehenge crazy anymore. Which kind of bothers me narratively — like, why even bother writing a character’s breakdown if you’re just going to solve it with the snap of your fingers — and kind of bothers me morally — cause maybe tossing our anti-psychotics away and suddenly becoming a-okay isn’t the message we want to send?

3. If this is what Erik’s breakdown looks like, I desperately need to see Hawkeye lose his shit, like, right now. Seriously. Please tell me he’s running around the Lincoln Monument with no clothes on. PLEASE. Just a DVD extra, I beg of you.

Okay, so the team comes up with some super physics plan to stop Malekith from destroying the entire universe during the Convergence. Lots of fighting and antics ensue, but I refuse to recap them scene by scene, partially because I’m tired and partially because I don’t remember them that well. Suffice it to say, the good guys win, the bad guys lose, and Ian and Darcy totally make out.

At the end of the movie, Thor goes back to Asgard and tells Odin that he can’t be king because his place is on Earth with Jane. Odin doesn’t exactly give him his blessing, but yeah, he totally gives him his blessing. But also not really because it’s actually Loki on the throne, pretending to be his father. Where is Odin really? No one knows. I should probably care more than I do, but since I’m still a little disgusted with Odin’s seriously flawed battle strategies, I can’t bring myself to get all worked up about it.

And . . . that’s about it. Well, that’s where the credits start, anyway. In the post-credits, we get a little snippet with Benecio del Toro playing someone called the Collector, who I know nothing about. (But I guess it’s a teaser for Guardians of the Galaxy? Yeah, I know shit about them too, just that I’m sure I’ll see the movie when it comes out, if for no other reason than the film has a fantastic cast.) And then in the post-post credits sequence, Thor comes back to Earth and reunites with Jane, and there is some kissing.

But who cares about kissing? Loki is king of Asgard! ALL HAIL LOKI!

QUOTES:

Thor: “She wouldn’t want us to fight.”
Loki: “Well, she wouldn’t actually be shocked.”

Loki: “If it were easy, everyone would do it.”
Thor: “Are you mad?”
Loki: “Possibly.”

Sif: “I had things under control.”
Thor: “Is that why everything’s on fire?”

Frigga: “Please don’t make this worse.”
Loki: “Define worse.”

Loki: “You lied to me. I’m impressed.”

Loki: “Oh dear. Is she dead?”

Loki: “I thought you said you knew how to fly this thing.”
Thor: “I said how hard can it be.”

Selvig: “Your brother isn’t coming, is he?”
Thor: “Loki is dead.”
Selvig: “Thank God! . . . I’m sorry for your loss.”

Loki: “I think you missed a column.”
Thor: “Shut up!”

CONCLUSIONS:

Enjoyable and funny, but nothing that made my little fangirl heart go squee. (Except the Captain America cameo. Cause yes. Just yes.)

MVP:

Tom Hiddleston

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

Anti-psychotics, ha! Who needs those?

Hunger Games: Catching Fire came out in November. I finally saw it last weekend . . . with about forty other slackers who randomly decided to also watch the film months after it opened. Bastards. One of these days I’m going to go see a movie with no one else in the theater but me and my friends. Alas, last Saturday was not that day.

On the positive side, I really enjoyed the hell out of Catching Fire.

DISCLAIMER:

Spoilers for The Hunger Games. If you haven’t seen or read that one yet . . . well, why are you reading the review for the sequel, anyway?

SUMMARY:

Rebellion threatens Panem after the events of the last Hunger Games, so President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman) collaborate to create a brand new Hunger Games, All Star Style. Starring, of course, our very own reluctant heroine Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence).

NOTES:

1. Let’s establish this right away: I didn’t read Catching Fire. I read The Hunger Games with the full intention of finishing the trilogy . . . but never quite got around to it. So unlike the last film, I’m not really judging this one as an adaptation.

As a sequel, however . . . I think it’s very good. In fact, I think I liked it better than the first film, and I’m one of the people who LIKED The Hunger Games adaptation. (I hesitate to say that Catching Fire is better than its predecessor with full certainty, though, because I’ve only seen The Hunger Games once, back when it first released. I’d need a second viewing to better judge both films.)

One of the things I especially liked in this movie was how the story dealt with all the PTSD stuff. It’s a big deal for me because it’s one of those things that often drives me nuts about sequels or television or any kind of serial storytelling: heroes who are seemingly unaffected by all the crazy traumatic shit that happened to them last movie/season/episode/whatever. I like consequences and I like callbacks, and I was happy to see that Katniss wasn’t all, oh yeah, I’m a badass survivor now, I can handle anything. She’s traumatized the way someone in her situation totally would be.

2. Of course, a lot of the excellence here can be attributed to Jennifer Lawrence’s performance.

I read a review — I wish I could remember where — saying that Lawrence worked just as hard on a big-budget action blockbuster as a David O. Russell critical darling. The reviewer’s surprise seemed evident, and I remember my initial reaction was to be annoyed, likely out of sheer defensiveness — I, after all, quite like popcorn stories, and my own particular writing talents lean far more towards the commercial than the literary. I might have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about the idea that people need not strive for excellence in commercial fiction, that stories which aspire to be ‘fun’ in some sense can be good but never great.

So, yes. My immediate reaction was very much, Oh, screw you, reviewer — but the thing is, he or she is kind of right. There are plenty of actors out there who wouldn’t have put this much energy or work into their performance. For instance: I think Natalie Portman’s a great actress, and I do like her in some big budget blockbusters — the Thor movies, e.g., — but I’ve also seen her in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, and while I know the script is TERRIBLE in that film, I’m really not sure you get that kind of a performance unless you’re not trying at all. I feel the same way about some of the movies Liam Neeson pops up in – Clash of the Titans most readily springs to mind — or Morgan Freeman in Dreamcatcher or even Kristen Stewart in Twilight. (I’m not quite the Kristen Stewart apologist that my friend Henry is, and I don’t believe she’s on par with the other actors I’ve just mentioned. Still, I feel like there’s more to her than Bella Swan — or at least I hope so because she is almost as bad as Robert Pattinson in that movie.)

Anyway. Jennifer Lawrence never seems like she’s just cashing another paycheck in this film. She throws herself hard into the role of Katniss. There is a ton of power in her performance, and in a movie filled with a lot of quality actors, she remains unequivocally the shining star.

3. Let’s briefly go over some of the other returning cast:

Gale (Liam Hemsworth)

Fortunately, Gale seems to have grown a tiny bit of a personality since The Hunger Games – where I found his performance, all seven minutes of it, excruciatingly wooden. Unfortunately, that personality appears to be manifesting primarily as whininess. There’s this one part where he’s whimpering about Katniss’s fake love affair with Peeta, and Katniss is all like, “Dude, I did what I had to do to survive,” and Gale kisses her and is like, “Well, I had to do that,” and I’m like, “Yeah, you ASSCLOWN. That’s TOTALLY the same thing. Absolutely on par.”

In the war between Team Gale vs Team Peeta — I know I’m biased. For one thing, I like Josh Hutcherson — he totally won my heart in Detention. For another, Liam Hemsworth has really had very little screen time in the past two movies to develop a character. But so far, I’m not really getting the impression that he’s contributing much to the role. I really hope I feel differently about him in the next few movies because, at this point, I’m having trouble figuring out what Katniss even sees in Gale, other than his body. (And I’m not actually overly impressed by his body. I know Liam Hemsworth is normally a quite decent looking man, but I don’t think he looks as attractive in these movies as he does in real life. I just don’t think the clean shaven, bottle-dyed brunette is a particularly good look on him.)

Peeta (Josh Hutcherson)

Peeta certainly looks better than he did in the last movie, thankfully. I’m pretty sure it’s because they didn’t bleach his eyebrows this time. Somebody finally learned that bleaching eyebrows almost always leads to failure.

Like I said, I’ve got a soft spot for Josh Hutcherson, and I enjoy him in Catching Fire. I still feel like Peeta’s not exactly the way I remember him from the book, but he seems a bit more rounded in this film, maybe because I enjoy his occasional muttered snarky asides. He is certainly far less annoying than Gale, and I think he and Jennifer Lawrence have better chemistry. (Jesus Christ, I just spent far too much time watching interviews with these two. They are hilarious. I especially like this one. “I would never want White Cheddar Cheez-Its.” HA. Oh, oh also “How about an Oscar?” Dying right now. If these guys are faking their friendship for these interviews, they are phenomenally talented actors, more so than I even realized.)

Here’s the thing: I actually don’t know who Katniss ends up with. And, honestly, it’s not hugely important to me that she gets together with Peeta. But if Peeta meets some terrible and fiery doom, while Katniss marries Uber Boring Gale and have uber boring babies post Revolution . . . or if Peeta gets together with Prim for some totally random and horrible reason . . . I think I’m going to be disappointed.

Effie (Elizabeth Banks)

Apologies for Peeta photobombing half the picture, but I had to get Effie in her butterfly dress. Her outfits continue to be amazing. I would happily cosplay the hell out of this or her crazy purple dress.

I liked Effie in the first movie, but I like her even better here. Elizabeth Banks does a very good job of capturing what a silly, superficial woman Effie is without making her evil and terrible. She has a surprisingly human quality to her despite being utterly ridiculous, and I really enjoyed watching that come out in Catching Fire.

Haymitch (Woody Harrelson)

Woody Harrelson continues to be awesome. I don’t know if I have anything particularly deep to add to that. He’s just awesome.

4. And as far as new cast goes . . .

Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman)

I saw this movie only a day before Philip Seymour Hoffman died. I saw the movie, went to work, went to bed, and when I woke up, he was dead. It’s a strange feeling.

Hoffman was in a lot of critically beloved movies, many of which I unfortunately haven’t seen. I seem to remember liking him in Cold Mountain and Magnolia, though. Also, he played Dusty in Twister, which is a role I expect no one else cares about, but Twister is a guilty pleasure, and I loved him in that movie. His death came too soon, and it’s a very sad thing.

As far as his work here . . . it’s perfectly decent. I don’t think the role requires him to do anything particularly spectacular, at least not yet. I’ll have to see how Plutarch develops over the course of the next two movies. I’m happy that they aren’t recasting his role, but it’s weird to realize we’ll be seeing his face in theaters for almost two full years after his passing.

Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin)

Finnick is enjoyable enough. Honestly, I didn’t have much feeling on him one way or another, but I’m pretty sure he had some decent lines and he’s not exactly hard to look at.  I’m not convinced the dye job does him any favors, either — but he has an accent to make up for it, so. I’ll allow it.

Johanna Mason (Jena Malone)

Other than Jennifer Lawrence, the main standout of this movie is definitely Jena Malone. She’s awesome in this — Johanna is pissed off and rebellious and I was rooting for her pretty much immediately. There’s a ton of energy in Malone’s performance, and your eye is drawn to her whenever she’s on screen. I’m happy for her, too, because I’ve always liked the actress, and critics seem to be praising her work in this movie across the board.

5. I was initially less interested in this film when I watched the trailer and realized they were just going to throw Katniss into another Hunger Games. It seemed a little cheap to me, like we didn’t know what to do with our sequel, so here! Another Hunger Games! But I actually mostly liked how it turned out. I especially liked the addition of a few adults in the Games — I guess I figured everyone participating would simply be super attractive twenty-somethings, which, well. There are a number of those, but there are also people certainly upwards of thirty too, and I found that interesting.

6. There are also lots of shocks and electrocutions in this movie. The kid from Jurassic Park would feel right at home in this game.

7. Finally, Catching Fire runs a bit long — it’s very nearly two hours and thirty minutes — but I was generally entertained throughout, and it didn’t feel nearly as stretched as I thought it might. I do think there are a few problems with the third act, but overall I think it’s a very enjoyable movie, and I’m actually pretty excited to see the next one in the franchise.

More about those problems, and the film in general, below.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

A second disclaimer: the spoilers in this section are only for Catching Fire and The Hunger Games and not for Mockingjay. I would ask that you not discuss Mockingjay in the comments section. If you absolutely must discuss it, at least mark it appropriately with spoiler warnings so I can properly ignore everything you’re saying.

The movie begins back in District 12. Katniss tries to hunt turkeys with Gale but freaks out when she hallucinates the boy she shot with an arrow. It’s a nicely done scene. She and Gale also lock lips for a couple of seconds in what is probably supposed to be a romantic moment. Yawn. This is less well done.

Katniss and Peeta are supposed to go on a Victory Tour, but President Snow drops by for an unexpected visit before they can take off.

Snow tells Katniss all about the rebellion that’s threatening to tear the twelve districts apart. (I didn’t mention Donald Sutherland earlier, but he’s . . . fine. I’ve seen a number of reviewers criticize him for a hammy performance, but I don’t mind him in this movie. I just don’t find him particularly note-worthy, either.) He demands that she sell her gratitude and allegiance to the Capitol and, also, make sure everyone believes her relationship with Peeta is genuine . . . otherwise there will be hell to pay.

One of the things I really like about this movie is that Katniss is a very reluctant heroine. She is headstrong and brave and a good hunter, but that doesn’t mean she’s fearless. She’s very scared of President Snow, and what he could do to both her and everyone she loves. (And for good reason, too, as we’ll learn by the end of the film.) And while she has moments of selflessness — like sticking up for Gale when he’s getting whipped — her instincts also lean towards self-preservation, and for most of this film she’s far more interested in getting things back to normal than leading any kind of rebellion. It’s all good, well-rounded stuff and makes me like her character even more.

So Katniss and Peeta go on their victory tour, which doesn’t go particularly well.

When they’re at District 11, Peeta forgoes the cue cards to give a more honest speech about the loss of Rue and Thresh and donates some of his money to their families. Katniss then also gives an honest speech, which moves the District 11 people to do the whole three fingered salute thing, which results in this old man being executed. So not a promising start.

Katniss suggests that she and Peeta get married to keep President Snow off their backs. Peeta agrees to the marriage with all the enthusiasm of a man walking to his execution by firing squad, but in all fairness to him, he does get over his whininess pretty early in the film and admits that he knows she was just doing what she had to do by pretending to love him and that she’s the only reason he’s alive. It’s nice to hear, and it’s yet another reason why I like him more than Gale.

The marriage engagement is a big hit, but it’s not enough to stop the rebellion. So Plutarch Heavensbee, the new Head Gamemaker, cooks up what’s basically an All Star Hunger Games Tournament, where the survivors of the last 74 years worth of Games are eligible to become the new tributes. Everyone is pretty horrified by this, and the reaction shots of Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Woody Harrelson are all pretty terrific.

Okay, this isn’t her actual reaction. Would probably be my reaction, though.

Katniss is basically doomed to go because she’s the only girl from District 12 who’s ever won. When Haymitch’s name gets called, though, Peeta automatically volunteers as tribute, and they’re both whisked away without so much as a goodbye to their loved ones. Also, Katniss and Peeta don’t get their big wedding day, to no one’s actual surprise.

Haymitch encourages them to make allies during the training session, but Katniss doesn’t really trust anyone. She does make some connections with the less overtly frightening people: an older couple of tech nerds, for instance, and super old Mags, who is apparently too frail for words because she never talks. Mags, like Peeta, also volunteered (presumably by raising her hand) as tribute in place of another. Katniss seems to like her well enough but doesn’t trust Finnick from the same district at all. (To be fair, I wouldn’t have trusted him either. Finnick supposedly tries to charm Katniss, I think, but he comes off far more arrogant and skeezy than trustworthy.)

Also during the training: Katniss make a Seneca puppet, which she promptly hangs for the judges. It’s pretty awesome.

We then move on to the interviews, which means the the incomparable Stanley Tucci and his exceedingly white teeth are back.

Katniss has a nice moment where her wedding dress turns into a mockingjay rebellion dress, courtesy of Cinna, but it’s Peeta’s tearful and quite false confession of Katniss’s pregnancy that makes me really clap with my hands with glee. Gale wouldn’t tearfully confess anything in order to manipulate the audience into rioting. (Okay, okay, I swear I’m done with the Team Peeta stuff.)

Despite everyone’s dissatisfaction, President Snow refuses to cancel the Hunger Games Numero Dos. Cinna sees Katniss off, and once Katniss is safely locked away in a tube, some Capitol guys come and beat the shit out of Cinna . . . to death? I certainly assumed he was being dragged off for execution, but since we don’t see him die, I guess he could return. Anyway, Katniss watches all this in horror and is immediately lifted up into the arena. And so the games begin.

We quickly figure out that Haymitch has arranged for Finnick (and by extension, Mags) to be an ally, whether Katniss likes it or not. They both try to save Peeta, who is in the process of fighting with another tribute underwater, but Peeta surprisingly manages to save himself by — presumably — drowning the other tribute instead. I say presumably because we don’t actually see much of it and, for all I know, a giant shark came up and ate the tribute. This is about the last time Peeta will be useful in any real capacity, which kind of makes me wish we’d seen his POV on the fight, but honestly, I sort of love that he is the damsel in distress here. A lot of people have been critical about that, but it sort of tickles me that the boy is the artistic, lovestruck one who has only manipulation, charm, and his girlfriend’s giant ass bow to protect him.

Of course, Peeta is the one to run into a giant ass forcefield, which immediately stops his heart. (Don’t worry. He gets better . . . courtesy of Finnick’s lips. I hope to hell there’s some fanfiction in that.) He’s also the first one to fall to the poisonous fog — although in his defense, that’s mostly from helping Katniss up when she falls. Mags sacrifices herself so that Finnick’s arms are free to carry Peeta out of there. Later, when monkeys attack — God, that should be a button: Later, when monkeys attack — another random tribute sacrifices herself to rescue Peeta, making that two women who have saved his life, thoroughly confusing the hell out of him.

We find out (later) that about half the Tributes are in on the rebellion, and their primary goal is to save Katniss and Peeta. (Well, Katniss. Peeta’s secondary for obvious reasons.) This includes Johanna, who saves our older tech nerds Wiress and Beetee from blood raining from the sky. Jena Malone, by the way, pissed off, covered in blood, and screaming on the beach? Awe-some.

Wiress goes kind of nuts and is killed off as soon as she makes a semi-useful contribution about how the island is structured. Beetee proposes a plan to use some giant tree to help electrocute the last couple of evil tributes, or something. Katniss doesn’t trust anyone other than Peeta and thinks the two of them should take off the second they get the chance. However — after a tender moment on the beach — Katniss and Peeta are separated, and everything all goes to hell.

Katniss and Johanna are carrying this wire for the Big Plan when it snaps. The last two evil tributes show up, and Johanna attacks Katniss, cuts into her arm, and tells her to play dead. (She’s actually pulling a tracker out of Katniss’s arm, but we don’t know that until later.) The tributes run after Johanna. Meanwhile, Katniss goes back for Peeta but only finds Beetee unconscious.

When Finnick approaches, Katniss nearly shoots him — which is exactly what President Snow is hoping for, as murdering her allies will prove that she’s not the hero everyone thinks she is. Finnick tells Katniss to remember who the real enemy is, something that Haymitch also (and not coincidentally) told her. Katniss instead fires at the forcefield around the dome just as the lightning starts up.

This causes the power in the arena to go out and the forcefields to shut down. It also knocks Katniss unconscious as some kind of aircraft hovers above and lifts her away.

Katniss wakes up to find Beetee unconscious beside her and Finnick, Haymitch, and Plutarch arguing in the other room. She learns all about the secret rebellion. She also finds out that Joanna and Peeta were captured by the bad guys and taken to the Capitol. This is where Katniss loses her shit, attacking Haymitch because he promised to take care of Peeta first. (Of course, he made the same basic promise to Peeta, and like I said before, Katniss is clearly not the expendable one here.) Plutarch sedates Katniss, and she’s out again. Also, Jennifer Lawrence is pretty fantastic in this scene.

Katniss wakes up once more, but this time Gale is by her side. Katniss asks if they’re home, and you can see the answer on Gale’s face before he tells her that District 12 is no more. It got bombed to shit, although he did manage to get her family out in time. Now they’re on their way to . . . District 13. Katniss gets her game face on, and that’s about where we end the movie.

Now. My biggest problem with this film is definitely the last fifteen to twenty minutes of action. Throughout Beetee’s plan, we stick very close to Katniss’s POV here — which can be a great way of raising tension, since we only know what she knows. Problem is, I feel like the action gets pretty muddled as a result. The evil tributes who pop up to attack feel like they come out of nowhere, and not in the good way. This could be because none of the evil tributes are particularly memorable or distinct from one another once they’re on the island, and you kind of keep forgetting about them in the wake of giant forcefields and big ass lightning strikes and showers of blood and pissed off monkeys. They aren’t a source of menace or fear like they are in the first movie, taking some of the human element of the game . . . which, admittedly, does kind of thematically make sense, since this whole movie is about everyone — including the tributes — being so angry at the system that they put their lives on the line to join forces and rebel. But I still feel like a bit of the horror is lost, which makes me sad.

Also, I presume the evil tributes are supposed to have cut the wire that Katniss and Johanna are carrying, but the way the scene is shot . . . I just think it could have been a lot clearer. Especially since I also presume the same evil tributes must have attacked Beetee, Finnick, and Peeta first, and there doesn’t seem like there’s been enough time for that. We’re left with a lot unseen, which I might be able to forgive if we see these events in the third movie from the POV of any or all of the guys . . . but if we don’t, I think that’s a problem for me.

I’m also not entirely sure what the hell Plutarch’s plan was to get the good guys out of the arena safely. After all, it’s Katniss who breaks the damn place, and she didn’t know about the whole secret rebellion op. It seems pretty clearly an improvisation on her part, but if she hadn’t done it . . . what would have happened? Could they have escaped some other way? Would electrocuting the bad tributes have somehow also shut the arena down? Did Beetee always count on Katniss shooting the sky with an arrow? Pardon me if I’m missing something, but I didn’t find this clear from the film at all.

On the plus side, cliffhanger! And Johanna is, shockingly, still alive. I totally assumed she was going to bite it going into this movie, so it’s nice to know I haven’t seen the last of Jena Malone. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t read Catching Fire before I saw the film, but I feel like I had a little extra fun in theater, not knowing what was going to happen, and I’m way more excited to see The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 than I was a week ago. I won’t even make fun of the fact that they split the third book into two movies, since I have a sneaking suspicion it’s not really large enough to warrant the cut.

Dammit. Do I really have to wait all the way until November? Curse you, Catching Fire. Curse you.

QUOTES:

Effie: “Eyes bright, chins up, smiles on. I’m talking to you, Katniss.”

Peeta: “See, Katniss, the way the whole ‘friend’ thing works is that you have to tell each other the deep stuff.”
Katniss: “The deep stuff?”
Peeta: “Yeah.”
Katniss: “Like what?”
Peeta: “Like . . . what’s your favorite color?”
Katniss: “Oh, now you’ve stepped over the line.”

Finnick: “I haven’t dealt in anything as common as money in years.”
Katniss: “Well, then, how do people pay for the pleasure of your company?”

Katniss: “It must be a fragile system, if it can be brought down by just a few berries.”

Katniss: “What’s with her teeth?”
Haymitch: “She had them filed into fangs so she could rip people’s throats out.”
Peeta: “She’s committed, I’ll give her that.”

Peeta: “We wanted our love to be eternal. You know, Katniss and I were luckier than most. I wouldn’t have any regrets at all, if it weren’t for . . . if . . .”
Caesar: “If it weren’t for . . . what? What?”
Peeta: “If it weren’t for the baby.”

President Snow: “They’re holding hands. I want them dead.”

Finnick: “I guess we’re not holding hands anymore.”

Peeta: “So if you can stop looking at me like I’m wounded, I can quit acting like it.”

Peeta: “Be careful. There’s a forcefield up there.”

Peacekeeper: “She was interfering with a peacekeeper!”
Haymitch: “I never said she was smart.”

Peeta: “It’s cozy.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Very enjoyable. I still find Gale dull, and I think the action sequences in the last twenty minutes are problematic, but I’m pretty impressed with how they handled this sequel, and I’m eager to see the next one. Oh, and apparently I’m totally Team Peeta now. Shit. That almost certainly means he’s going to die.

MVP:

Jennifer Lawrence. But Jena Malone gets an honorable mention.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORAL:

You have to know when to stand up and fight for your right to party.

Every year, there’s at least one movie I’m absolutely dying to see, and this year it was Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Events conspired against me — websites lying about movie times, a massive headache pulsing down the entire right side of my face and making me a little sick if the camera spun to fast — but I did it. I successfully watched my movie.

And it was awesome.

SUMMARY

Captain America (Chris Evans) is working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and feeling awfully disillusioned about the job. But after an attempt on Nick Fury’s life, Cap and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) have to team up to find out what secrets S.H.I.E.L.D. is hiding and, also, take on the titular Winter Soldier.

NOTES:

1. It’s funny. I’ve been excited about this movie since, well, since The Avengers came out, but I was not actually a huge fan of the first Captain America. The movie’s actually grown on me since I first saw it in theaters, but I can still critique the shit out of it and probably wouldn’t give it any grade higher than a B, possibly a B-. So, for me, The Winter Soldier is one of those fairly rare sequels that is absolutely better than its predecessor.

2. One of the reason? The ACTION.

Oh my God, you guys. The action sequences in this movie are so good. I never felt like I was being assaulted by a bunch of shitty CGI, and I was SO into all the fight scenes, especially this one where Captain America is just kicking all kinds of henchmen ass on this ship. I’m not even quite sure how to describe it — I’m afraid I don’t really possess the proper terminology for that kind of thing — but it was really quick and merciless and super badass. Captain America fights like a superhero, but he also fights like a soldier, if that makes any sense. Like, he totally throws a knife at this dude — there’s just something kind of cool about that. You know, he was in a war, and in war, people kill each other. I don’t know. It’s just a thing I liked.

3. Other things I liked:

Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) is basically the best. He’s funny and totally easy on the eyes and has a really good chemistry with Chris Evans. I would absolutely sign up to see him in more movies, with Captain America, The Avengers, or possibly even on his own. I’ll be honest — I don’t know shit about the Falcon that I didn’t see on Robot Chicken — but in this movie, his wings were pretty awesome. I’ll all on board with this new superhero.

4. Of course, Anthony Mackie isn’t the only one who has good chemistry with Chris Evans in this movie.

Here’s another funny thing: for as long as I’ve been reading Avengers fanfiction, it has never once seriously occurred to me to ship Captain America/Black Widow. But I have to say that these two on-screen together were really enjoyable to watch, and while I don’t necessarily need to see that turn into a romance . . . you know, I actually wouldn’t mind it. (It’s probably not surprising that Johansson and Evans have as much natural chemistry as they do, seeing as how they’ve acted in, what? Four films together now? It’s funny how that happens.)

Aside from shipping, though — Johansson is just really good in this film, funny and awesome. I have really grown to like Black Widow a lot, and I am also now definitely ready to see a movie featuring her being all badass.

5. It probably doesn’t need to be said, but in case it does — Chris Evans still makes a really compelling Captain America.

Rock those glasses, Cap. Rock em hard.

I don’t have a lot to say about Chris Evans’s performance that I didn’t already say in my reviews for Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers — I just like him a whole lot. There was one scene in particular where he kind of just broke me. He makes for a very solid lead in what is already a really good cast.

6. If the movie has a weak point — well, at least one I can kind of mention above the Spoiler Line – I think it centers around Emily Van Camp. It’s not her performance, exactly, just . . . she’s kind of introduced as a love interest, only she’s not given very much to do. And she doesn’t actually have that many scenes with Cap, so they have little chance to build what lackluster chemistry they have. Captain America has better chemistry with Natasha Romanoff, Sam Wilson, and the Winter Soldier than he has with Emily Van Camp’s character. I suppose they’re just setting her up for the next movie, but I would have been totally okay if she hadn’t been in this one at all.

7. Finally, for a movie called The Winter Soldier . . . there’s not actually all that much Winter Soldier. I mean, he’s there, but . . . I don’t know. I get why the movie can’t actually be subtitled with a more plot-accurate name, but still. I kind of wish we got to see a little bit more of him.

Want to know what I think this movie should have been called?

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

I was thinking something like Captain America: HYDRA Strikes Back or Captain America: S.H.I.E.L.D. is FUCKED.

So, it turns out that S.H.I.E.L.D. has long been infiltrated by HYDRA. Like, half the godamn organization is HYDRA, including some annoying people . . .

. . . some surprising people . . .

. . . and some totally-less-than surprising people.

First, dealing with Robert Redford . . . look, no one’s going to say Redford is bad in this movie because for Christ’s sake, he’s Robert Redford. It’s not like the guy can’t act. But . . . he’s not the most compelling villain in the whole world, maybe because he was pretty obviously a bad guy from the trailers. Maybe even from the casting announcement — did anyone really believe Redford was going to play a good guy? His reveal was hardly shocking, and more than that, his character’s just . . . okay. He’s not the worst Marvel villain by any means — I generally enjoyed any scene he had with Samuel L. Jackson, and I certainly liked him more than I liked Malekith from The Dark World — but his character is just not terribly compelling or ominous. Once again, the Marvel villains continue to be the least interesting part of their own movies.

Despite my increasingly desperate desire for an awesome villain that isn’t Loki, the semi-lackluster nature of these bad guys isn’t a big stumbling block for me, as far as the movie’s concerned. Let’s get back to the basic plot for the moment: Nick Fury is beginning to suspect that something is rotten in the state of Denmark, so he starts to do some digging. So Pierce (Redford) orders the Winter Soldier to kill him. Actually, before we continue with that, let’s talk about the Winter Soldier because if you don’t know, this guy . . .

. . . is totally this guy.

Can I just say, Bucky? Not exactly rocking the long hair and light stubble look.

Despite the fact that I kind of thought everyone knew Bucky Barnes became the Winter Soldier — and despite the fact that his unmasked face was prominently featured in a few of the trailers — I still heard a couple of non-ironic gasps in the theater when he was revealed. (And then I laughed at them. Because I’m mean like that.)

Sebastian Stan didn’t really get a lot of play in the first movie, but I kind of figured he’d be a much bigger deal in this one. But . . . he’s sort of not. I mean, he’s important to the story, and he’s involved in some fun fight scenes and all, but he really only had a couple of moments where he actually had to, you know, act. He wasn’t bad in the scenes he had, but I was vaguely disappointed that he and Chris Evans really didn’t have all that much screen time together. (Although I just assume he’ll be a bigger part of Captain America 3, whenever that comes out. I don’t think he’ll show up for The Avengers 2: Age of Ultron . . . that movie already seems to have a LOT going on.)

But back to plot. Brainwashed Bucky causes Nick Fury to rather spectacularly crash his car, but Fury escapes long enough to get to Captain America’s apartment. He gives Cap a memory stick of Confidential Shit and then gets shot like three times in the chest through a godamn wall. Supposedly he dies, although if you’ve seen any of the trailers, you probably won’t be too terribly surprised when he pops up alive about an hour later. (I usually only watch one trailer, maybe two tops, to avoid being unduly spoiled for movies I’m interested in, but since there was a commercial for The Winter Soldier during like every commercial break in every episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., well, it was harder to avoid.)

Fury tells Cap that he shouldn’t trust anyone before he pretends to kick the bucket. Cap ends up having to kind of trust Natasha, though, and they get to dress like hipsters and go on a fugitive road trip (always the best kind) to figure out what’s going on while S.H.I.E.L.D. hunts them down.

They essentially figure out that HYDRA is not dead, that it’s going strong inside of S.H.I.E.L.D. and has been since basically forever. The agency is so damn compromised that they can’t really break down one without the other, so the plan is to more or less unravel both. Also, there are like these weaponized anti-privacy planes that can target threats to HYDRA and kill a whole bunch of people and stuff? So, yeah, the plan is to take those down too.

Stuff happens. I don’t feel like recapping this movie scene by scene, but we do need to take a minute to mourn Agent Sitwell, who was secretly evil all along. (Also? Dead now.) No, Agent Sitwell, NOOOOOOO. (I kind of can’t wait to see Coulson’s eventual reaction to that in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Actually, I kind of can’t wait just to see tomorrow’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. at all Hot damn, things just got interesting.) I think it was probably a smart move, having somebody we actually know and care about secretly a HYDRA agent . . . but a little piece of my nerd heart is just all sad now.

So, Steve, Natasha, Sam, Maria Hill, and Not-Quite-Dead Nick Fury team up to spill all HYDRA’s and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s secrets to the public, bringing down both agencies. It’s all agent versus agent, including Agent 13 (Emily Van Camp), also known as Sharon, also known as the babysitter agent who lived next door to Cap and pretended to be a nurse. (Also a SHIELD agent? Danny Pudi! Sadly, he wasn’t making eyes at Captain America.) Van Camp’s stuff is okay, but it also seems pretty superfluous, and I’m just not feeling her character. Especially because I know what her last name is — even if they didn’t actually say it in the movie — and that’s just not a development I’m interested in at all. I don’t care if it’s canon. Blech to that subplot.

Oh, but while we’re briefly talking about Captain America’s love interests? I completely forgot to mention the heartbreaking scene from earlier in the film, where Cap visits Old Peggy, who looks to be suffering from Alzheimer’s, or at least some kind of dementia, and it’s just so damn sad. Oh, these two actors are so good in this scene. Bastards tried to make me tear up. (They failed, though, so HA. Assholes.)

Anyway, back to final battle shit. Nick Fury shoots and kills Pierce, which was totally good for me. I’m not exactly sure why. I just liked that moment a lot. Also, while I haven’t really talked much about him yet, I should say that I also really enjoyed Samuel L. Jackson in this movie. His scenes talking spy philosophy with Captain America are pretty great.

Falcon ends up fighting this annoying second banana dude (Nick Grillo), who I guess is a much bigger bad guy than I initially realized, because he very unfortunately lived. (Although he’s now considerably crispier than he was. I guess that’s something.)

And Captain America took down the planes and got shot to shit by his previously assumed dead best friend.

Thankfully, Cap got through to Brainwashed Bucky, at least a little, because BB saved our hero from drowning before dumping his ass off on a river bank and walking off into the sunset. At the end of the movie, S.H.I.E.L.D. is basically dead, Nick Fury goes underground, everyone gets jobs everywhere else, and Cap and Falcon go off in a mission to track down BB and bring him home. And that’s kind of the end.

(Except the teasers, of course, where we get our first taste of Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch. Oh, and Bucky looking at his own memorial at the Smithsonian. But eh, whatever. If it’s not shwarma or Bruce Banner, I’m just not that impressed.)

QUOTES:

Natasha: “You do anything fun Saturday night?”
Steve: “Well, all the guys in my barbershop quartet are dead. So no, not really.”

Sam: “Don’t look at me. I do what he does, just slower.”

Steve: “Thanks.”
Brock: “Yeah. You seemed pretty helpless without me.”

Natasha: “What about the nurse that lives next door to you? She seems nice.”
Steve: “Secure the engine room, then find me a date.”
Natasha: “I’m multi-tasking.”

Sam: “How do we know the good guys from the bad guys?”
Steve: “If they’re shooting at you, they’re bad.”

Natasha: “Shall we play a game? It’s from a movie –”
Steve: “I saw it.”

Pierce: “Fine. But you’ve gotta get Iron Man to stop by my niece’s birthday party. Not just a fly-by. He’s gotta mingle.”

Sam: “Shut the hell up.”

Natasha: “Hey, fellas. Either one of you know where the Smithsonian is? I’m here to pick up a fossil.”
Steve: “That’s hilarious.”

Steve: “On your left.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Pretty damn awesome. The villains are kind of mediocre, and I just can’t get into Agent 13 — but this movie was a blast: funny, action heavy, and with some really well done scenes. I had a great time watching it, even with half of my head pounding.

MVP:

Chris Evans, mostly because he has to carry the whole movie, and I think Captain America is a harder role than some might give it credit for. But Anthony Mackie and Scarlett Johansson were serious contenders too.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORAL:

Freedom good, fear bad.

Well, we have a title for the upcoming Batman vs Superman movie, and it’s very sad indeed: Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. Many people object to the ‘v’ in that title, arguing that ‘v’ is almost exclusively used for court cases rather than superhero battles. They aren’t wrong, but I honestly don’t care all that much — my disgust is solely for the words ‘Dawn of Justice.’ And it’s not that I don’t get it — this will be the dawn of the Justice League, blah blah blah — but really, how do you say that title with a straight face? ‘Dawn of Justice’ sounds like the hit song in a superhero musical parody. (Someone please write that for me. Robyn? Please?)

In honor of this particularly lousy title, I was inspired to search for some other terrible film titles — all of which are sequels and only some of which I’ve actually seen. I spent a whole ten minutes researching this — because I’m a lazy bum who’d rather be reading her book right now — so feel free to comment if there are names you feel should have made the list. (Remember, though, this is about the quality of the title, not the movie itself — although, admittedly, there does seem to be some correlation between the two.)

10 Awful Sequel Titles

10. Star Trek Into Darkness

This is just a grammar issue. The colon is a time-honored tradition in the sequel title business. You will see it up and down this list — why did we get rid of it here, why? Someone just fucked up on the press release, didn’t they? Someone made a typo, and the studio was forced to pretend, “No, no, we totally MEANT for it to be like that. Really. That’s how all the cool sequels use punctuation these days — by NOT fucking use it. Ha! Take that, Mrs. Mooney — fuck tenth grade English!”

(I know I’m being awfully snotty for a girl who slaps em dashes around like they’re going out of style and uses commas whenever she feels like it for dramatic effect. I don’t care. Use the colon, dammit!)

9. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

This didn’t seem to make anyone else’s lists, but I don’t care. Menace is a hard word to take seriously in a title — qualifying it with the word ‘phantom’ does not make it any better. When I hear ‘The Phantom Menace,’ the very first thing I think is . . . well, okay, the first thing I really think is “fucking midichlorians,” but THEN I think, “Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Rejected Titles for New Melodramatic Opera”. (Also on that list? Singing Whiners. Seriously. I know I shouldn’t judge that play off of one film adaptation . . . but I do. Whiners, the lot of ‘em.)

8. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Actually, this is factually true. Money, in fact, does not sleep. On its own, money doesn’t do very much at all. Because it’s an inanimate object. Assholes.

7. The X-Files: I Want to Believe

Look, I get it: ‘I want to believe’ is a key catchphrase for the show. I even liked it while watching the show back in the day — ‘I want to believe’ is basically how I would sum up my thirteen year old self’s stance on spirituality and the supernatural in general. But as a movie title, it mostly makes me think of gospel songs, or possibly George Michael.

I now have “Faith” stuck in my head. I hope you’re happy, movie.

6. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

. . . look, it’s just a dumb title, okay? If Indiana Jones has found himself in a 1980′s sword and sorcery movie, it probably wouldn’t bother me, but this . . . no. No bueno. Boo.

5. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Yes, I’m aware this movie hasn’t even come out yet. I don’t care. How awkward is this name? Seriously, there is no excuse for repeating the words ‘of the’ in a seven-word title. Also, I’m starting to think ‘dawn’ doesn’t work particularly well for me, unless it’s immediately followed by ‘of the dead.’

4. Howling III: The Marsupials

So, here’s the thing: I haven’t actually seen this movie, and I’m a little unclear if the film is supposed to be a pure parody, or if it’s supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek horror film. Because those are different things to me. Scream is tongue-in-cheek. Scary Movie is pure parody. The word ‘marsupials’ can turn up, I suppose, in the title of an intentionally ridiculous crapfest, but if there’s even one scene that wants you to take it seriously or make you scared . . . no. This is unacceptable. (Also, it just kind of makes me sad that this movie title exists at all. I mean, bad sequels happen to every franchise, particularly horror ones, but no matter how much Scream 3 sucked monkeyballs, it wasn’t, like, Scream 3: Koala Bears vs Ghostface or something. I feel bad for The Howling, and honestly, I didn’t even LIKE The Howling all that much.)

3. Live Free or Die Hard

Look, Die Hard is a stupid name. We all know that. Die Harder is just funny. Die Hard with a Vengeance is similarly terrible. But nothing quite beats out Live Free or Die Hard because seriously: what does that even MEAN? Are we supposed to live like John McClane, an alcoholic cop who’s separated from his wife more days than not and whose kids really only like him when he’s saving their lives from cyber terrorists? Don’t get me wrong — I like McClane — but I really hope that’s not our definition of living free these days. And if we’re not old, cantankerous bastards who punch out our problems and fear technology . . . does this mean we, too, have to die hard? Because the likelihood of my being able to take out a helicopter with a car seems, well, not very.

2. Rambo: First Blood Part II

This title is unacceptable. It is ridiculously confusing. You would think, from the title, that this particular movie is a sequel to Rambo. You would be wrong. The first movie is First Blood. Then we get Rambo: First Blood Part II. Then we get Rambo III, and finally we get fucking Rambo. I mean, seriously. WHAT THE HELL? Why, WHY would you put Rambo in front of the fucking colon? Whoever came up with the title of this movie . . . buddy, you deserve to be slapped around with a dead, stinky fish, all right.

1. Quantum of Solace

Look, I don’t ask a lot from the title of a James Bond movie. You wanna name your spy movie Octopussy? Fine, have at it. But I DO expect that those titles won’t remind me of a)  emotional denouements or b) fucking PHYSICS. I have never lost interest in a movie so fast as when I heard the title Quantum of Solace. Like, I don’t usually make decisions based solely on the title of a movie, no matter how cheesy it is. (I still intend to see Dawn of Justice, and — with a few caveats — I generally enjoy the Die Hard movies.) But once I heard the name Quantum of Solace, I was like, “Peace, bitches, I’m out.” And I’d really liked Casino Royale, too, much to my shock. I was just seeing it because my friend wanted to.

I have still not seen Quantum of Solace. And you know what? I still don’t really need to. (Although, admittedly, shitty reviews have something to do with that too.)

X-Men, I enjoyed. X2, I really enjoyed. X-Men: The Last Stand remains the most disappointing film I’ve ever seen in theater, ever. X-Men Origins: Wolverine was ridiculous, and yet bothers me considerably less than The Last Stand, probably because that movie had already crushed all the expectations out of me. X-Men: First Class, I enjoyed, except for what happened with all the female characters. The Wolverine . . . well, I never actually saw that one. I didn’t have to. “X-Men” wasn’t in the title.

X-Men: Days of Future Past, though. That I obviously had to see.

I’ll admit, my interest wasn’t all that high, despite Bryan Singer’s return to the franchise — but I actually had a pretty decent time, all in all.

SUMMARY:

The future sucks. So Old Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) goes back in time to try and convince Young Xavier (James McAvoy) and Young Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to help him stop Young Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from assassinating (Normal Age) Dr. Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage), whose death will instigate the shitty future that Wolverine would very much like to avoid.

NOTES:

1. What definitely works in this movie (not surprisingly) is the acting. Days of Future Past boasts a phenomenal cast: eight actors — Halle Berry, Michael Fassbender, Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Lerner, Ian McKellen, Ellen Page, and Anna Paquin — have been nominated for an Academy Award, and three of them have won. (Although it should be said that a couple of these actors, one in particular, is barely even in the movie — something I’ll be revisiting in the Spoiler Section.)

Everyone does a fair to excellent job with their roles. Hugh Jackman is a lot of fun, as always, and I like Nicholas Hoult a lot, too. Peter Dinklage is enjoyable, and Jennifer Lawrence is great — I definitely like Mystique a lot more this time around. Michael Fassbender has considerably less screen time than he did in First Class, but he’s freaking Michael Fassbender — you could give him three lines and dress him in a garbage bag, and he’d still drip charisma all over the screen.

But Days of Future Past is undoubtedly James McAvoy’s movie.

McAvoy is great in this. Young Xavier is a broken guy in the beginning of this film, and McAvoy does a lovely job conveying his grief and disillusionment. The kind of bitter banter between him and Jackman is fun to watch, and all his stuff with Fassbender on the plane is nothing short of magnificent.

2. Of course, we also need to talk about Quicksilver (Evan Peters), who is basically the best.

You will all likely remember the mass internet rage that sprang up after the first pictures of Quicksilver were released, so I’d like to think that Bryan Singer saw the audience’s overwhelmingly positive reaction to Quicksilver and was like, “BOOYAH! I told you he’d be awesome!” (Although I’m still unclear as to why they renamed Pietro “Peter.” That does sort of bother me cause, you know, why? Unless I was having a brain problem that day and just kept mishearing his name — but it sure sounded like they were saying Peter.)

Anyway, Pietro/Peter is not actually a huge part of the movie, but he IS a lot of fun, bringing some much needed levity to the second act of the film, especially with the One Scene That Everyone’s Talking About. I’m pretty sure that I’ll never be able to hear “Time in a Bottle” again without thinking of Quicksilver.

3. I will say, though, that there are some huge logic leaps in this movie that kind of drive me crazy. Like, I’m really at a loss to explain how Kitty Pryde’s ability to run through walls has somehow given her the power to send people back in time.

. . . you want me to do what, now?

I mean, I get that it’s probably a nod to the original comics, where Kitty was the one going back in time herself, but . . . yeah. That shit don’t fly without some kind of explanation. Come on now. It would be no less ridiculous if Iceman froze Wolverine’s head and was like, “No, it’s totes cool. By putting his brain on ice, I’m actually sending our favorite grumpy mutant into the past!”

4. Also, the new Sentinels of the dystopian future are kind of boring. This isn’t a huge knock to the movie are anything, just . . . meh. They’re like super sized Terminators. I much prefer the first edition Sentinels from the 1970′s.

Maybe because they remind me of the Sentinels I remember from my beloved childhood cartoon, but also just because they look more interesting. And purple! Who doesn’t like purple?

5. I can’t talk about this in too much detail yet, but I do need to say that as much as I generally enjoyed this film, I did find myself more than slightly frustrated with our heroes sometimes. Because, really, I think if they would’ve all just sat down and tried coming up with a solid game plan for five seconds, they could have super easily avoided the Uber Dark Future that was awaiting them.

And yeah, I get it, your movie does have to have plot and all, and sure, with plot comes plot complications, but for fuck’s sake. That’s no excuse for making your characters morons.

6. Finally, about the mutants who have survived in our ugly future — I’m sure there were a lot of factors involved, like what actors you could get and how long you could actually get them, but still — I wish we had more time with mutants we already know and less with the new mutants we’ve never heard of before. Like, Blink’s kind of cool, and sure, I totally wanted to see Bishop on the big screen — but I wanted to see Bishop in a role where we actually got to spend some time with him, you know, where’s he’s not just a glorified extra who we know nothing about. I would much rather have seen what became of so many other mutants, like Rogue or Nightcrawler or Angel or Gambit or grown-up Havoc or even poor Jubilee, who basically never makes it into the movie, even though she’s pretty much always scripted.

And . . . shit, that’s pretty much all I have to say that doesn’t include Spoilers. For those who have seen the movie (or just aren’t planning to, ever), please continue onward.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

So, first, I need to tell you something about me, something important, something you might not know: I have a serious block against JFK assassination conspiracy stuff.

I just, I can’t. I don’t know if it’s because JFK died well before or I was born, or (more likely) because everyone and their dog has already done JFK conspiracy stuff, but anytime a movie or book tells me how Kennedy really died . . . I pretty much roll my eyes back into my skull, die of a horrible brain hemorrhage, and then am promptly resurrect due to magic. Which isn’t as fun as it sounds.

So, yeah. At first it’s like, “Magneto killed the President!” And I was like, “Oh, please.” And then it was, “No, Magneto tried to save the President because he was a MUTANT.” And I was like, “Good Christ, people.” I think I actually giggled in theater. No, I know I giggled in theater.

There is just no winning with me on JFK. Consider it a flaw in my character.

Now. Here’s where I was really going nuts with this movie: if you know you can’t murder a dude without causing a terrible, terrible future, why doesn’t anyone come up with what I feel are incredibly obvious solutions, like discrediting Trask in some way, or staging a fight where the good mutants clearly outnumber the bad mutants and save someone important like, oh, I don’t know, the current President, maybe.

These things happen by accident, mind you, but I simply don’t understand why no one thought to make it happen intentionally. Like, absolutely, the first step should be to stop Mystique from murdering Trask, but that could have been done fairly easily. And, apparently, without Magneto’s help at all — so fuck you, Future Professor X. You made everything so much harder by forcing Wolverine to free Young Magneto, considering he brought nothing much to table except bad decision making skills and public monument destruction.

I am helpful in no way, shape, or form.

Because yeah, Magneto? He has apparently decided that the ONLY way to stop Mystique is to kill her. It is the most ridiculous thing — he never tries to reason with her. He doesn’t even seem to notice that Charles has clearly already talked her down. And even if Charles hadn’t, it never occurs to Magneto to even try and do something slightly less drastic than murdering his own protege/friend, like temporarily knocking her out and taking her away somewhere so that they can continue having this discussion in a slightly less charged environment, somewhere they’ll have more than five seconds to outline exactly what will happen if Trask is killed. I’m like . . . seriously, Magneto? Aren’t you supposed to be smart?

And really – do we honestly think that simply saving Trask from this one woman will completely avert the horrible future where Sentinels are everywhere? Cause I don’t. Which brings us back to discrediting him — for instance, when Magneto takes control of the Sentinels and uses them to attack the humans? I’m not saying it’s the nicest plan ever, but if you can just find a way to eliminate the evidence — and with a handful of powerful mutants, I’m pretty sure you can — then how easy is it to have our good mutants storm in and save the day? With this plan, we’ve easily shown that the Sentinels are too dangerous to keep around, that Trask should probably not be in charge of anything, and that mutants are willing to use their powers for good.

But then Magneto wouldn’t get to showboat. Like an ASSHOLE.

I do, ultimately, like that Mystique has the opportunity to make her own choice, that Charles realizes he and Magneto have been trying to control her instead of actually stopping to listen to her for once.

And it’s about godamn time.

I’ve read a variety of different opinions about Mystique and the movie in general over the last week or so. C.C. Finlay, for instance, was pretty critical of Days of Future Past in regards to how it deals with women, and while we don’t always come to the same conclusions — it never even crossed my mind to consider Mystique’s gender as important in regards to her responsibility for creating this horrible future, nor do I really read Mystique’s phone booth scene as forgiveness, exactly — I do think he raises some interesting points. Because I absolutely would’ve loved to have seen our favorite shapeshifter give a monologue of her own where she’s like, “Excuse me, but I’ve been saving mutants left and right without you two for YEARS now, and I think I’ll just go ahead and keep doing that on my own, thanks.”

I also agree that we absolutely should have seen Mystique somewhere in the Happy Future. Not in X’s mansion — because, for me, that would read far too much like she chose Xavier instead of herself, after all — but maybe her own castle where she can train a band of mutant recruits who are loyal to her. Because Wolverine’s a hero (and I love that he’s easily sidelined in the big battle when you think he’ll save the day), but Mystique is one too, and it does annoy me that she’s not in our Big Happy Times Denouement.

Why don’t I merit Happy Times?

Oh, but before we continue with the joyful future – I do need to backtrack a bit and confess something. The JFK thing is not the only time I inappropriately giggled in the theater. I also laughed when Storm died in the apocalyptic future. Which, in retrospect, I feel a bit guilty about because it probably wasn’t Days of Future Past’s best choice, killing off the black female character before anybody else. (Don’t you guys have PR people to think about these things, if you’re not going to do it yourself?) And yet, I did laugh because I’ve never particularly liked Storm, at least not Halle Berry’s portrayal of her (something to which you’ll all hear more about, if I ever get around to writing a review of X2), and also because slow-motion deaths where you fall off the Cliffs of Insanity are pretty hard to take seriously.

Okay, confession over. Back to the joyful future, where everyone is alive — and by everyone, I mostly mean Jean and Scott, since this movie has done what I (and surely everyone) had not-so-secretly hoped: it has completely erased The Last Stand from the franchise entirely. (Mind you, the franchise’s continuity is still entirely fucked. If you’re interested, there’s a good list here about all the things that still make very little sense.)

Rogue is alive too, and you get to see her for all of three seconds, which is long enough to see her hold hands with Iceman. So . . . she’s still got that cure then, huh? *sigh*

Can Rogue have her own spinoff yet? Like, a different Rogue (with probably a different actress, sorry Anna Paquin), who gets to be badass and sassy and have all her awesome powers? Can she be the Rogue I wanted to be when I was eight? Also — and I know she had a whole subplot that was cut which explains this, but — it’s HILARIOUS that Anna Paquin was in the top billing for cameo that was literally less than a minute. I don’t think she even had lines. (If she did, it was a, “Hey, Logan,” but I don’t think she even said that. For Christ’s sake. There are unpaid extras who have more screen time.)

I am kind of curious to see where the series goes from here, though. Not because of the post-credits teaser, mind you. (Although, funny story — I actually didn’t realize they were setting up Apocalypse at first, despite knowing who he is. I just kept staring at sand dunes, thinking, Um, is there going to be a crossover with The Mummy franchise or something? Cause, you know. Rick and Wolverine? AWE-SOME.) But just — we’ve changed the future. Like, the whole future. What will Mystique be like now? How will Wolverine deal with two different timelines in his head? Has the world vastly changed from the world we once knew?

. . . no, I expect not. I figure there will be a funny line where Wolverine drops a reference to the Timeline That Was, maybe a joke or two where someone in real life has never became a celebrity or political figure (my money’s on the Kardashians), and Mystique will probably pop up . . . maybe? I mean, I certainly hope so. I would totally like to see grown up Mystique (who could still be played by Jennifer Lawrence cause, hey, shapeshifter) have a whole new dynamic with the team now, since we’ve entirely rewritten her history. She could be this super interesting character in the sequel.

But, yeah. Kind of doubt it.

QUOTES:

Logan: “So, you were always an asshole.”

Magneto: “So much for being a survivor.”

Beast: “I probably shouldn’t be asking this sort of thing, but in the future, do I make it?”
Logan: “No.”

Xavier: “You took the things that meant the most to me.”
Magneto: “Maybe you should have fought harder for them.”

Logan (to Beast): “In the future, you and I will be good friends.” (punches him) “You just don’t know it yet.”

Quicksilver: “They say you can manipulate metal. My mom used to know a guy who could do that.”

CONCLUSIONS:

On reflection, I’ve criticized a fair bit about this movie. But in the theater, I wasn’t thinking about any of that at all. (Well, that’s not entirely true. I was calling them all stupid. A LOT.) I had a really good time watching this, so I’m more or less willing to overlook some plot holes and annoyances . . . but then again, some plot holes and annoyances are harder to overlook than others.

MVP:

James McAvoy

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

Magneto will never be any help to you, ever, and he will always, at any given opportunity, turn humanity’s own weapon against them. Seriously, screw that guy.

Last week, a friend of mine sent me a list of someone’s favorite final girls. I eagerly clicked on the link — because lists plus horror equals yay! — only to find myself completely enraged by the inclusion of Marie from High Tension, which . . . no. I absolutely refuse to accept Marie as a final girl because she fucking isn’t one. The term is somewhat open to interpretation (as I’ll briefly discuss later) but seriously, no. That movie, I swear to God.

Moving on. I knew I’d have to make my own list of favorite final girls in response, which would be difficult because most lists include boring heroines like Sally from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Jess from Black Christmas. I like these movies, but unfortunately, final girls with actual personality is a relatively modern invention — and even modern horror regularly fails on that score. And as much as I felt like I should include Sarah from The Descent — for being, you know, all competent and kick-ass, I just couldn’t get past the fact that I really, really disliked her. So until I finally make myself give that movie a second chance, she’s out of the running.

With that in mind — and continuing my penchant for creating blog posts at least one week after time-of-the-year relevancy — here are my favorite final girls.

DISCLAIMER:

There will, rather obviously, be spoilers. In fact, there will be ALL the spoilers. Please don’t assume I’m kidding about the spoilers. Read at your own peril.

Top Ten Favorite Final Girls

10. Jenny (Renée Zellweger) – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation

If you haven’t seen this movie, please understand: this is a terrible film. Do not rent this with the expectation that it will be good, or even vaguely coherent. It will not, and you will be highly disappointed. Even as a so-bad-it’s-good film, it’s . . . well, special. Leatherface alone, I mean, wow. And Jenny, by and large, is not a particularly great heroine because that would imply that she, or any of the other characters in this story, are well-drawn. Obviously, this is not the case.

Still, Jenny has earned a tiny spot in my odd little nostalgic heart. This is partially because TCM: TNG is the movie that introduced me to my love of mocking absurdly awful horror films. But it’s also because of this one moment, where Jenny — wearing the most hideous dress, complete with this weird silver fringe shit and one ridiculously large red flower  — tells Leatherface to “sit the fuck down and shut up.” The delivery is amazing. This is the sound my heart makes when I’m continuously surrounded by aggressively annoying people, and I kind of love her for it.

9. Allison (Katrina Bowden) – Tucker and Dale vs Evil

In a movie where the hillbillies are the good guys and city kids accidentally leap headfirst into wood chippers, Katrina Bowden has the not-entirely-enviable task of playing the stereotypically sweet heroine straight whilst simultaneously making her likable at the same time. But she does a good job with it because I do like Allison. Her best moment in the whole movie is when she tries to do a sit-down therapy session with both Dale, our primary hillbilly protagonist, and Chad, our would-be hero and clear antagonist. It doesn’t work at all, of course. In fact, considering that it ends in three deaths and one cabin explosion, it could be considered a colossal failure, but hey, what’s important is that she tried, right?

8. Cassidy (Briana Evigan) – Sorority Row

Cassidy is your fairly typical final girl: she’s the nice girl in the sorority, the only one who wanted to go to the cops when a prank got their friend killed. (She’s also the first girl on the list who, technically, isn’t a final girl. Final girl and survivor girl are often used interchangeably, but I’m not sure a final girl actually needs to survive. Really, she just needs to be the last girl standing, but Cass isn’t standing alone: two other girls survive with her. But honestly, that’s generally allowed these days. That’s way more acceptable than the idea that Marie from High Tension is a final girl. Sweet baby Christ.)

The thing that makes Cass different from so many other final girls: she’s snarky as hell. Sure, she has a couple of dumb lines that I’d erase if I could. But for the most part, she’s funny and likable, and the chemistry between her and Leah Pipes makes this movie so much more entertaining than I ever thought it would be. (And obviously, Carrie Fisher doesn’t hurt either. Carrie Fisher should play the den mother in every sorority horror film from now on.)

7. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) – Halloween, Halloween 2, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later 

Laurie Strode is one of the few classic final girls I have on my list, and surprisingly, this mostly has to do with H20. I’ll have to give Halloween another chance at some point, but despite some truly awesome music, I never fully warmed up to that movie. (Though, to be fair, it has been quite some time since I’ve seen it.) I did like the sequel, but I barely remember anything about Laurie herself. I got absolutely zero sense of her personality in that film. In H20, though, we get to see what’s become of her after twenty years — has a kid, became a teacher, basically living in fear — and all of that pretty seemed believable to me. I’m all about the evolution of characters, and Laurie Strode’s worked.

Best moment, hands down, is when Laurie decapitates Michael. (We don’t speak of any later films in that franchise because they have ceased to exist. Such is the mighty power of my will. Think about that, and FEAR ME.)

6. Riley (Shanley Caswell) – Detention

So, this movie is nuts. In a much better way than Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, obviously, but still. NUTS. A surprising number of teens actually survive this movie (including the goth girl, which never happens), but since one of them is an alien and a handful of others travel back in time to save the world — or at least the school — that’s hardly the weirdest thing about Detention.

Every character is kind of a parody in this movie. We have jocks, hipsters, mean girls, nerds. Riley, our heroine, is a sarcastic, vegetarian feminist, and while the movie pokes some fun at her, like it pokes fun at everyone, I personally was never offended. (For the record: I’m sarcastic and a feminist, but not a vegetarian.) Riley’s very funny and likable, and she and Josh Hutcherson make great co-leads. I’ve never seen the actress in anything else, but I’d like to based on this alone.

Best moment? Well, I’m a sucker for the Dirty Dancing esque dance scene to “MMM-Bop,” but that just doesn’t sound very horror, does it? Well, too bad, because it’s what I have at the moment.

5. Dana (Kristen Connolly) – The Cabin in the Woods

Dana makes for a very atypical final girl. When we meet her, she’s dancing without any pants on in full view of an open window. She’s also decidedly not a virgin, although the people who intend to sacrifice her and her friends more or less overlook that. Dana intentionally releases all the monsters trapped in the secret underground lair. She even tries to kill her own friend at the end of the movie, although to be fair, she is trying to save the world at that particular point. I can’t decide if hitting the big red button is her best moment — because it’s pretty badass and leads to the best slaughter scene ever — or if it’s when she apologizes for trying to kill Marty and agrees that maybe the whole world is better off without humanity. That scene is both funny and surprisingly sweet, and it is definitely one of my favorite movie endings of all time.

4. Ginny (Amy Steel) – Friday the 13th: Part Two

I haven’t watched them all yet, but of the Friday the 13th movies I have seen, Ginny is easily my favorite heroine, certainly more interesting than Alice (the girl who directly preceded her) and a thousand times less annoying than Chris (who came directly after). Ginny is smart and sarcastic and doesn’t take any shit from anyone, least of all her boyfriend, which, man. That’s such a refreshing quality in a horror movie heroine.

Also, if memory serves, Ginny is not a virgin, which is even more unusual, considering this movie was made in 1981. (Of course, this is also the movie where going out drinking totally saves one dude’s life, further proving that Part Two is absolutely the best Friday the 13th movie there is.)

Ginny takes Jason down with child psychology and a machete. And admittedly, this is a temporary takedown because Jason always has to pop up for one last annoying scare, but come on . . . you’ve gotta like a final girl whose weapons are child psychology and a machete, right? That’s pretty amazing.

3. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) – Alien, Aliens

Ripley is the only final girl on this list who’s trying to survive an evil alien instead of a psychotic killer, but that doesn’t disqualify her from the running. In fact, Ripley is a fantastic final girl: one of my favorite things about Alien, actually, is that she’s a competent woman but decidedly not an action hero. Or, honestly, even the clear survivor girl. If you could somehow watch Alien for the first time without knowing anything about the franchise or the stars involved — good luck — it wouldn’t be immediately clear that Ripley is your protagonist. Which I think is kind of cool, actually. As a rule, horror tends to be an unfortunately predictable genre where you almost always know who’s going to make it and who won’t. But wouldn’t it be so much more interesting if you didn’t know those things? If watching a scary movie was like watching an episode of Game of Thrones or, come to think of it, The Walking Dead? Horror should really embrace the idea that anyone can die.

By the time Aliens came out, Ripley kind of morphed from an everywoman to a Big Damn Hero, but — much like Laurie Strode — I really enjoy the evolution of her character. Her trauma and fear makes her relatable, but her badassery is empowering and never feels out of character or ridiculous. There aren’t a lot of heroines like Ripley, which is unfortunate and why we need more female-dominated action films, not to mention horror movies with competent, realistic women — not just Nice Girls Who Never Do Bad Things.

As far as Best Moment goes, honestly. Do I even need to say it?

2. Sidney (Neve Campbell) – Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3, Scream 4

Hard core nostalgia for this one, considering Scream was my introduction to the slasher genre. Sidney was the first girl to criticize horror movies for being insulting and horror movie heroines, in particular, for being stupid. She punches Gale Weathers, which possibly isn’t a very mature response but is pretty funny, regardless. I’d been thinking that she was the first non-virgin to survive a slasher movie, but I’m actually pretty sure now that’s Ginny. Still, Scream changed the game entirely for horror, and Sidney ushered in a new line of horror movie heroines.

Her best moment is hard to pick. I love when she turns the situation around on Stu and Billy, donning a Ghostface mask and calling them on the phone. I also like when she kills Emma Roberts with a defibrillator in Scream 4 and creepily lies down beside her corpse. (That movie has so many problems, but I LOVE that creepy ass moment.) Still, I think I might have to go back to the original film, when Sidney shoots Billy in the head as he tries to come back for one last scare. That was pretty awesome, especially the first time you watched it.

1. Erin (Sharni Vinson) – You’re Next

I reviewed this movie only last week, so I don’t know I have anything particularly new or insightful to say here. But if you’ll allow me to briefly sum up: Erin takes out seven people in this movie, six of whom are bad guys and five of whom actively try to kill her at least once. She tries her best to keep everyone alive, and she might have managed it, too, if three of her supposed allies weren’t actually evil, money-grubbing bastards. Erin improvises, sets traps, and kills her attackers with all manner of weapons, including blenders. I can’t tell you how much I want to see a crossover fanfiction where she and a now grown up (and presumably much darker) Kevin McAllister defend their position with whatever they can find around the house.

I also really like that Erin’s not an obvious badass from the beginning, that she seems like a relatively normal, well-adjusted person who just happens to have grown up on a survivor compound. I like that her past helps her survive, is a part of her, but doesn’t define her throughout the entire movie. That’s a nice touch.

Erin’s best moment? No question. It’s gotta go to the blender kill. That was AMAZING.

Well, there you have it, folks. There’s my list, only one week past Halloween. Don’t see any of your favorite final girls? Think there were worthier contenders? Sound off in the comments below.

It’s 10:00 p.m. Thursday night. I’m sitting in an aisle seat at the Roxy Theater and the Marvel credits have just started to play. My little hands are clasped loosely together. I can actually feel the childish hope written all over my face.

Overall, Avengers: Age of Ultron is fast-paced, funny, and pretty enjoyable, especially for a movie that’s 2 1/2 hours long. Despite that, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed with the finished product.

SUMMARY:

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) makes what is, in hindsight, a fantastically bad call when he attempts to create an AI named Ultron (James Spader) to protect humanity. When Ultron decides the best way to protect humanity is to kill the hell out of it, the Avengers try to take him down. Team infighting and big action sequences ensue.

NOTES:

1. Let’s start with what works surprisingly well: Ultron.

Those of you who read this blog with any regularity already know how I feel about Marvel villains: by and large, they suck. They are boring as shit. Loki, I love. Loki is amazing. Beyond that, though, there are only a few semi-decent villains out there. The vast majority of Marvel bad guys have next-to-no personality and all seem to desire the same dull things. You know that old adage about a movie only being as good as its villain? Marvel alone has proven that to be false.

Ultron, though, is pretty awesome. Not because he wants anything so spectacularly original — the destruction of the human race is about as by-the-numbers as you get — but because he has a ton of personality, specifically, Tony Stark’s personality. I’ll save my lengthier analysis of this until the Spoiler Section, but as Ultron is Tony Stark’s creation, there are definite similarities between the two characters, similarities that I think are kind of fascinating. And James Spader is just delightful in the role. His voice work is energetic, creepy, and hilarious. He couldn’t possibly have been better cast.

2. So, here’s the thing: I like a ton of stuff about Age of Ultron. It’s not a bad movie by any means, and I had a great time watching it in theater. I will certainly buy it as soon as it comes out on DVD/Blu-Ray, and it made me crack up repeatedly, which is great. Unlike the rest of the internet, I’m not, like, ideologically against the concept of grimdark superhero movies, but I also love to laugh, and Age of Ultron definitely made me laugh.

But . . . it’s got some definite problems, and the main one is what I think we were all afraid of: there’s just too much going on.

There’s so much going on in Age of Ultron that I almost feel like I should delay this review until I watch the movie a second time. But since I doubt that a second trip to the theater will happen anytime this week . . . well, here we are.

This sequel is responsible for giving significant screen time to each of our six heroes, which includes building a brand new romance between two of them and giving another one a far more fleshed out and somewhat unexpected backstory. It has to add and establish four new main characters, not to mention bring in several side characters and about eighteen cameos. (Okay, it’s probably more like . . . five? Nine? Whatever, there are a lot of them.) Time has to be spent foreshadowing future Marvel movies, including Thor: Ragnarok, The Avengers: Infinity War, and — to an extent — Captain America: Civil War. Then, you know, there’s the whole plot. And somewhere in the third act, the movie just begins to buckle under its own weight.

I want to be fair here, since the majority of my review is feeling more critical than complimentary: considering just how much is going on, Joss Whedon actually does a pretty amazing job juggling everything above. What I’m describing could easily have been a train wreck, and Age of Ultron isn’t one. I really do like this movie. But it also isn’t even close to competing with The Avengers for top spot, and it’s sure not going to knock Winter Soldier down to the third place, either. At best, it’s got a chance at bronze . . . but it’s hard to say on one viewing. My instincts tell me Iron Man is going to stay on the podium, though, and Age of Ultron will have to settle for a Participant certificate.

3. About those new characters — well, unfortunately, I’ve already talked about the only one I really liked. As far as everyone else goes?

Elizabeth Olsen is an indie darling, but I think this might be the first thing I’ve actually seen her in, and she’s . . . fine. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with her performance — she seems to do all she can with it — but I just don’t find Scarlet Witch to be a particularly compelling character. Her powers are awesome, definitely, but she doesn’t have much in the way of actual personality and I’m kind of iffy on her and Quicksilver’s backstory. (I’ll come back to that later.) At the end of the day, I just don’t care much about her.

Still, ultimately, I like Scarlet Witch a lot more than I like Quicksilver. And again, Aaron Taylor-Johnson doesn’t really do anything wrong. Quicksilver’s just boring. He has one or two small moments I like, but mostly, that’s because of the other characters in the scene. I don’t want to compare him to Evan Peters’s Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past — because, really, his interpretation of the character is so dissimilar it’s just not really a worthwhile comparison — but I needed something out of this kid, and I just didn’t get it.

Listen, I adore Paul Bettany. I have been in love with Paul Bettany since I first watched A Knight’s Tale, like, fourteen years ago. And Jarvis (or JARVIS, whichever you prefer) is just the best, one of my favorite AI’s ever. But Vision . . .

. . . God, I find Vision dull.

I am well aware that I’m in the minority on this. I’ve read very few Marvel comics (at least, thus far), so I primarily know Vision from Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, where he wasn’t one of my favorites. He sure isn’t my favorite here. Bettany’s performance is quite solid, and he does have some nice moments — I am willing to concede that I could become more invested in his character in later films because there is potential there — but in Age of Ultron, he’s just, like, that semi-benevolent god robot? He feels very archetypal to me. Maybe I’d find him less so if this movie had more time to spend on him, but as is, he kind of reads like a less interesting version of the Machine on Person of Interest to me. (Meanwhile, Ultron has to be snarkier version of Samaritan.) In Person of Interest, the conflict between the two is fascinating. Here, not so much.

4. We also need to address the rather sudden romance of Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson).

So, I seen a lot of people who hate this ship, but actually, I’m not one of them. Maybe they aren’t my OTP yet — I don’t think I actually have an OTP in Avengers — but there is definitely something about these two characters together that I find really interesting. And I think Ruffalo and Johansson have pretty decent chemistry with one another, so I want to like them.

Unfortunately, the romance just goes far too fast for me.

Part of the problem, of course, is that most of their Becoming Attracted to One Another stuff happens offscreen in between The Avengers and Age of Ultron. I think that can work (she says, desperately — I may or may not have a similar setup in some stories to come out later this year), but it’s pretty hard, and a LOT more time needs to be given to Bruce and Natasha in this movie to make the audience believe it. Otherwise, it feels too constructed, too artificial — we don’t buy that these two have spent all this time growing closer between films.

Natasha and Bruce do have scenes in Age of Ultron, but they’re pretty limited and before you know it, we’re moving on to Next Level Stuff. And that, that just doesn’t work for me. I was all for them being cute with their Casablanca flirting — seriously, I was ALL FOR IT — but then the relationship suddenly skipped  into, like, let’s have a Future together! And I just couldn’t buy the pacing.

5. Maybe it comes down to this — I’ve read a few interviews now where Joss Whedon calls Age of Ultron a smaller, more personal movie, and in some places — especially in the first half — I agree with that, and enjoy it too. There are a lot of great character moments in this film which I really, really like, scenes where we get a closer look at what each of our heroes fear, scenes where the Avengers keep not quite honestly communicating with one another, keep holding back. I mean, I could watch Steve Rogers and Tony Stark all damn day. (And boy, am I interested in Civil War — but more on that in a bit.)

The problem, I think, is that the third act of Age of Ultron doesn’t seem to belong to that same smaller film, and a lot of the more personal, character-driven stuff just kind of goes by the wayside. Now, obviously, I both wanted and expected some Big Action Stuff at the end of the movie. I like Big Action Stuff. The Battle of New York, for instance, was fantastic. And there are moments here, in this big battle, that I really enjoy (“Oh for God’s sake!” stands out in particular), but overall, I feel less invested in everything that was going on. The stakes almost feel, I don’t know, rote? And we spend so much time on Saving the World! that I feel like some of the other earlier character stuff doesn’t get the chance to fully resolve. I know you bring out the Avengers for the Big Kids Work, but I can’t help but feel like maybe if the stakes were lowered somehow, the movie might feel a little less discordant, less like Joss Whedon was trying to make two movies and put them in one? I’m not 100% on any of that, though. I’m still trying to work it out.

When I saw The Avengers in 2012, I could not WAIT to see the next film. I was completely obsessed with it. It dominated my nerdy little brain for months. When Age of Ultron ended . . . I talked pros and cons with my sister for half an hour, thinking about how I was going to shape this review, and then I went to read Daredevil fanfiction.

You try not to have unrealistic expectations going in — but, well. Sometimes you just have them. That’s how it goes. I liked Age of Ultron, but I feel like if it had remained a smaller movie centered around the team itself, if it wasn’t stretched in so many directions and it wasn’t so interested in setting up Phase III — I think I might have liked it more. I think I could’ve loved it with all my big nerd heart.

Think I’ve been going on too long about a superhero movie? Ha. I have SO much more to say. (Probably too much. Er, sorry.)

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

First, can I just say I waited for, like, YEARS to see how Age of Ultron was going to deal with the end of Iron Man 3, only for them to pretty much entirely ignore it? Assholes. If one of your big claims to fame is your Giant Shared Continuity, you so shouldn’t be able to do that. I’m shaking my finger at you, Joss Whedon. (Shhh. He totally cares.)

Okay, moving on. Our story begins with the Avengers on a mission to retrieve Loki’s scepter. The team seems to be working relatively well together, despite Steve chiding Tony about using coarse language and Hawkeye getting himself seriously injured. (Because of course it’s Hawkeye. That poor bastard. Also, the cursing bit was great — I was waiting the whole movie for Steve to swear at the end, but I didn’t initially expect it to be a running gag. Totally loved it.)

We’re introduced to Baron von Strucker briefly, but don’t worry about him because he has about four lines before he’s unceremoniously killed off in between scenes. More importantly, we’re introduced to the twins: Quicksilver will begin his quest to annoy Hawkeye (setting up the reversal for when he sacrifices himself for our beloved archer) and Scarlet Witch fucks with Tony Stark’s head, making him hallucinate all his fellow Avengers dead.

Awww. Tony’s all damaged. Although I freely admit to giggling a bit when Fake Captain America’s like, “This is all your fault!” or whatever it was he actually said. It’s a bit over the top. (Still. You know Whedon secretly ships Steve/Tony. You just know it.)

This particular bit of mindfuckery is what sets Tony on the path to create Ultron, which actually, I really enjoyed. When I first heard that Whedon was knocking Hank Pym out of Ultron’s origin story, I was a little disappointed — not just because I like Hank Pym (or did, before all that split personality bullshit happened) — but because I kind of felt we’d already covered Tony’s “I Used to Do Bad Bad Things” story to death, and I wasn’t really interested in him being responsible for Everything Going Wrong again. The mental manipulation made this work much better for me.

(I will say, though, that I’m less crazy about Tony’s weapons being responsible for orphaning Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. I get why it happens this way — it gives them motivation for their Evil Deeds, plus gains our sympathy as audience members, at least supposedly — but the whole thing feels a bit artificially constructed for me, perhaps because Quicksilver divulges their whole traumatic backstory in One Big Exposition Monologue that I just never quite connected with. I also have to agree with Mekaela that there probably should have been at least one scene between Tony and Scarlet Witch near the end of the film. The fact that these two never have any real confrontation doesn’t quite work for me, not with this setup.)

Anyway, Tony enlists Bruce’s secret help to create Ultron, giving all of us Science Bros fans a nice fist bump. And seriously, Ultron is such a delight because he’s very much the twisted subconscious of Tony Stark. I remember a lot of reviews complaining that Iron Man was the villain of his own movie in Iron Man 2 (which I completely disagreed with), but here, Ultron basically is a villainous Tony Stark, and it’s great, particularly because Ultron despises Tony and simply cannot acknowledge how much of him is his creator. They even use some of the same phrases, which doesn’t go unnoticed by other characters in the film. Pretty much everything Ultron says could be taken right out of Tony Stark’s mouth, which I adore. It really makes me want to see some fan film (that will absolutely never happen, of course) where James Spader plays Iron Man and Robert Downey Jr. voices Ultron. I really cannot praise James Spader enough in this — I enjoyed the holy hell out of him.

But moving on: the Avengers celebrate their successful mission with a giant party, mostly so we can establish a few things:

A. Natasha and Bruce like-like each other, and Steve Rogers ships them like whoa.

B. Falcon is still helping Steve track down Bucky. (I guess Captain America: Civil War is still going to be about the Inhumans, but I was really surprised that they didn’t talk about them at all in this movie. Not, like, they had time or anything. Still, I feel like Whedon and Marvel weirdly prioritized Ragnarok over Civil War, and I would’ve expected them to at least mention who the Inhumans are and that they exist, since Marvel clearly isn’t counting on movie goers to be watching Agents of SHIELD. It kind of makes me wonder if the whole divide between Tony and Steve is ultimately going to be less ideological and more like, ‘Fuck you, Cap, your BFF killed my parents.’ It’s going to be interesting, one way or the other. I’m excited about it, but I also really need them to not make Tony into a total unsympathetic dickbag. This greatly concerns me . . . but, yes, we’ve gotten off topic. Again.)

C. War Machine is still around, in case anyone cares.

D. Nobody can lift Thor’s hammer (yet), but Thor is NOT PLEASED when Captain America succeeds in moving it just a little.

I know this was leaked early, but it’s still a great scene, even if I absolutely could not watch Bruce trying to lift the hammer. I hid my face behind my hands and everything. Sympathetic Embarrassment Syndrome is a real thing, people. Or should be, anyway.

Ultron breaks up the afterparty, though, by killing Jarvis (well, sort of) and trying to kill the Avengers. Then he escapes and enlists the aid of the Maximoff Twins. Meanwhile, no one’s very happy with Tony and Bruce right now, but especially Tony, either because Bruce is instantly apologetic for what he’s done or because it was obviously Tony’s bad idea in the first place and everyone knows Banner’s a big pushover until he really isn’t.

Stuff happens. I can’t remember all the specifics now, but at some point Scarlet Witch does her mind mojo on everyone but (thankfully) Hawkeye.

Because I’m a Bruce fangirl, I was a little disappointed we couldn’t see him hallucinating his Holy Shit Traumatic Past before going all Grrr Hulk Grrr, but I suppose we didn’t really need that. (Dammit.)

What we get instead:

A. Some time with Natasha in the Red Room. Every bit of it is awesome. Can we PLEASE have a Black Widow movie already?

B. Idris Elba pops up to blame Thor for everything going to hell. I am always happy to see Idris Elba, but it’s Thor’s stuff here (and especially later, when he takes off for his whole Lake Vision Quest deal) that I really felt could’ve been done better. I know we have to deal with the Infinity Stones and Vision and whatever, but this shit felt pretty muddled to me.

C. Captain America dreams he’s back having his dance with Peggy. (Because you never miss out on an opportunity to include Hayley Atwell, not if you’re sane.) There’s a really nice thread here about Cap still feeling like a man out of time, about not having a home anymore, although I do feel like it gets resolved a bit too fast at the end.

Hawkeye’s stuck with the Brainwashed Kids, so that leaves Tony on his own to deal with an out-of-control Hulk.

This is all pretty awesome. Well, for the audience, anyway — it’s a a great action sequence. It’s decidedly less awesome for the team, who are all pretty shaken after their experiences and not exactly in good graces with the rest of the world after the Hulk’s devastation. They all need a place to lay low for a while, so Hawkeye brings them to his Secret Domestic Bliss.

(If you recently heard the sound of a million voices crying out in terror and being suddenly silenced, well. You probably mistook terror for agony, because that was the sound of a billion hearts breaking, specifically, the hearts of Clint/Coulson shippers around the world. Long live the ship, you guys.)

So, yes. This whole time, Clint has been secretly married with two kids running around and a third on the way. I’m . . . of two minds on this. On the upside, it’s kinda cool that one of the Avengers actually has a semi-functional normal life outside all this saving-the-world nonsense. You rarely get to see superheroes with wives and kids (at least, living ones), so that’s kind of neat. And it gives Clint more depth, which is great, because Hawkeye definitely gets the short end of the stick in the first movie and his family succeeds in helping to flesh out his character. Also, everyone’s reaction to his Secret Family works pretty well.

On the other hand . . . one of the few Marvel comics I do read is Hawkeye, and I’ll admit, I was kind of unrealistically hoping there would eventually be a merge with the Hawkeye we’ve seen so far and Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye, who I just adore. This pretty much kills any and all chance of that, which kind of bums me out. And let me be clear here: this is one of those disappointments that I don’t consider an actual flaw with the movie. Like, it’s a personal aw, man moment, not like a Okay, that doesn’t work. That’s an important distinction to make.

(Also, can I just say that Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye is the main reason I kind of regret Marvel’s Great Overarching Continuity? Because I would KILL for a Hawkeye series on Netflix that could cross over with Daredevil — but it will never happen because Daredevil exists in the same world as Avengers, and this happily married, pretty grounded Hawkeye is already a part of that team, so the Hawkeye I want will never meet Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdoch. It makes me sad. At least I have fanfiction, I guess. I have seen at least eight different fanfictions with this pair-up alone.)

Good and/or Significant Moments at Clint’s Secret Farm House:

A. Natasha, the only Avenger who knows about Clint’s secret life, calls the unborn baby a trait for turning out to be a boy. Heh.

B. Bruce decides that he’ll have to run away, now that everyone has seen what the Hulk is truly capable of, and Natasha wants to go with him.

If you’re interested, this is when I start having real problems with their relationship. I like that these two are damaged “monstrous” characters, but these guys haven’t even kissed yet, and they’re just going to go run away together? No. It’s romantic but no. I just don’t buy it, not out of two people with massive trust issues, certainly not out of a woman who’s most infamous line last movie was, “Love is for children.”

If this movie had been about setting them up as a couple and next movie had been about them going away together, sure. I could have dealt with that. But that running off is even a possibility here, uh-uh. They just don’t have enough screentime to support it — in one scene, they’re flirting and navigating the possibility of maybe dating; in the next, Natasha’s proposing leaving her whole life behind for this guy, and Bruce is like, “Don’t you understand we won’t be able to have babies?” Like, WHAT?

C. While manfully chopping wood (not a euphemism), Tony and Steve argue about secrets, Ultron, and the end goal of the Avengers. It’s a pretty great scene and not just because Steve gets angry and splits a hunk of wood with his bare hands. (Though I’m sure many, many people appreciated that.) These two actors have great antagonistic buddy chemistry, and it makes me excited for Civil War . . . but, again, nervous because it really only works if you can see where both sides are coming from. I think you can in this movie, but if Tony turns on mutants the Inhumans just for existing . . . I don’t know. Even with his slight turn here, I feel like being totally prejudiced against Inhumans is OOC for him.

Still. I have no real problems with this scene, other than when Tony says he doesn’t trust Steve for not having a dark side and Steve’s all, you haven’t seen it yet . . . I kind of wanted to, you know, see it. Which of course could be foreshadow for Civil War, but from everything I understand, Steve is firmly on the Side of Good, whereas Tony is firmly on the Side of Evil. I’m really hoping it’s more interesting than that.

Ugh. Back to this movie, AGAIN. (Is this my longest review ever? It’s feeling like it right now.) Okay, so, eventually the Avengers recover this android body that Ultron was creating, although Ultron manages to abduct Natasha in the process. Tony once again cons Bruce into secretly helping him, this time by putting Jarvis into the android body, which Steve, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver (now all on the team) try to stop. And then Thor comes back from his boring vision quest to bring, heh, Vision to life.

A. When Bruce threatens to kill Scarlet Witch? Holy JESUS. Mark Ruffalo can command a shit ton of intensity when he wants to, and . . . look, I’m just saying I could stand to watch a lot more of that Banner. I mean, I like dorky Banner too — I like basically all versions of Banner, presuming he’s not being so embarrassing that I’m literally hiding behind my hands — but even without the Hulk involved, Bruce B. isn’t, like, the most well-balanced guy in the world. He should be dangerous, and I desperately want to see more of this.

B. Part of my dislike for Vision — or at least apathy towards him — may stem from my resentment that he comes from the destruction of Jarvis. He’s part Jarvis, sure, but he’s also a whole new character and — dammit, I loved Jarvis. Vision is not an adequate replacement for me.

This is like substituting Ezri for Jadzia Dax all over again.

C. The other problem I have with Vision is that, in Ultron’s hands, it seems like he’s going to be this Unstoppable Weapon, the Surefire Destruction of the Whole World. But once he’s on the Avengers’ team, he just sort of seems like a regular super powered dude, like, for an android with an Infinity Stone glued on his forehead, he doesn’t really feel like he brings that much to the table.

That being said, when he effortlessly picks up Thor’s hammer? Perfection.

Finally, we get to the Big Battle and Denouement. And yes, I’m going to ABC this shit, too. (Look, a lot happens in this movie, all right? It’s hard to organize my thoughts in any other semi-coherent way.)

A. Hawkeye talks with Scarlet Witch, who’s pretty busy freaking out because she helped cause all this destruction. I like this scene because Hawkeye’s pretty awesome in it, but . . . I can’t help but notice that, once again, the only superhero who freezes in the middle of the fight is the woman. Like, I can buy the reaction, but I still find it a bit frustrating. Couldn’t Quicksilver have been the one to panic instead?

B. One of my favorite parts of the whole movie, though, is when Hawkeye not-too-seriously contemplates murdering Quicksilver. This. This was just the BEST.

C. Of course, Quicksilver ends up dying to save Hawkeye, who’s about to sacrifice himself to save a little boy. It’s kind of a sad moment, I guess, but . . . not that sad? Like, I genuinely cried for Coulson in The Avengers, but here I was almost kind of relieved. Cause I didn’t care very much about this dude, and you knew somebody is going to go — and if it’s not Quicksilver, then it’s probably going to be the guy with his wife and two kids and one baby on the way.

D. Bruce rescues Natasha and tells her that they have to run away together now, that she’s done enough for the cause and her part in the fighting is over. And . . . seriously, when did Bruce Banner become a dude from the 50’s? First with assuming Natasha even wants babies and then trying to bench her from all the save-the-world action? What IS this?

Thankfully, Natasha isn’t having any of that bullshit because seriously, Banner, do you not know your quasi-girlfriend AT ALL? She kisses him and pushes him over this edge, forcing the Hulk to come out and play. This doesn’t turn out super well for Natasha, though, because after the big fight, the Hulk takes off in an invisible jet to hide from everyone, including her.

E. Vision kills the last Ultron bot.

But . . . there aren’t any strings on me! I’m supposed to be free and WIN!

It’s a decent scene between the two of them, primarily because the actors are so good. Still . . . I don’t know. I feel like something’s missing.

F. In the denouement, Steve and Natasha are all that’s left of the original Avengers. Tony’s tapping out, but I’m not actually sure if it’s because of what happened with Ultron or because he’s still got PTSD from the first Avengers movie or because he’s apparently wanted to quit this whole time. (Tony’s arc seems to fizzle at the end of the movie. It starts strong, but about 2/3 of the way through it just . . . kind of goes away.) Meanwhile, Clint’s also out . . . I think? He could just be on paternity leave, but that last scene felt weirdly final, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me because when did Clint say he wanted to quit? Hulk’s AWOL and Thor . . . you know, I don’t even remember where Thor went. To investigate Ragnarok, maybe? (I told you I should have rewatched this movie.)

Steve, meanwhile, has apparently found his home. I’m very glad he and Tony have a moment at the end of the movie — because they absolutely needed it, and I was fully prepared to have a snit fit if they didn’t have one — but I never fully bought Steve accepting all this as Home because it felt a little sudden to me, like it should come after an emotional turning point in the film that he never actually has. I am not-so-secretly hoping Steve has more man-out-of-time angst in Civil War because I’m a terrible person.

G. Finally, Natasha and Steve are the ones training a new lineup of Avengers: Falcon, War Machine, Scarlet Witch, and Vision. Which . . . well. I know that the original actors aren’t going to stay with Marvel for the rest of their careers, and I much prefer the idea of switching out characters to flat-out replacing heroes with new actors. So, that’s cool.

Unfortunately, I’m so bummed by the idea of this lineup that I think I actually lost a tiny bit of interest in the upcoming Avengers movies. I love the hell out of Falcon, but other than that . . . I’ve always been pretty meh on War Machine, despite liking Don Cheadle, and I found Scarlet Witch and Vision both kind of dull in this movie, so. I don’t know. Marvel’s been on such a hot streak, but for the first time in a long time, I found myself wondering if I was going to care much about where they were going past Phase 3. It was a depressing realization.

QUOTES:

Thor: “Is that the best you can do?”
Ultron: “This is the best I can do! This is what I’ve been waiting for! All of you against all of me!”
Steve: “You had to ask.”

Steve: “Nick Fury, you sonofabitch.”
Nick Fury: “Whoa ho ho! You kiss your mother with that mouth!”

Ultron: “I’m glad you asked that because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan.”

Natasha: “I adore you . . . but I need the Other Guy.”

Tony: “Really? That’s it? You just roll over and show your belly every time somebody snarls?”
Bruce: “Only when I’ve created a murder-bot.”

Tony: “How do we cope with something like that?”
Steve: “Together.”
Tony: “We’ll lose.”
Steve: “We’ll do that together, too.”

Steve: “Look, as the world’s expert on waiting too long, don’t.”

Tony: “Good talk.”
Henchman in Background: “No, it wasn’t!”

Strucker: “Can we hold them?”
Henchman: “They’re the Avengers.”

Ultron: “They put the building in the middle of the city, so that everyone could be equally close to God. I like that, the symmetry, the geometry of belief.”

Tony: “Thor didn’t say where he was going for answers?”
Steve: “Sometimes, my teammates don’t tell me things.”

Ultron: “Oh, for God’s sake!”

Tony: “Actually, he’s the boss. I just pay for everything and design everything, make everyone look cooler.”

Natasha: “Thor, report on the Hulk.”
Thor: “The gates of Hell are filled with the screams of his victims.”

Steve: “Right, what kind of monster would let a German scientist experiment on him to protect their country?”

Steve: “Ultron killed Strucker.”
Tony: “And he did a Bansky at the crime scene.”

Tony: “Please be a secret door, please be a secret door . . . yay!”

Bruce: “I could choke you and not change a shade.”

Clint: “I’ve done the whole mind control thing. Not a fan.”

Steve: “Sorry for barging in.”
Tony: “Yeah, we would’ve called ahead, but we were busy having no idea you existed.”

Nick Fury: “That guy’s multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit.”

Hawkeye: “The city is flying. We’re fighting an army of robots. And I have a bow and arrow.”

Hawkeye: “No one would know, no one would know. Last I saw, Ultron was sitting on him. The bastard will be dearly missed. I miss him already.”

Natasha: “Traitor.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Clearly, I’ve got some mixed feelings. Age of Ultron is a very entertaining movie and goes very fast, considering how long it is. I liked a lot of the smaller character moments, and it made me laugh multiple times. Dialogue, obviously, was awesome. Still, I can’t get past the fact that way too much was happening, and the third act started to collapse because of it. Also, the more I think about Natasha and Bruce’s romance, the more it feels mishandled. Which bums me out because I think I could ship them, if they’d been given a better start. (Actually, I know I could ship them. If it’s one thing I’ve learned from reading Avengers fanfiction is that I can ship Bruce with every other Avenger except Thor. Never could get into Bruce/Thor.)

MVP:

James Spader

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

“Every time someone tries to stop a war before it starts, innocent people die. Every time.”

I knew I’d watch Mad Max: Fury Road because I’d already seen all the other Mad Max movies — and, well, Tom Hardy. Hardy won my heart in Inception (him and JGL, anyway), so I’m always excited whenever he pops up in something I actually have interest in. Plus, my Twitter feed has been blowing up about this movie since it first came out, and I just knew I’d have to see it for myself. So, on Monday, I finally did.

The action. Oh, you guys . . . the action in this movie is godamn glorious.

SUMMARY:

The apocalypse is here, and it’s a desert wasteland full of murderers, mutations, and general insanity. Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), the water-hoarding tyrant, is an abominable waste of human flesh, so Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) smuggles his five slave-wives out of the Citadel and is forced to team up with the titular Max (Tom Hardy), an escaped prisoner, in order to make their getaway. MAYHEM ENSUES.

NOTES:

1. I wanted to be properly attired for apocalyptic mayhem, but I also felt like shaving my head and slathering my face with war paint might be a bit much, so I settled for black lipstick and my favorite skull bloomers. Sadly, I did not think to get a picture of those skull bloomers, which is too bad because they really are fantastic. But, anyway, sister selfie!

2. I’ve only seen each Mad Max film once, and it’s been years since I’ve seen any of them. Nonetheless, here is a quick recap of my general impressions:

Mad Max – Dull. Very dull.
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior – Lots of apocalyptic fun.
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome – Amusing, in a dissociative, WTF sort of way.

(According to IMDb, there is no colon in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. And to think I gave Star Trek Into Darkness so much grief. Grief it rightly deserved, mind, because there absolutely should be a colon in that title, and in this one too. Failures, all of you.)

So, I know the original movies and enjoy the greater majority of them, but I’m also not a diehard fan. I figure we should probably get that out of the way now, considering the gigantic amount of internet rage and internet squee surrounding this movie. We’ll come back to some of that in a bit (boy, will we), but I just wanted to throw out there that if you haven’t seen any of the earlier films, I wouldn’t worry about watching them before Fury Road. I mean, you absolutely can, but you don’t need to: the whole sequel vs remake vs revisitation thing is murky anyway, and it’s not like there’s a ton of plot in this movie. All the backstory you really need is neatly summed up in the beginning.

3. Because, really, let’s be clear: Fury Road is pretty much one gorgeous, balls-to-the-wall insane, two-hour car chase of a movie.

If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, I don’t think you’re going to like this film. The action is near relentless, and if you’re a fan of the genre (as I am), then it’s pretty exhilarating. I had so much fun watching this. I’m pretty sure it’s my favorite movie I’ve seen in theater this year, not just because of all the big booms, but because they come without some of the more annoying conventions that the genre’s known for. (More on that in a bit.) But if car chases and explosions and crazy-awesome stunts just do little for you, then I’d imagine you’re only going to find all the non-stop action exhausting.

4. The cinematography and art direction really are stunning, though.

I didn’t really think about it until IMDb trivia pointed it out, but a lot of apocalypse movies feature muted colors, making everything look duller, dirtier, lifeless. That approach works for some films, but it also makes Fury Road’s explosion of bright blues and golds all that much more striking. For a movie that deals with some pretty ugly stuff (slavery, exploitation, senseless murder), it’s kind of a joyful film, partially because of the look and feel of the movie itself, and partially because of where the story goes.

5. But first, let’s talk about our two leads:

I like Tom Hardy in this, though I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that his wandering accent occasionally distracted me. He appears to be going for a gruff Mel Gibson imitation, which is kind of awesome, but at times seems a bit too over-the-top and honestly reminds me more of Bane than anything else. Still, I would HAPPILY watch more Mad Max movies with Tom Hardy. He doesn’t really say a whole lot, but somehow, he’s still compelling — although I suppose it’s fair to point out that I like a little insanity in my action heroes, and Max has just the right level of insanity for me.

Meanwhile, this is easily my favorite role of Charlize Theron’s to date because, up till now, I haven’t been her biggest fan. Which isn’t entirely fair because she’s a very well-respected actress, but she’s mostly respected for movies I haven’t seen. The ones I have seen tend to be terrible genre movies like Aeon Flux, Prometheus, and Snow White and the Huntsman. The poor quality of these movies is not always her fault (she actually does decently solid work in Prometheus work, I think, save one excruciating line), but sometimes . . . it’s a little her fault. (I’m holding my ground here: Kristen Stewart outacts Charlize Theron in Snow White and the Huntsman. That movie is terrible, but Theron’s performance is one of the worst things about it.)

But she’s awesome in this movie. Furiosa is badass and interesting and has her own agenda. She’s not tagging along on the hero’s mission — she is the hero on the mission. Maybe best of all, she and Max don’t have any kind of bullshit love connection. There’s no forced romance here, no long kisses or last minute declarations of love. At best, there are a few shared looks that could be interpreted as romantic — but the story never goes any further than that, which I deeply appreciate.

6. Which brings us to the ongoing feminism versus meninism debacle. (Shhh, little squiggly red line. I don’t like the word ‘meninism’, either, but we’re just going to go with it for now.)

So, many people have seen Fury Road as an unapologetically feminist film and have been extremely jazzed about it. For one thing, Mad Max and Imperator Furiosa probably share about 50/50 screen time. There are also a lot more than the 1-2 female characters you usually find in action movies. In fact, the male-to-female ratio is basically reversed.

Look! There are so many of us!

Which means that when one of the women makes a pretty questionable decision, it feels more reflective of her particular character instead of, you know, the entire gender. Also, none of them are total damsels-in-distress. I mean, technically, five of them are damsels-in-distress, but in most action movies, they’d watch the hero fight the villain and maybe, if they were particularly plucky, throw something at the villain’s back at an opportune moment in the big climactic fight scene. Here, though, the slave-wives all play active parts in their own rescue. It’s kind of awesome.

Also, George Miller apparently consulted Eve Ensler (who wrote The Vagina Monologues) to improve the female characters. This, along with everything else I just mentioned, has certain men very upset. These men seem to feel that they’ve been tricked into watching feminist propaganda instead of the manly man’s action movie they were promised. One man called Imperator Furiosa an “impossible” character, presumably because she has better aim than Max and, simultaneously, a vagina? I don’t know — these people don’t make much sense to me, and I don’t care to try that much harder to understand them.

I suppose I could see people — particularly fans of the original film trilogy — feeling that the title hero of the movie should have more screen time than his co-star. I’m not at all concerned by this myself (in fact, I like the 50/50 structure), but I can see this being a legitimate complaint that sane, non-misogynists might have about the movie. (I would say, though, that while unusual, it’s not completely unprecedented for a title character to split a considerable amount of his screen time with another actor. Like Tim Burton’s Batman, for instance, where Jack Nicholson got WAY more screentime than Michael Keaton did. I feel like a lot of time is devoted to villains these days, which makes me wonder if people would be complaining so much if Max’s time was split evenly with Immortan Joe instead of Furiosa.)

So, where do I sit on this? Is Fury Road a Feminist Victory or an abomination caused by the PC police taking over the action genre?

It saddens me that there’s even a debate.

Well, it can’t surprise you to know that I think the latter position is just ludicrous cause, you know, it IS. But yeah, as a woman who likes movies where shit gets blown up, I’m pretty happy with Fury Road. I’m happy because the action is fast and furious and primarily non-CGI, and I’m happy about the multiple female characters that actually get to do things.

Still, I mean . . . can we be real here? This shouldn’t be that high of a bar. Like, why is consulting with a feminist to make better female character so shocking and controversial anyway, when movies use consultants all the time. It’s not like there’s any outrage when a SF movie consults a scientist for a basic understanding of physics. If you want to know what happens in boot camp for your war movie, you go talk to someone who went to boot camp. These aren’t political decisions, just research done in the effort to make your film a better one — so why not consult a feminist if you want your female characters to be more interesting?

And I meant what I said — it’s awesome to see multiple women who actually do useful things. But let’s be clear here: these are all model-gorgeous women, most of whom are white and none of whom can possibly be above a size 6 (but who are actually probably between a 0-2). And yeah, they get to do useful things, but let’s not pretend they’re all fully developed characters or anything. At least on a first viewing, I can’t tell you any huge character differences between, say, The Dag and Toast the Knowing. (They do have the most interesting names, though.)

To the people who are angry about the PC-ness of this movie, I mean, Jesus Christ, you guys. George Miller didn’t reinvent the fucking wheel here. Everyone’s all excited because this movie gives women more to do than 99% of other action movies, but does that really say so much about how intentionally feminist this movie is, or how much the rest of the genre routinely fails when it comes to female characters?

Maybe I did myself a disservice by reading Rat Queens, Vol. 1 the night before I went to see Fury Road. When Rat Queens becomes a movie, THEN I’ll be like, “This is the feminist victory I was searching for!”

7. Finally, before Spoilers, I just want to clear up who the best character is. Because it’s not Max. It’s not even Furiosa.

Dude. Every time we went back to Guitar Guy, I automatically smiled. I love Guitar Guy. The next time I command hundreds of minions to chase down fugitives over a giant apocalyptic wasteland, I’m definitely bringing a musician for the road. After all, how does anyone get anything done without a little theme music?

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Just a few additional notes:

8. My favorite moment of yay!feminism is when Max tries to make a shot, misses twice, and gives the gun to Furiosa, silently acknowledging that he can’t make the shot and letting her use his shoulder. On the off chance that you haven’t seen it yet, here is the pretty awesome ‘Hey Girl‘ tumblr which documents this moment, along with a few others.

9. I generally liked how Max’s insanity was handled.

It’s all in small flashes — there are no ridiculously extended sequences of Max talking to several miniature, rambunctious versions of himself or anything. (I’m looking at you, Captain Jack Sparrow.) It’s also not really resolved. Like, Max doesn’t have a moment at the end where he’s, like, “Well, I feel liked I Learned something, and now I’m not crazy anymore!” That worked for me.

10. Nicholas Hoult’s a lot of fun in this.

Going into the movie, I didn’t expect him to be a redemptive character, but once I figured that out, obviously I wasn’t surprised by his redemptive death. Still, his over-the-top crazy is pretty awesome, and I haven’t been able to get his godamn tagline out of my head all week. It just keeps echoing insistently in my brain: what a day, what a lovely day!

11. I will say, though, that if I were to find one of my pursuers hiding in a fetal position in the back of my rig, I would not show him mercy because he’s sick and been brainwashed by an evil tyrant all his life; I’d kick his ass to the curb (so to speak) for a third time. At the very least, I’d tell the other ladies up front, “Hey, look, what I found!” But this is what I was saying earlier: Capable’s compassion and rather abrupt kissy-kissy time with Nux annoys me a lot less because she isn’t the only woman in the whole movie. Her mercy isn’t the stereotypical sign of femininity that it would normally be (because I sure don’t believe the other slave-wives would have kept this guy around); it’s a sign of her character. That means a lot to me.

12. Of all the wives to kill, they kill the most obviously pregnant one. I feel like I should have been surprised by this, but wasn’t for some reason. Sad, though. I liked her well enough.

13. Finally, I really like that instead of finding some magical Green Place or searching the desert for a new hidey-hole, the gang ultimately circles back, takes out their oppressors, and reclaims their home, liberating it not just for them but for all the other people who’ve been terrorized and dehumanized by Immortan Joe. I wasn’t necessarily expecting that, and it made for perfect resolution, especially because it’s up to Max to come up with the (appropriately) crazy-ass plan and up to Furiosa to kill the shit out of Joe.

Oh, teamwork. These two are great together.

QUOTES:

Max: “You know, hope is a mistake. If you don’t fix what’s broke, you’ll go insane.”

Toast: “What are you doing?”
The Dag: “Praying.”
Toast: “To who?”
The Dag: “Anyone who’s listening.”

Furiosa: “Out here, everything hurts.”

Ms. Giddy: “We are not things! We are not things!”

Max: “I am the one who runs from both the living and the dead.”

The Dag: “I thought he wasn’t insane anymore.”

Max: “You took my blood. Now you stole my fucking car.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Pretty damn awesome. Not a lot of complaints about this one. Also, just because I forgot to mention it before, I really like the chain fight scene between Max, Furiosa, Nux, and all the slave-wives.

MVP:

Charlize Theron

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A- (Though I suspect this will go up with repeat viewings. I rarely give A’s to anything on the first watch.)

MORAL:

Hope can drive you wacky, but it can also push you to fight for the better future you deserve.

About four years ago, my sister, my buddy, and I all went to the movie theater to see Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. I had almost zero expectations at the time, having not been invested in the series since, oh, 1996, and surprised myself by really enjoying it. So, of course, we had to go see Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.

Of course, according to some annoying blogger and his wife, this shirtless specimen of male perfection is the only reason we REALLY went.

I’m not sure if I liked it more than Ghost Protocol or not, but one way or the other, I had a pretty great time.

SUMMARY:

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) believes there’s an evil Syndicate up to naughty, naughty shit, but unfortunately, Alec Baldwin shuts the whole IMF down. Rather than come in, Hunt is forced to stop the Syndicate on his own. Or. Well. With a little help from his friends. And with a lot of help from the mysterious, badass Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson).

NOTES:

1. Movie plots like this depend on someone in law enforcement being the Asshole. In Rogue Nation, it’s Alec Baldwin and the CIA, shutting down the IMF just when the world, naturally, needs them the most.

Here’s what should be said about this, though: Alec Baldwin? Yeah, he kind of makes sense in this movie. Like, sure, he’s a dick, no doubt, but . . . he’s also arguing that the IMF needs transparency and oversight, not to mention that lots of things tend to horribly explode on their top secret missions — and he has pretty good evidence to back him up, for example, the Kremlin from Ghost Protocol.

None of this is really a problem with the film, mind you, just — it always kind of amuses me when a story’s Chief Asshat is arguing for something you’d probably be all for in real life, but aren’t here because, well, Movie Logic.

2. I’m not going to focus too much on any of the actors who’ve already been in this franchise. Simon Pegg continues to be hilarious. Tom Cruise and Jeremy Renner also continue to delight. (It saddens me that the more I hear about Jeremy Renner, the more he kinda strikes me as an ass. Guy’s got talent, though. Brandt’s habit of unhelpfully repeating the same information over and over again while stressed amused me in Ghost Protocol, and it still amuses me here.)

However, we definitely need to talk about Rebecca Ferguson because oh my God, she rocked.

Paula Patton was okay in Ghost Protocol, but . . . I don’t know, she was just The Girl, you know? I didn’t hate her, but she also didn’t leave much of a lasting impression. Ilsa, on the other hand, seems like so much more than that, partially because I buy her line deliveries a little more, partially because her character is much more interesting, and partially because she saves Ethan’s ass not once, not twice, but four times. Ilsa kind of makes the whole movie for me. (Well, Benji too. I am an unabashed Simon Pegg fan.)

3. We also have our villain, Solomon Lane (Sean Harris).

I’m always happy to see Sean Harris in something, purely because I’m friends with a guy named Sean Harris and the coincidence of it just tickles me. This Harris, though — for the most part, I like him. Solomon Lane isn’t a hugely interesting villain — he’s the Evil Genius type that’s always six moves ahead of the hero, like, I am honest-to-God surprised that no one uses a chess metaphor in this movie — but I think the actor gives the role a certain creep factor that makes him a bit more distinctive. (It’s certainly a different performance than you get from Harris in Prometheus. Ugh. That fucking movie, I swear to God.)

4. Each MI movie has a slightly (or significantly) different feel to it, likely because each movie was made by a different director. I was a bit disappointed when Brad Bird left the franchise, but Christopher McQuarrie is a pretty decent replacement. The action in this movie is awesome, and there is a lot of it. Definitely some nominees for Best Fight Sequence of 2016.

There are also a lot of references and throwbacks to the past films, which is pretty cool. And I like that we continue to show glimpses of the movie in the opening credits — I’ve always really enjoyed how the MI movies have done that. (Also BSG, The Wire, and probably a few other movies or shows that I can’t think of offhand.)

5. Finally, the only trend I wish hadn’t continued? People walking away from — nay, jumping up and riding away from — what are clearly fatal car accidents, or ought to be. Jesus Christ. Two beloved characters are dead right now. Everything that happens after this car accident? None of it’s real. It’s all just a figment of your depressed imagination.

Seriously, guys. Airbags and seat belts only do so fucking much.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

In our opening action sequence, Tom Cruise recovers some nerve gas. To do so, he has to hold on to the side of a plane as it takes off and flies through the air.

This is a terrible job. Seriously, who would even want this job?

Well, the IMF agents seem perfectly happy with all their crazy, plane-jumping antics, anyway. Unfortunately for them, Alec Baldwin is not and manages to get the whole thing shut down over the protests of Brandt (Jeremy Renner). Everyone in the IMF gets absorbed into the CIA except Ethan, who’s having a bit of a trying day himself. While in London, he goes to a record store that’s secretly an IMF front and meets a charming young British woman who’s a bit awestruck at meeting such an infamous agent. As she’s nice and likable, you know that she’s either (a) secretly a bad guy, or (b) about to die.

Turns out, she’s about to die. Solomon Lane (who I keep wanting to call Solomon Kane, despite the fact that I haven’t even seen that film) traps Ethan in one of those listening booths that I’ve only ever seen in movies. Lane kills the young British woman, forcing Ethan to watch and gassing him unconscious.

Ethan wakes up in some stereotypical torture chamber. The Bone Doctor (Jens Hultén) is about to interrogate him. Thankfully, Ilsa comes in to save Ethan’s ass.

There’s a lot of back-and-forth intrigue about Ilsa’s loyalties, but I’m just going to tell you up front: she’s secretly British Intelligence, working undercover with the bad guys. See, it turns out that the British actually created the Syndicate, only for it to backfire on them spectacularly. Ilsa’s handler, Atlee (Simon McBurney), cares a lot more about keeping this embarrassing fact quiet than he does about stopping the Syndicate or keeping Ilsa alive. But we’ll get to that.

Ilsa saves Ethan’s life (for the first time) in a pretty badass fight sequence. Sometimes, I wish I had the proper vocabulary to talk about fight scenes. It was just, I don’t know. Muscular. Brutal. Awesome. Anyway, Ethan escapes, but Ilsa stays behind so that she doesn’t blow her cover. Ethan, already wounded, calls Brandt for an extraction, but Brandt has to break the unfortunate news that the IMF is no more. Ethan refuses to come in, though, because he’s determined to hunt down the Syndicate and the Man Who Bested Him. Alec Baldwin isn’t concerned, declaring that this is the last day Ethan Hunt will spend as a free man —

— aaaaand cut to six months later, where Ethan Hunt is still a free man, supposedly in Cuba but actually doing manly workout routines in Paris. (I think? I don’t remember for sure, but I think he was staring at the Eiffel Tower through his window. Man. According to movies, everybody in Paris is always really conveniently close to that thing.)

Ethan also has a truly hideous, hideous beard because, I don’t know, everyone’s so busy gazing adoringly at the Eiffel Tower that no one has time to buy razors? Seriously, we get a shot of Ethan’s Gigantic On-the-Run beard, and I’m like, “Why?”

Benji (Simon Pegg), meanwhile, is stuck at his boring desk job at the CIA, lying his way through weekly polygraphs to pretend he doesn’t know or care where Ethan is. (He doesn’t know, actually, but he totally still wuvs Ethan. Awww.) The two do meet up, though, when Benji supposedly wins opera tickets in Vienna. Turns out, Ethan invited him to help stop the Syndicate from assassinating some politician dude.

This was all pretty enjoyable. I couldn’t help but have Foul Play flashbacks, since there’s an assassination attempt in an opera house in that movie too. (Thankfully, Rogue Nation doesn’t have any albinos and dwarves as bad guys. I haven’t seen Foul Play since I was a kid, but from what I remember, yeeaaah. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s pretty offensive.) Simon Pegg gets in a lot of snarky funnies, as he is wont to do, and Ethan has a pretty fun fight sequence with one of the bad guys.

Turns out, Ilsa is only one of, like, three different contingency plans to take out this politician dude. Ethan manages to (temporarily) save the guy by shooting him, but it’s all for naught because he and his wife blow up in their car shortly thereafter. Ilsa also saves Ethan’s life once in the opera house and once outside as they make their escape. For those of you playing at home, that brings the ‘Saving Ethan’s Ass’ count to three.

Ilsa takes off again. Ethan tries to tell Benji to go home because staying around will only put him in danger, but Benji isn’t having any of that shit. He actually yells at Ethan, which was pretty good for me on a spiritual level. (Not that Ethan’s so bad — I actually like the guy well enough, especially when he’s silently reacting to how Benji downplays the very real dangers that Ethan will be facing in an upcoming op. Still, I generally enjoy any time anyone yells at a hero for unnecessarily acting like a godamn martyr.)

Interestingly, Benji is almost treated like a love interest in this movie.

I’m still waiting for some flowers, Ethan.

Not that the two share any long, lingering glances (unfortunately — although Ethan does point out Benji’s nice tux), but our big bad action hero trying to push Benji away in order to protect him is very much the kind of thing a hero often does to a love interest. But Benji refuses to go anywhere — because, you know, he’s spunky — and does, in fact, get abducted by the bad guy for the movie’s climactic third act, like, his life is used as leverage over the heroes and he gets strapped to a bomb and everything. He even gets too-closely menaced by our Big Bad! Honestly, I feel like I just watched an episode of Arrow or something.

After having saved Ethan’s life three times, Ilsa’s skating on thin ice with Solomon Lane. To prove herself, she has to steal some Important Ledger Thing. (It’s not really a ledger, though. Ultimately, it’s access to, like, All the Money, this big deal Red Box that can only be opened by the Prime Minister.) The mission to get the Important Ledger Thing has definite callbacks to the first movie and it’s a lot of fun. It’s less fun for Ethan, who kind of drowns, but no worries: Ilsa rescues his sorry ass again. Seriously, when Tom Cruise eventually steps down from this franchise, can Rebecca Ferguson take over? I like Jeremy Renner and all, but I’d sign up so fast to see Ilsa take the lead, I can’t even tell you.

Ilsa does betray Ethan and Benji soon after, though, because her mission is to take the drive back to the British government. You know this is going to happen the second Benji apologizes for misjudging Ilsa. He might as well be drop his pants and say, “Go ahead and kick me in the jewels, Ilsa. Kick me, kick me hard.”

Ilsa runs away from Ethan, from Benji, and from all of Solomon Lane’s henchmen. Ethan wastes no time getting up and following, despite the fact that Ilsa has just revived him via defibrillator. I suppose he at least has the decency to look dazed, a fact that Benji does not hesitate to point out, although he does not make any serious attempt to get in the driver’s seat himself. The car chase which follows is a good deal of fun, although again, less so for Ethan and Benji, as their car flips something like eight times at presumably 100 miles an hour and oh my God they would be so, so dead.

Only they aren’t dead because Ethan’s the hero, Benji’s beloved, and the only good guys who croak in these movies tend to go in the first fifteen minutes. So, yeah, they’re alive by the grace of God and bullshit physics. Ethan is stuck in the car for approximately ten seconds, and this time it’s up to Jeremy Renner and Ving Rhames to save him. (They hit a bad guy with their car. It’s pretty funny.) Less than a minute later, Ethan’s free of the wreck and continuing the high speed pursuit on a bad guy’s motorcycle.

It is the most ridiculous thing ever. These movies are really named Mission Impossible because nobody could ever survive them.

You may be wondering — where the hell did Jeremy Renner and Ving Rhames come from?

Sup?

Well, the two partnered up, hoping to track Ethan down before Alec Baldwin and the CIA can manage to. (The CIA has Shoot to Kill orders now, as if people don’t regularly shoot to kill all the time in these movies.) Ving Rhames doesn’t fully trust Renner, not knowing where his loyalties fully lie, which is pretty much guaranteeing you that Renner’s loyalties will be in question at some point during the film. (And if you’ve ever seen a movie before, you’ll know that Renner’s supposed betrayal is actually part of the Plan. Honestly, why do people still do this? Was anybody really thinking, Oh no, that nice young man rumored to someday take over the franchise is actually betraying his team?)

The reason I’m actually bringing Rhames and Renner up, though, is to describe their investigative techniques. This is how they find Ethan: Rhames looks at a picture Ethan drew of Solomon Lane, then at a picture he drew of Ilsa, and finally decides to run Ilsa’s face through facial recognition. Why? Well, apparently just by looking at these two sketches, Rhames and Renner can tell that Ethan trusts Ilsa, and wherever she is, he’ll be. Because he . . . what? Drew her with kind eyes or something? Seriously, someone let me know if I misunderstood or missed an important line of dialogue, because that bullshit right there? That’s probably the worst example of Heart Knowledge I’ve seen all year.

Let’s see, where the hell was I? Right, so Atlee fucks Ilsa over, refusing to bring her in. She ends up meeting with Ethan’s team, telling Ethan that the two of them should just go away together, as their countries don’t give a shit about either of them. Which frankly, isn’t the worst idea. (Ethan and Ilsa never kiss or anything, but there’s a ridiculous amount of UST between them, only making me wonder . . . what the shit is up with Ethan’s wife?)

This is when Benji gets kidnapped. To get him back, the team has to kidnap the Prime Minister (Tom Hollander), or at least get him to open the Red Box drive. Ethan wears one of MI’s signature masks (you know, the ones that are so high-tech that they fool people into looking past completely different body types) and impersonates Atlee. This isn’t revealed right away, although you kind of have to figure Tom Cruise is impersonating someone in the room, since Alec Baldwin is hilariously talking about what an immense danger Ethan is, like I think he basically up and says, “Ethan is the incarnation of SWIFT, TERRIFYING DEATH.” (Okay, the line is actually “living manifestation of destiny.” Honestly, that might even be worse.)

Atlee and the Prime Minister (who I will henceforth be calling Prime Minister Collins because Pride and Prejudice 4ever) are the only people with Baldwin in the room, and as it wouldn’t make any sense for Ethan to be impersonating Prime Minister Collins, I should’ve known immediately that he was Atlee. However, I fixated on the Prime Minister anyway, maybe because PM Collins surprised me by seeming to be a reasonable person, but probably because Hollander and Cruise are both short people named Tom.

Anyway, Prime Minister Collins reveals to Alec Baldwin that the Syndicate is totally a real threat (up till now, Baldwin has assumed it was all conspiracy nonsense). Ethan makes his Big Reveal, doses the hell out of Prime Minister Collins, and gets him to unlock the Red Box. Later, he essentially out bluffs Solomon Lane, saves Benji from his bomb vest, and traps Lane in a big glass box — not unlike the listening booth Lane trapped Ethan in. (This movie has a very fine sense of balance when it comes to set-up, foreshadow, and reversals, like when it points out Brandt’s divided loyalties, or when Benji firmly declares that he and Ethan aren’t friends, only for him to just as firmly declare that they are later in the film.)

The team gasses Lane into unconsciousness, although I have to admit, the evil little bloodthirsty part of my brain was immediately like, “How do we know they’re just knocking him unconscious? Dude, there should totally be an alternate version where they just killed this asshole. The gas is toxic, Lane is dead, Ethan’s a sociopath, and Alec Baldwin was the hero all along!”

Also — because I forgot before — Ilsa gets into a pretty badass knife fight with the Bone Doctor and kills the hell out of him, which was awesome. Have I mentioned that I like Ilsa?

And — well, that’s about it. Ilsa takes off, but with an invitation for Ethan to follow, presumably for more dangerous/sexy shenanigans. Alec Baldwin, meanwhile, gets the IMF opened again so we can watch another sequel with another new director in a few years.

QUOTES:

Benji: “Yes, the package is on the plane, we get it!”

Brandt: “I can neither confirm nor deny any specific action without the Secretary’s approval.”

Benji: “Well, we have a European Head of State here at the same time we’re looking for a nefarious terrorist. And I’m sure the two things are completely unrelated.”

Benji: “Join the IMF, see the world! On a monitor. In a closet.”

Ilsa: “Shoes? Shoes, please.”

Benji: “She tried to shoot me!”
Ethan: “That doesn’t make her a bad person.”

Benji: “That’s not your decision to make, Ethan! I am a field agent! I know the risks! More than that, I am your friend, no matter . . . what I con a polygraph every week. Now you called me because you needed my help. And you still do, so I’m staying. And that’s all we’re going to say about that.”

Ethan: “We’ve never met before, right?”

Benji: “Whoa, whoa, whoa, are you okay to drive? A minute ago, you were dead.”
Ethan: “What are you talking about?”
Benji: “This isn’t going to end well.”

Benji: “Important note: the profile is in Slot 108. And a slightly more important note: if you haven’t switched that profile before I reach the gait analysis, I’m dead.”

Brandt: “It’s a high speed chase! You just had to get the 4×4, didn’t you?”
Luther: “Don’t blame me, you chose the car — ”
Brandt: “You just had to have it!”

CONCLUSIONS:

Really solid popcorn flick. Lot of enjoyable action scenes, some fun gender reversals. Some plot conveniences that kind of drive me crazy, but I’m mostly willing to forgive them because Rebecca Ferguson was so awesome and I love Simon Pegg in all things.

MVP:

Rebecca Ferguson

TENTATIVE CONCLUSION:

A-

MORAL:

Nothing is impossible, if you’re Tom Cruise and you have a strong woman to save your ass, like, all the time.

All right, people. After several days of frantically dodging spoilers on social media, I FINALLY saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The more I think about it, the more I find small flaws and nitpicks, but overall I had a great time watching this.

SUMMARY:

Hm, shall we err on the side of vagueness today? How about this: thirty-ish years after the events of The Return of the Jedi, the galaxy is still being threatened by the remnants of the Empire, now known as the First Order. Luckily, there is still the Rebel Alliance Resistance fighting them off. Also, we’re introduced to a scrappy young band of new heroes, namely a scavenger, a fighter pilot, and a Stormtrooper who deserts his post.

NOTES:

1. Here’s the thing: I was excited to see this movie, but unlike the rest of the internet, I did not get particularly misty-eyed when I watched Han tell Chewie, “We’re home,” in that one teaser trailer. I felt vaguely bad about this, but eventually made peace with the fact that I had no heart and moved on about my day.

Watching it in theater was different. And I don’t know if it’s just because the tiny pieces of my geek soul finally caught up to me, or I was just having an emotional day (later on, I also broke down during the season finale of Adam Ruins Everything, although in my defense, that shit was totally depressing), but when STAR WARS appeared on the big screen, followed by the opening scroll, I was mildly horrified to realize I was actually tearing up. I was also excited, though, so excited I almost forgot I had to actually read the opening scroll this time.

Cause the thing is, this felt different to me. I grew up with the original trilogy, but I’m too young to have seen any of them in theater. I did see The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones in theater, but . . . yeah. I didn’t despise The Phantom Menace when I watched it, but it didn’t feel special to me, either; it didn’t feel like a return, you know? And the dialogue in Attack of the Clones was so bad it turned me off the new trilogy entirely, so that, to this day, I still haven’t seen Revenge of the Sith. (I really meant to watch all of them this year and give everything a second chance, but never quite got around to it. Maybe in 2016?)

This, though. I sat in theater and finally had my “Chewie, we’re home” moment, and that was pretty cool.

(Especially since someone brought their four-year-old along to periodically kick the back of my seat throughout the film, and that sense of wonder helped me grit my teeth and remember that I actually like children, usually, when I’m not stuck in a theater or on an airplane with them.)

2. The Force Awakens is basically A New Hope for a brand new generation. That is simultaneously the best and worst thing about it.

On one hand (the positive, happy hand–keep your lewd jokes to yourself, people), The Force Awakens feels like the old Star Wars movies and is chockfull of great homages to the past films while updating the story with some much needed diversity. A female hero! A black hero! A Latino hero! Also, the humor is really excellent in this film, like the comedy totally outshines anything in the past. In the middle of watching, I distinctly remember thinking, This might actually be my favorite Star Wars movie.

On the other, more negative hand, the basic plot of The Force Awakens is so derivative of A New Hope as to be a little lazy, and it’s not like A New Hope had a particularly exciting plot structure itself, since it’s basically a step-by-step model of the hero’s journey, but with lightsabers and neat, cinnamon bun hair. I won’t detail all the similarities between the two films until the Spoiler Section, but there’s definitely a way to invoke the feel of something without directly copying it, and I think The Force Awakens falls down a little in that regard.

3. But back to the happy. Let’s talk about our new heroes.

Rey

Daisy Ridley

Rey’s pretty great. She’s funny, smart, badass, interesting. She needs very little rescue from her male co-leads, and has a mysterious past that I’m looking forward to exploring in the future films. I buy her character and Ridley’s performance entirely.

Of course, Max Landis and others have called Rey a Mary Sue because, I guess, she has all the qualities that make an action hero great and just happens to be a woman? I mean, there’s an argument to be had about a hero being so awesome that the story fails to have tension or stakes; the problem is that a) The Force Awakens HAS tension and stakes, and b) people are far, far less likely to call out that particular story flaw, so long as that awesome hero is a man. (I’m bummed here, by the way, about Max Landis. I really like Chronicle, which he wrote, not to mention The Death and Return of Superman. I still like those things, but it’s nonetheless disappointing when you find out that someone whose work you’ve admired or enjoyed has opinions you seriously disagree with.)

I won’t talk too much more about the Mary Sue thing, partially because a lot of other writers are already handling the topic, and partially because I was already planning to write this thing next month about the whole concept of Mary Sues, but just for the record: Rey is totally awesome, and if you find her that unbelievable . . . well, fine, you don’t have to like her. But try thinking of it this way: maybe she isn’t for you. Maybe, just for once, you’re not the target audience. Feel free to repeat this to yourself if you’re also struggling with the shocking idea of black people in the Star Wars universe.

Finn

John Boyega

I pretty much adored Finn. John Boyega brings the humor in a big way, but I also buy his more serious moments too, which is great. I really hope we get more on his backstory; I feel like there’s a lot that can and oughta be fleshed out, and I’ll probably be a little annoyed if it never is.

Also, not for nothing: Boyega’s American accent is spot-on. I actually forgot he was English for a good solid ten minutes before remembering that, Nope, this is the kid from Attack the Block. The American is a lie.

Poe Dameron 

Oscar Isaac

Because of the way the story plays out, Poe doesn’t have as much to do as Rey or Finn, but I liked him pretty much immediately. He kind of feels like a throwback to an old school space swashbuckler, like he’s the cocky, quippy, fighter pilot dude who’s not really scared of much and can fly pretty much anything. I’ll talk more about him in the Spoiler Section (well, all of them, really), but for now I’ll just say that I found Poe rather charming.

4. We also have the return of some of our old heroes.

It was mostly good to see them all again, but for the most part, I’m going to table this discussion until I can continue with spoilers. For now what I’ll say is that it was a little strange listening to Leia since Carrie Fisher’s voice has changed with age. Mind you, that’s not a knock or anything. People, like, age. It’s just that Han basically still just sounds like Han, and Leia sounds almost like a whole different person. I guess I just wasn’t expecting it because I’ve seen Carrie Fisher in plenty of things since Star Wars, and her voice has never seemed off to me until I watched her as Leia again, and that dumb part of my brain was like, “But . . . wait?”

5. And to talk a little bit about our bad guys:

Kylo Ren

Adam Driver

For the most part, Kylo works for me pretty well. I wouldn’t call him a hugely intimidating villain, but he has just enough character to be interesting. Although I read one review that called him “sympathetic and menacing,” and I’m like, “Menacing, maybe, but uh, sympathetic? Yeah, meet me at camera three, guys.” Kylo primarily works for me because I don’t find him particularly sympathetic; if I was supposed to . . . well, we might have problems in future films. Much more on that in a while.

General Hux

Domhnall Gleeson

Gleeson does everything he’s supposed to do in this movie, and I don’t dislike him, exactly, but . . . unless there’s a plot twist where it’s revealed that he’s secretly a younger clone of Grand Moff Tarkin, I’m not really sure  what to do with him. I meant what I said before, about liking a lot of the specific homages to the original trilogy, but after a while, the movie starts staggering under the weight of just how many homages there are. Gleeson feels so much like Tarkin that it’s nearly impossible to judge him as his own character.

Captain Phasma

Gwendoline Christie

My brain keeps trying to insist her name is Captain Plasma. Go home, brain, you’re drunk.

Captain Phasma is kind of cool, although Christie is almost as criminally underused here as she was in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part II, so hopefully she gets a lot more to do in future movies. Then again, maybe we should all just try to start a cult love of Phasma, anyway. After all, it worked with Boba Fett, and really, what did he do except die extremely ingloriously?

Finally, we also have our new Emperor dude, Supreme Leader Snoke, and . . . guys, I snickered every single time we went back to this loser. He appears to be some kind of fifty foot tall abomination that’s like a weird mix of Gollum and the aliens from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (Holy shit, he was actually played by Andy Serkis? Hand to God, I didn’t actually know that. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make me like Snoke any better.) I just couldn’t take him even remotely seriously. I understand why we couldn’t have Ian McDiarmid back, but maybe we could have done, like, anything else with this guy’s design. Like, we could have modeled him after the Gatekeeper in Atmosfear. (Skip about 18 minutes, if you click on that link, unless you really want to know the rules for a V/H/S board game that you almost certainly don’t have because it’s just about 2016, come tomorrow.) Sure, the Gatekeeper was basically the Emperor already, but come on, I think we all know The Force Awakens wasn’t too worried about being original.

6. Other than Snoke, I thought the film looked pretty great. I’m afraid I don’t have any particularly deep analysis on that: it just looked and felt like old school Star Wars to me. (Nobody has any crazy Amidala-esque hairstyles, unfortunately, but I won’t hold that against the film.)

7. Finally, the script generally works for me–I’m pretty sure I preferred the dialogue here to the old movies, actually, although my opinion on that might change after a second viewing–but holy shit, there are a couple of moments where the lack of subtlety just killed me dead. Like, come on, guys. If you’re going to be that obvious about your symbolism, you might as well just show the scene with captions that read: “Get it? GET IT?”

Everything else I want to say includes spoilers, but you’ve probably already seen The Force Awakens, right? Like, it’s been out for weeks. If you haven’t seen it, what have you been doing with your life?

Assuming you have your priorities in place, you may continue onward.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

So, I was pretty bummed when I first heard that the new Star Wars trilogy was going to include the old Star Wars characters, and The Force Awakens proves that my fears were founded: Han Solo bites it.

Of course, it’s not that surprising that Han Solo bites it. For one, it’s that whole ‘the old gives way to the new’ thing that generally happens as franchises age. Our once-young heroes are now old enough to be the mentors, and mentors die: that’s just a fact. For another thing, Harrison Ford is a grumpy old bastard who’s wanted Han Solo to die for years. Going into this movie, I had a pretty good idea that he was going to go, and if it wasn’t him, it’d be Luke or Chewie. (I was never particularly worried about Leia, for some reason; I would have put money down that she’d survive, and hey, she did.)

So, sure, it wasn’t a shock. And the death doesn’t feel entirely cheap, either, even if it was obvious that Han was a goner from the very moment he stepped out onto that bridge. (Although, for me, it felt a little bit too reminiscent of Obi-Wan dying in A New Hope, particularly with Finn and Rey watching on, and for fuck’s sake: Kylo kills Han the second the sunlight is obscured!? Jesus. Yes, J.J. Abrams, I understood Poe’s hideously clunky line, “As long as there’s light, we’ve got a chance!” YOU ARE KILLING ME, MAN. I mean, I like your work more than a lot of my friends do, and I don’t give a shit if you want a lens flare every 25 seconds or not, but the foreshadow in your movies hurts me. Do we need to talk about the dead tribble again?)

Okay. My point, before I got off track, was this: eventually, you hit a mark where your heroes have survived so long that, if they were killed off, all you’d feel is bummed out and annoyed. My favorite example of this is NCIS–uh, SPOILERS here, although seriously, that show’s been on for like twelve years or something, so, like, deal with it. At the end of the second season, Kate, one of the main characters, is killed, and it’s kind of awesome. Not because I hated Kate or anything; she was generally fine, but it was a really well-handled, surprising moment, particularly for a procedural where killing off characters is a little trickier. (NCIS ain’t exactly The Walking Dead. You’re supposed to win in procedurals; that’s kind of the whole point.)

So, yeah, Kate’s death was a totally good, daring moment of the show. But nobody would have wanted to see her die in Season Ten, just for a Shocking Moment. That’s bullshit. Ziva was Kate’s replacement, and admittedly, I’ve always liked Ziva better than Kate. But if Ziva had died after eleven seasons when Cote de Pablo wanted to leave? Nope. Nobody wants that. At a certain point, you’ve been watching people long enough that you feel that they (and frankly, you) deserve to have a happy ending.

The Return of the Jedi came out in 1983. We’ve all known that Han, Leia, and Luke have been living their Happy Ever After for over 30 years . . . until now. Now, Han’s been murdered by his own evil son, impaled on a lightsaber and tossed to his doom. Call me silly, but that bums me the hell out. I feel like I’m going to go back and watch the original trilogy now, and every time Han makes it out of some scrape, I’m going to be like, “Yeah, you’re alive for now.” And of course it’s true that everyone dies, but I’ve got to tell you, I don’t really come to Star Wars looking for nihilism. I want cool lightsaber battles, not an existential crisis.

So, yeah. All of this is to say that while Han Solo dying isn’t ultimately a problem I have with the film, it does, for me, definitely detract from my enjoyment of the story. Maybe this will happen less and less with repeat viewings, but for now I’m just like, You bastards, you’re ruining my childhood! What’s next? John McClane? Maverick? INIGO MONTOYA?

Okay, let’s see. Well, perhaps we should talk some more about the similarities between A New Hope and The Force Awakens.

So, even during the movie’s opening scroll, I couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit letdown that in thirty years essentially nothing had changed in the political landscape of the Star Wars universe. Of course it would be silly and unrealistic to assume the entire Empire was destroyed simply because the Emperor was dead, but some movement here would not have been a terrible idea.

Instead, it’s almost as if the events of The Return of Jedi had zero effect at all because, apparently, all that’s really happened is that the major factions have changed names. Everything else is the same: the Resistance is still the underdog, the First Order still favors totalitarianism, despite not seeming to have any real clear platforms or goals about what they plan to do with the whole universe anyway. (One just assumes they’re big 1984 fans, you know, “the object of power is power” and so forth.) Even their methodology hasn’t changed: the First Order just keeps building bigger and bigger Death Stars (that are totally different this time because they can take out multiple planets at once!) and the Resistance keeps destroying them with their little dinky ass planes because their whole “The Little Guy Always Wins” philosophy is reflected even in their starship design.

I’m saying, none of it’s terrible, but The Force Awakens would be a lot neater if it felt like the original trilogy had any sort of consequence on the universe, particular because the plot feels so recycled. After all, the movie begins with one of our heroes sticking a vital message into a droid and releasing it on a desert planet to keep it out of the hands of the bad guys. Of course, this time our hero is Poe instead of Leia, the droid is BB-8 instead of R2-D2, and the message is about Luke’s whereabouts instead of blueprints for the Death Star, but yeah, it’s the same godamn plot. And sure, that’s obviously intentional and might even have been something I would’ve enjoyed conceptually, but since the plot continuously echoes the original and never really veers anywhere new, I find myself, on reflection, more and more disappointed by the film’s lack of originality.

But let’s get back to the story, shall we?

Okay, so our dashing pilot hero, Poe, is captured by Kylo Ren (and not Rylo Ken, which I keep trying to write), who turns out to be Han and Leia’s evil child. A bunch of people seem to think Rey is also their child, but while I wouldn’t mind the nod to the tie-in novels, I hope that isn’t the case, mostly because the writers would have to work awful hard to make me believe that Han and Leia happened to have another kid who nobody decided to mention during this movie. I mean, that just seems like shoddy writing. Personally, I’m in favor of the fan theory that Rey is one of the kids who was training to be a Jedi before that little asshole Kylo decided to kill all of them.

Because oh yeah, this guy?

SUCH an asshole.

When we meet Kylo Ren, he’s busy killing a harmless old man and also burning down an entire village, so, you know, sympathy is already a little hard to come by. Like, you can’t just say, “Whoops, my bad, I probably shouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t my fault! The Dark Side made me!” Mass murder isn’t like shoplifting a pack of gum; the excuse of peer pressure really isn’t going to cut it.

Now, we do know that Kylo feels some inner turmoil about all this, but not because he acts particularly conflicted throughout the film. No, we mostly know about his inner pain because he confesses being drawn to the Light while talking to the twisted shell of a helmet that his dead grandfather used to wear, like, oh okay, that’s normal. But seriously, inner turmoil only counts for so much. After killing Max von Sydow and dozens of helpless extras, Kylo Ren also tortures Poe, tries to torture Rey (while doing that creepy too-close talking thing that male characters are always doing to women, like, I bet you guys everything that Kylo wasn’t all up slithering on Poe Dameron’s cheek) and then, if that wasn’t enough, blowing up entire planets of innocent people. And that’s all before he murders his father/beloved fan favorite of the franchise.

Star Wars has always been desperately weird when it comes to family. For one thing, so much seems to rely on genetic predisposition, like Luke isn’t a farmer because his dad wasn’t a farmer, despite the fact that he never met the man, and Kylo Ren is swayed to the Dark Side because he has too much of his grandfather in him, despite the fact that Darth Vader was dead long before this kid was even born and his parents are pretty godamn awesome. Does this mean a certain aptitude for the Force is a dominant genetic trait? After all, even Leia has Force intuition, although it doesn’t appear she ever learned to levitate shit. And perhaps the inescapable pull to the Dark Side is recessive, since it seemed to skip Leia and Luke (please, he was tempted for, like, a second) but hit Kylo (or Ben) pretty hardcore. What I’m saying here is that Darth Vader’s spunk apparently had some serious godamn staying power, and I think more essays about Star Wars should talk about that.

For another thing, though, being related to one of the story’s heroes probably shouldn’t garner the audience’s automatic sympathy for any one character, like, this is Darth Vader going to Glowy Blue Jedi Heaven all over again, despite all the terrible things he’s done, including Little Kid Slaughter. I mean, for Christ’s sake, he is standing a foot away from the man he fucking murdered. But we’re supposed to forgive him because he had one measly moment of, Huh, maybe I SHOULDN’T let this guy kill my son in front of me? What kind of bullshit is that?  The last thing you do, whether it’s good or bad, shouldn’t be the only thing you do that matters.

If I’m honestly supposed to sympathize with Kylo (up till the point where he kills Han, anyway, because I’m pretty sure that’s the No Going Back moment–as if murdering all his fellow Jedi classmates prior to the movie was just an example of the foibles of youth), well, the movie completely failed to make that happen, kind of like how nobody actually feels sorry for Anakin Skywalker even though you’re supposed to, because Anakin’s a whiny piece of shit. There are obviously plenty of parallels between young Anakin Skywalker and Kylo Ren, but what I enjoyed about Kylo was that I felt like the movie was inviting me not to give a shit, not that he’s a parody of Anakin, exactly, but that he’s never meant to be the tragic figure Anakin’s supposed to be. (It’s probably worth mentioning that, thus far, none of the Star Wars movies have sold me on the oh-so-tempting power of the Dark Side. Like, when it comes to makeup, I totally get it. Dark Side’s makeup obviously kick’s Light Side’s ass. But the movies themselves have always had a very tell, don’t show storytelling approach to this that’s never really won me over.)

While watching the film, I felt like Kylo was intentionally built up as a villain who you love to hate, an angsty, almost adolescent type guy who needlessly murders people and constantly throws temper tantrums when things don’t go his way. That interpretation works for me, so we’ll see how his character develops over the course of the trilogy, because if I’m supposed to feel sorry for him (or worse, if they actually do try to redeem him later on), well, we’re going to have problems.

(By the way, Kylo’s big temper tantrum–I think after Rey escapes?–was one of the funniest moments in the whole movie. Two Stormtroopers come up as he’s in the midst of his giant hissy fit, and just as Mek and I are silently gesturing, Run, Stormtroopers, run, the Stormtroopers slowly back away and leave. I laughed so hard I clapped.)

Okay. Back to the beginning, again. Evil Sulkmonster Kylo Ren captures Poe and successfully tortures information out of him with the Force.

Meanwhile, Finn (or FN-2187), is a Stormtrooper who’s horrified when he’s asked to help slaughter that entire village, so he breaks Poe out of his cell and they escape together.

Two things about this:

A. Like all Stormtroopers, apparently, Finn was abducted (either at birth or a very young age), conscripted into duty, and brainwashed. Somehow, Finn easily shakes off that conditioning, and I’d be pretty disappointed if the sequels don’t follow up on that. I don’t necessarily need to know where Finn comes from or who his parents were or anything (unless that’s significant to how he broke through the brainwashing, which, given the weird genetic predispositions of Star Wars, it probably is), but I would definitely like to know more about his upbringing and exactly how and when Finn grew a moral conscience, if it never properly worked on him, if it’s not working on other Stormtroopers as well, etc. Also, who was Finn’s dead friend from the beginning? I mean, sure, they probably just added him so that Finn could get blood on his helmet and be distinguishable from all the other dudes in white armor, but Stormtrooper Friendship is fascinating and I’d love more expansion on that.

B. Finn and Poe are my new OTP.

Apparently, our ship is called Stormpilot.

Here’s the thing: The Force Awakens was out for almost a week before I had the opportunity to see it. During that time, I tried desperately to avoid reading spoilers online and was, for the most part, successful, but my eyes scanned over something on Twitter that made it sound like a Finn/Poe romance was canon. I turned away very fast and was about 98% sure I’d misread it–mostly because if the two had kissed, I was pretty sure no amount of caution could have stopped me from seeing Gay Star Wars! all over the internet–but I kept it in mind, and when I watched the two characters in the movie . . . I was like, Hell YES, I want that.

There’s just . . . I don’t know, some kind of chemistry there. I honestly don’t expect the relationship to bloom into a romance (partially because I think they’ll go Finn/Rey, particularly with that line about boyfriends, and partially because I just don’t think anyone in Hollywood is bold enough to have the main heroes of their giant mainstream blockbuster franchise be gay, unfortunately) but I’d be ecstatic to be wrong about that. Because I was into it, and because it’d be a big deal to have action heroes who weren’t straight. Not a tragic gay romance or a family dramady with a gay brother or something, but badass gay fighter pilots and rogues. Like, let’s make that whole ‘this generation’s Star Wars’ really mean something, you know?

So, okay, Finn and Poe crash-land on Jakku, and Poe appears to be dead. Poe is totally not dead, which you know because you don’t see his body. What’s funny about this is that I was actually really worried about Poe, right up until the moment you’re supposed to think he’s a goner, because there was something about that opening scene that made me think, Oh shit, he’s going to be a fake out hero. He’s going to be one of those guys that’s heavily promoted as a big star, but he’s really just the dude who sets up the plot and gets killed in the first act, paving way for our REAL heroes to take the stage. I was pretty much convinced when Poe explains to Finn why BB-8’s important and what he looks like, and kind of bummed about it because there’s just something about the guy that’s immediately charming. But when there was no body left behind, just a fabulous jacket, I was like, Oh, okay, I’m pretty sure he’s coming back. Cool beans.

Two things, quickly, before we move on:

A. About that jacket . . . wasn’t Poe wearing it when he escaped? I’ve only seen this movie once, so maybe he took it off when he got into the TIE fighter for some reason, and I just forgot? Because I initially assumed that Poe wasn’t thrown from the crash like Finn was; I figured he’d woken up, found Finn was gone, and went to go looking for him. And I was like, That’s weird he left he jacket behind, like, it’s almost a stupidly convenient passing of the hero mantle. But I could have sworn he was wearing it when they crashed, right?

B. Apparently, JJ Abrams’s initial plan was to kill off Poe, so ha! Instincts! Also, this is just like Lost all over again, although, hopefully, Poe will remain considerably more lovable than Jack ever was.

So, Poe goes missing for most of the movie, and the story shifts focus to Finn and Rey. Rey, of course, has come across BB-8 and saved him from people who would salvage him for parts. There’s no way I’m actually going to recap everything that happens during this movie, not with a review thats already’s probably upwards of 5,000 words, so this seems as a good of a time as any to stop and talk in more detail about how awesome Rey is.

Cause, yeah, Rey is awesome. She’s funny and super competent and, while she doesn’t know how to do everything right away, has the typical action hero learning curve where she figures it out pretty fast. She rescues herself. She has a mysterious past and a child’s hope that whoever abandoned her will someday come back.

And, oh yeah, she also has THE FORCE.

I’d make a lousy Jedi. The Jedi philosophy doesn’t do much for me and never has, but nonetheless, I (and many girl nerds, I imagine) have always been disappointed that there were no girl Jedi characters, that all the telekinetic action and big glow stick fencing battles were reserved for those with penises. So it’s a big deal to me, to finally have a girl pick up a lightsaber or read someone’s thoughts or command weak-willed Stormtroopers to do what she wants, particularly when I believe there are only, what, four women with speaking roles in the entire original trilogy? And only two of of those characters are actually named in the films. (No, Mon Mothma doesn’t count. They don’t say her name in the movie.) If you go here, you can see every line spoken by a woman who isn’t Princess Leia in the entire original trilogy. The whole video, including credits, is less than two minutes long.

I think this is why I wasn’t really upset when JJ Abrams said that Star Wars would no longer be a boy’s thing. I think a lot of female fans felt like Abrams was effectively trying to erase them with that statement, like oh thanks, Great Male Savior, but I’ve liked Star Wars pretty much my whole life without your help, and I think I’ll just go ahead and keep on doing that, okay? I totally get that reaction because it can be incredibly frustrating to be treated like you’re some rare mythical creature, like, a girl willingly entering a comic book store on her own with the intent of purchasing comics for herself? WHAT SORCERY IS THIS?

Still, that’s not really how I took Abrams’s comments when I read them myself. I, personally, assumed that he’d made an effort to actively be more inclusive, that he wanted The Force Awakens to have more interesting and active female roles that little girls could get excited about. Because while there are plenty of girls who’ve been fans of the Star Wars universe for years, I’m sure there are plenty of other girls who looked at the original trilogy and said, “Fuck this shit. I’m going to go watch a movie where the male to female ratio of the entire universe isn’t 99 billion to 1.” Which is a fair reaction. (Especially for non-Caucasian girls, who get absolutely zero representation in the first trilogy. Things unfortunately aren’t much improved in The Force Awakens on that front, at least from what I remember . . . obviously, Lupita N’yongo is in it, playing some kind of Barkeep Yoda character, but since she also looks like this, you know, it’s not quite the same sort of presence that John Boyega has. It’s possible that I’m forgetting more minor characters, though. Like I said, I’ve only seen this once.)

Anyway, overall, The Force Awakens gets a yay, feminism! vote for me. It’s not just Rey, although obviously seeing a super competent girl-Jedi is a huge plus. It’s also that you see a few more women in the background, too, like they actually exist in this universe now. I was unreasonably happy about the female fighter pilot. She didn’t even do that much, and I was so excited to see her.

(Now if we could only get the toys to catch up. If you’re reading this more because you like me than because you know or care anything about Star Wars toy merchandising, look at these links to get an idea of just how hard it is to find Rey action figures, despite the fact that she’s the main character. This is what you get when you search “Poe Toy Star Wars Force Awakens.” This is what you get when you search “Finn Toy Star Wars Force Awakens.” And this is what you get when you search “Rey Toy Star Wars Force Awakens.” Notice the difference? Girls play with action figures too, people. Cardboard cutouts, costumes, and travel mugs rarely made my Christmas list as a kid.)

Hm, what else do we have to talk about? You know what, I’m just going to give up and do alphabetized notes for the rest of this review because, damn it, I would very much like to get this done before I go to sleep. So.

A. I really hope Leia gets more to do in the next movie.

I’m okay with her not having much to do here because Han kind of takes center stage when it comes to original characters, but now Han is super dead, so. I know it won’t happen, but I really wish Leia would kick her evil son’s sulky emo ass. (You know, without a big “you can be good again speech” because seriously. See the above rant.) Mostly, though, I just want Leia to get in on the action. Changing her title to ‘General’ doesn’t do much for me if you don’t actually have her really doing anything, like, I don’t find Princess a derogatory term if she literally is a Princess.

B. Personally, I’m hoping that Supreme Leader Snoke is, much like the Fear Demon in BTVS’s “Fear, Itself,” only about six inches tall in real life. Seriously, there’s somebody out there besides my sister who thought this dude was ridiculous, right? I can’t find anyone talking about this, and I don’t know if that’s because nobody else noticed, or if people are so jazzed about the movie that they don’t want to admit that the Chief Villain looks dumb as hell.

C. At the end of the movie, Dumb Looking Snoke says that Kylo Ren has to complete his evil training. I’m . . . curious as to what this entails. He can already read thoughts, levitate shit, and freeze people in place. He’s also already committed both patricide and genocide. For his Dark Side Graduation Ceremony, does he get to eat babies or something? Will this allow him to, like, somehow generate fireballs? Shapeshift? Ooh, will he FLY?

D. Here’s a thing: you never really feel the mass slaughter when the bad guys are just blowing up planets wily-nily in Star Wars. Like, this is an improvement on A New Hope because we actually get to (very briefly) see some of these people before they die, but there’s, like, zero gut punch to it. Can you even imagine how many people died in The Force Awakens? More people died in The Force Awakens than in every single movie you watched this year COMBINED. You think it’s all popcorn and lightsabers, but there is some seriously bleak shit in this movie that nobody wants you to notice. (Related: it would be pretty awesome if they introduced a character in the next film who was from one of those now annihilated planets and was utterly devastated. It has always bothered me how little Leia was allowed to react to the destruction of Alderaan in the original trilogy. Oh, the fanfiction that needs to be written.)

E. Finn lies to Rey for quite some time, pretending to be a part of the Resistance instead of an ex-Stormtrooper, and I’ve got to tell you: I was ecstatic when there was never a huge “I’m so betrayed!” blowup, like, I was so sure we were gearing towards that part in a romantic comedy where the girl realizes that the boy was paid to ask her out, and then the guy has to show how he’s really, truly fallen in love with her, and I was like, “Ugh, no; please no manufactured drama bullshit!” And then they pretty neatly sidestepped the issue. I was deeply relieved.

F. There are a good number of cameos in this movie, some that I missed (like Simon Pegg, for instance, or Daniel Craig) and some that surprised and delighted me. I should have known Greg Grunberg was going to show up, considering who was directing the movie, and I was especially happy to see Ken Leung, whose presence will always make me happy. Is it too much to hope that he comes back for the sequels and actually has stuff to do?

G. I think The Force Awakens does have the occasional pacing problem. Sometimes, it feels a little unnecessarily stuffed with action pieces, like, the scene with the monster dudes that Han’s smuggling felt fairly silly to me. (I mean, I enjoyed Rey saving Finn from them and all. But . . . did this scene actually accomplish, like, anything? It felt pretty squeezed in.)

I was also a little disappointed by the big attack on the Super Death Star. It’s not a huge flaw, but it does feel a little uneven because while all the stuff with Rey and Finn is exciting, Poe and his fellow Resistance fighters feel almost stranded, like, there is zero tension in any of their scenes. I don’t think I even noticed the moment when they destroyed the big weapon; it was just like, “Oh, hey, did they succeed? I guess they succeeded. Uh, yay?” I wish the movie could have found a way to make that part of the battle more exciting, partially because I like Poe, and partially because it suffered pretty deeply from comparison to the original. Like Luke turning off his computer and using the Force to destroy the first Death Star is kind of iconic. This stuff, not so much.

H. Finally, finally, I really like the last shot of this movie, with Rey desperately holding out the lightsaber to Luke, while Luke makes a face that’s like, “Jesus, no, I have to go back? NOOOOOOO!” I’m super excited to see where the next one goes, especially because Rian Johnson’s the one directing it this time, and I suspect he’s going to take the franchise to whole other, weirder and wilder places.

QUOTES:

Rey: “This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs!”
Han: “TWELVE!”
(mumbling to himself, irritated)
Han: “Fourteen.”

Rey: “Stop grabbing my hand!”

Poe: “Why are you helping me?”
Finn: “Because it’s the right thing to do.”
Poe: “. . .you need a pilot.”
Finn: “I need a pilot.”

Finn: “We’ll figure it out. We’ll use the Force!”
Han: “That’s not how the Force works!”

Rey: “You will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open.”
Stormtrooper: “What did you say?”
Rey: “You will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open.”
Stormtrooper: “I will tighten these restraints, scavenger scum!”
Rey: “You will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open.”
Stormtrooper: “I will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open.”
Rey: “And you will drop your weapon!”
Stormtrooper: “And I’ll drop my weapon.”

Han: “Escape now. Hug later.”

Finn: “Okay, stay calm, stay calm.”
Poe: “I am calm.”
Finn: “I was talking to myself.”

Finn: “He almost killed me six times!”
(Chewbacca grabs him by the throat.)
Finn: “Which is okay.”

Han: “Is there a garbage chute? A trash compactor?”
Finn: “Yeah, there is.”

Finn: “I need help with this big hairy thing!”

Finn: “What about that ship?”
Rey: “That ship’s garbage.”
(The ship they were running toward is blown up.)
Rey: “The garbage will do.”

Han: “You sure you’re up for this?”
Finn: “Hell no.”

Poe: “. . . do I talk first or do you talk first? I talk first?”

SUMMARY:

I know I picked at it a lot (I can’t help it; it’s my way!) but I really had a great time watching this in theater. I wish it could have been a little more imaginative at points, and I’m still making my peace with Han’s death, but credit where credit’s due: JJ Abrams gave me the kind of return to the series that The Phantom Menace never did.

MVP:

. . . you know, I think I’m going to give this one to John Boyega. It’s super close, and I think Daisy Ridley did an awesome job, but there was something about the humor that John Boyega brought to this film and franchise that really resonated with me. (Also, I’ve just got a thing for henchmen who are like, “Hmm. New life plan, maybe?)

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORAL:

As long as there’s light, you’ve got a chance. Once the sun is gone, though, RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Especially you, mentors. Get living while the living is good because, eventually, your father figure days are coming to an abrupt and depressing end.

Also, girls can do anything boys can do better.

Also, POE AND FINN 4EVER.

Okay. One week into 2016 and we finally have the last of my End of the Year posts. Welcome, friends, to the 2015 Movie Superlatives! (Feel free to imagine some loud cheering here, like you’re at a colosseum death match or something.)

Other people are around to tell you the Most Raw Method Performance or the Most Inspirational True Life Story of Whoever. I rarely watch those kinds of movies, though, unless someone’s forcing me to. If, on the other hand, you want to know who won awards like Worst Romance, Most Fabulous Fashion, and Chief Asshat, well, you’ve come to the right place.

OBLIGATORY MY GEEK BLASPHEMY DISCLAIMERS:

1. Any movie I watched for the first time this year, whether it came out in 2015 or not, is eligible. Movies are also eligible if it’s been so long since I’ve seen them that I remember virtually nothing about what happened.

2. I’ve created my typical Spoiler Section to discuss the more plot twist-y and death awards, but be warned: I am going to talk about the movies at least a little above that line. So if you haven’t seen the film in question and don’t want to know anything about it, like, scroll faster or something.

FAVORITE FEMALE HEROINE

TIE!

Furiosa (Mad Max); Ilsa (Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation); Rey (Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

I know. Starting off with a tie from the get-go, and a three-way one at that? I assure you, I’m properly ashamed of myself, but, well, I got over it, because I tried and tried and could not pick between these three women. Which, actually, is kind of awesome.

On one hand, Furiosa is obviously great. She is super competent and a better shot than our hero and has her own agenda that doesn’t have anything to do with winning a man. I was super bummed when I realized the planned sequel didn’t include her character because while I really enjoy Mad Max himself, Furiosa kind of owned that movie for me.

But Ilsa is also made of win. She saves the hero’s life no less than four times throughout Rogue Nation. She’s funny and kickass and I’m deeply happy that she, at least, is on board for the next Mission Impossible movie. In fact, I would happily watch either of these two ladies in their own spin-off franchises.

And then, of course, there’s Rey, our new chosen one from the Star Wars franchise. Rey is fun and scrappy and just basically everything a girl nerd could hope for in a Star Wars heroine. She was delightful to watch on the big screen, along with Furiosa and Ilsa, so yeah. I refuse to pick.

Honorable Mentions: Black Widow (Age of Ultron); Claire (Don’t Blink); Rita (Edge of Tomorrow)

BEST SIDEKICK

The Dog – The Artist

I feel a little bad, picking a dog over Simon Pegg (who would surely have won this award otherwise), but . . . this dog is just so cute, and useful too, like, he saves lives and everything. In fact, he’s kind of like Lassie, but way, way more adorable. (I don’t know what it is I have against Collies. I’ve just never particularly cared for them.)

Honorable Mentions: Benji (Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation); Stu (What We Do in the Shadows)

BEST SCENE STEALER

TIE!

Bill Paxton – Edge of Tomorrow & Jena Malone – The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part II

Oh, Bill Paxton. I just adore this guy. In the grand scheme of things, his character really isn’t particularly important, but Paxton brings such energy and humor to the role that he effectively steals the scene from Tom Cruise every single time they share it.

Still, I love everything about Jena Malone’s performance in The Hunger Games movies, too, except how little of it we get. Johanna is such a defiant, fierce, and unapologetically bloodthirsty badass, and I want to see Malone headline an antihero action film now.

Honorable Mentions: Benedict Wong (The Martian); John Goodman (The Artist); Coma-Doof Warrior (Mad Max: Fury Road)

BEST DYNAMIC DUO

Max & Furiosa – Mad Max: Fury Road

This was tough. Rey & Finn are right up there (Finn & Poe too, although they share less screen time), but ultimately I decided to go with Max and Furiosa because . . . well, just because I loved these two. I watched this movie and immediately went home and drowned myself in all kinds of Max & Furiosa fanfiction. (I don’t particularly ship Max/Furiosa in the movie itself, but I enjoyed reading shipper and friendship fic alike.) I didn’t just want them to have more individual adventures, you see; that would still be cool, but really, I wanted them to have more adventures together. They’re an awesome team, and I would pay good money to watch more of them.

Honorable Mentions: Rey & Finn (Star Wars: The Force Awakens); Finn & Poe (Star Wars: The Force Awakens); Ethan & Ilsa (Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation), George & Dog (The Artist)

BEST CASTING

James Spader – Avengers: Age of Ultron

This was incredibly close. There were a lot of great casting calls this year, and I almost gave this one to Colin Firth in Kingsman: The Secret Service because it was just such an inspired and unlikely choice. Ultimately, though, I had to go with James Spader, partially because it was so nice to see Marvel finally manage to come up with a charismatic villain besides Loki, but mostly because James Spader plays Ultron almost like he’s playing Tony Stark, and that really, really worked for me. (Ultron, BTW, also takes BEST VILLAIN.) I found him delightful, and I’m not convinced that there’s another actor out there who would have been more suited to the role.

Honorable Mentions: Colin Firth (Kingsman: The Secret Service); Clark Gable (Gone With the Wind); Malin Ackerman (The Final Girls); Eleanor Audley (Sleeping Beauty); Jean Dujardin (The Artist); Bérénice Bejo (The Artist); Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow); Rebecca Ferguson (Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation); Sidney Poiter (In the Heat of the Night); Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road); Matt Damon (The Martian); Daisy Ridley (Star Wars: The Force Awakens); John Boyega (Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

WORST CASTING

Elizabeth Berkley – Showgirls

Look, this is low-hanging fruit, I know. Showgirls has virtually nothing going for it. You certainly can’t blame the whole movie on Berkley’s performance when the entire thing is one colossal, boob-tastic train wreck . . . but still, she’s pretty unforgivably bad, and I mean right from the very start. I was laughing at her line deliveries within the first three minutes. That’s never a great sign for things to come.

Honorable Mentions: Calvin Lockhart (The Beast Must Die)

WORST WASTE OF AN ACTOR’S CONSIDERABLE TALENT

Gwendoline Christie – The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part II

Christie also didn’t have nearly enough to do in The Force Awakens, which was disappointing, but at least there will be sequels in which she’ll hopefully come back and have the opportunity to prove how truly awesome she is. Such will not be the case with Mockingjay, Part II, as the series is obviously over. Plus, her role was just even more depressingly useless, like, Commander Lyme truly could have been played by just about anybody. Christie’s a force on Game of Thrones; it sucks that she was so underutilized here.

Honorable Mentions: Kyle MacLachlan (Showgirls); Beth Grant (The Artist)

WORST INSPIRING SPEECH

Finnick’s Distraction Speech – The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part I

I’ll admit, I mostly made this award up last year to make fun of Snow White and the Huntsman, but Finnick’s speech in Mockingjay, Part I was pretty bad, too. Maybe not Snow White bad, but still. It’s distracting and muddled and doesn’t seem to know if it ought to be triumphant or not, which is particularly unfortunate, considering it’s supposed to be a pretty big character moment for Finnick.

WORST PRIORITIES

Let’s Drink and Chat Instead of, oh, Trying to SURVIVE – Fermat’s Room

This is the premise of Fermat’s Room: four brilliant mathematicians are lured into a giant death trap, which is basically the garbage compactor room from A New Hope (but with better furnishings and less underwater monsters). They have a certain amount of time to finish mathematical puzzles, and if they do not solve them in that time, the walls begin closing in. The only way they can stop the walls (at least temporarily) is to correctly solve the puzzle, so you think they’d, you know, get to doing that. And admittedly, it’s obvious from the get-go that the puzzles are just going to keep coming until they’re eventually squished, so yeah, it’s important to figure out why they’re all there in the first place and if there’s another way out. But with the way these characters act, often paying far more attention to their own slowly and dramatically delivered backstories than the actual fucking puzzles their lives depend on, you’d think they didn’t want to survive. Which is frustrating because their apparent apathy towards living cuts a lot of the tension from a really fun premise.

Honorable Mentions: Katniss only cares about saving Peeta (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part I); Scarlett’s continued love/obsession with Ashley (Gone With the Wind); Megan flirting with Tommy while her friends go missing (Friday the 13th, Part VI: Jason Lives); Jack taking Ella upstairs for a nap/sexy times during seriously spooky shit (Don’t Blink); George’s amazing whininess after his career fails (The Artist)

MOST FABULOUS FASHION

Scarlett’s White Dress – Gone With the Wind

This was not one of my favorite movies of the year, like, at all, but I can’t deny that the fashion was amazing. Scarlett has many dresses to choose from, of course, and I know her curtain gown is probably the more obvious pick, but I fell head over heels for this white dress with the red belt and bow. I didn’t think I was such a sucker for ruffles, honestly, but apparently I am.

Honorable Mentions: Caroline’s Dining Outfit (The Beast Must Die); Maleficent’s outfit (Sleeping Beauty)

WORST FASHION

Tom’s Entire Wardrobe – The Beast Must Die

Between Tom’s disco dining shirt (which is apparently his only fancy shirt, despite being a millionaire, because he wears it for two nights in a row) and his black leather outfit that he reserves for the weird dual purposes of napping and hunting . . . yeah, his wardrobe is as terrible as his wife’s is excellent.

BEST ANALOGY

Why Vampires Drink Virgin Blood – What We Do In the Shadows

I’ll just go ahead and give you the dialogue here:

Deacon: “I think we drink virgin blood because it sounds cool.”
Vladislav: “I think of it like this: if you were going to eat a sandwich, you would just enjoy it more if you knew no one had fucked it.”

It’s hard to argue that.

MOST UTTERLY RIDICULOUS TALENT

Eggsy’s Mad Driving Skillz – Kingsman: The Secret Service

Dude. Forget being a spy; this kid should just get rich by doing crazy driving stunts on Youtube and becoming an internet sensation. His joyriding scene is as delightful as it is ludicrous.

WORST HAIR

Sam’s terrible blond surfer cut – Don’t Blink

Dude, why? The only person who even semi-successfully rocked this look was Dick Casablancas, and he was supposed to be a giant tool, probably a natural blond, and ten years younger besides. This does not work for you at all.

Honorable Mentions: Bangs (Fermat’s Room); Zack (Showgirls)

BEST HAIR

Cressida – The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part I and II

Admittedly, I’m not really sure what Natalie Dormer could do to her hair to make her look less attractive, but. Yes, please. This is fantastic hair. (In fact, I’m still blown away by how great it looked on the red carpet. I might even try out this cut in a couple of years once my hair grows out long enough.)

Honorable Mentions: Ms. Perkins (John Wick)

FAVORITE SCORE/SOUNDTRACK

The Martian

This was an amazing soundtrack. For one, it featured music by David Bowie, Gloria Estefan, Donna Summer, and Gloria Gaynor, making it accurate to the source material (where disco was one of Mark Watney’s primary causes for despair, other than the lack of food and just the whole unfortunate ‘stuck alone on Mars’ thing). But it also just perfectly nailed the fun and upbeat tone of the story.

Honorable Mentions: Kingsman: The Secret Service; The Final Girls; The French Connection

FAVORITE OPENING CREDITS

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

I’m just a huge sucker for opening credits that come with flashes of the film itself. Since that’s always been Mission Impossible’s modus operandi, it’s no surprise Rogue Nation won this one.

Honorable Mention: Fermat’s Room

MOST OVERUSED WORD OR PHRASE

“Mockingjay” – The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part I

I know. It’s the name of your movie. It’s the inspirational code name of your heroine. I really get it. But there’s no need to use the word this many times, especially if you’re all going to keep using it in solemn tones, like, “She’s the Mockingjay.”

I KNOW. WE ALL KNOW. PLEASE STOP TELLING US.

Honorable Mention: “Shy girl with the clipboard and the guitar” (The Final Girls)

MOST WASTED POTENTIAL

The Beast Must Die

This could have been such a fun movie. A dinner party mystery where the guests have to discover which one among them is a werewolf? The cheese potential is FANTASTIC. And yet, aside from the Werewolf Break gimmick (which remains one of my favorite things I’ve seen all year, if not ever), this movie was long and dull and ridiculous in somehow completely boring ways. And let’s just say that the absurd 70’s score didn’t help matters any.

Stop remaking already great movies, Hollywood, and remake something like this.

Honorable Mentions: The Maze Runner; Fermat’s Room

MOST DISAPPOINTING MOVIE

The Avengers: Age of Ultron

Age of Ultron was not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. (It technically wins FAVORITE SUPERHERO MOVIE by default, but of course then it also wins LEAST FAVORITE SUPERHERO MOVIE too. Yes, I still haven’t seen Ant Man.) I own Age of Ultron and I like a lot about it, but after how awesome The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier were, Age of Ultron just did not live up to my expectations. There’s far, far too much going on, and while I desperately wanted to ship Bruce and Natasha, their romance felt mishandled to me, rushed and punctuated with some bizarre and kinda sexist presumptions on Bruce’s part, who has, thus far, never struck me as particularly sexist. And with the new lineup of B-team Avengers (save Falcon, who’s clearly the best), my interest in the whole MCU has suffered somewhat as a result.

Honorable Mentions: Don’t Blink; The French Connection

FAVORITE BOOK ADAPTATION

The Martian

Okay, this is kind of a cheat because I didn’t see any other book adaptations this year (or rather, not ones where I’d actually read the book in order to compare it). But it deserves special props for doing what no other book adaptation has ever done for me: I prefer the film to the book, even though I read the book first. And the book’s not bad at all, but it did frustrate way me in some ways that just didn’t happen with the movie. The movie itself is not perfect, of course, but it had a great cast, great cinematography, and was a lot of fun to watch.

FAVORITE BEST PICTURE WINNER

In the Heat of Night

Okay, so I only watched, like, four of my twelve Best Picture winners before just giving up on my challenge and accepting Showgirls/defeat. But I liked In the Heat of the Night. It’s a solid mystery and Sidney Poitier is amazing in it. It still kills me that he didn’t even get nominated for this role.

Honorable Mention: The Artist

LEAST FAVORITE BEST PICTURE WINNER

The French Connection

Gone With the Wind may have driven me desperately insane at certain points, but there was very, very little I liked about The French Connection at all. The score was fun, and there was one good story turn at the end of the movie that I didn’t see coming. One pretty awesome car chase scene. And . . . that’s about all. Otherwise, it was a slow, kind of miserable watch with a protagonist I despised and a story that didn’t seem to be saying much. I’m honestly still at a loss as to why it won so many Academy Awards in the first place.

Honorable Mention: Gone With the Wind

LEAST FAVORITE MOVIE

The Beast Must Die

It’s not just that this is, without a doubt, the worst film I saw all year. It’s presumably very low-budget and also from the 1970’s; I can give it a pass on some things, like egregiously terrible night-for-day shots or using a German Shepherd as a werewolf. (Still beats BTVS. Sorry, Whedon.) But it should have been fun and engaging or, at the very least, entertaining in its ridiculousness, not so tediously slow that you just wanna drive spikes in your eyes. (Well. If you’re the melodramatic sort that favors eye-spiking over more reasonable solutions, like just turning off the movie, that is.)

Albus Dumbledore is in this movie. Grand Moff Tarkin is in this movie. THERE IS AN HONEST TO GOD WEREWOLF BREAK. And still, none of that can save this one from being a total disaster.

Honorable Mentions: The French Connection; Gone With the Wind; Showgirls

FAVORITE MOVIE

TIE!

The Final Girls & Mad Max: Fury Road

If ever there was a movie made just for me, it’s The Final Girls. It’s a hilarious horror comedy, a moving story about grief, a fantastic play on horror tropes, and features not only girl friendships but a romantic lead who actually admits his fear. I hoped I would like this movie, but even I don’t think I was expecting how much I would fall in love with it. (By the by, it also wins for BEST EXAMPLE OF A MOVIE TURNING A STORY ON ITS HEAD.)

But Mad Max: Fury Road was pretty damn awesome too. I had such a great time watching it in theater (it, in fact, narrowly wins out over The Force Awakens and Rogue Nation as my FAVORITE MOVIE I SAW IN THEATERS), and it’s really grown on me over time and with repeat viewings, too. I still feel that its victories in feminism say more about the failings of the action genre than they do about the movie itself (although this year has given us some awesome moments for women in action films, like maybe we’re on an upward trend?), but that doesn’t mean those moments aren’t worthy of praise. And this was just a gloriously, gorgeously, insane two-hour car chase of a movie. This is popcorn done right.

Honorable Mentions: Star Wars: The Force Awakens; Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation; The Martian; Kingsman: The Secret Service

MOST ANTICIPATED MOVIE OF 2016

Deadpool

Yeah, it’s not the film I thought I was going to pick, either.

I’m nervous about Deadpool, but mostly because it looks so fucking awesome that I don’t want it to disappoint. (That, and my God, does Ryan Reynolds deserve a win.) I’m super pumped about seeing it because it just looks like so much great R-rated fun, like this really is a superhero story we haven’t seen on the big screen before.)

Civil War, on the other hand, also looks pretty fantastic . . . but I find I’m much more trepidatious about it after being disappointed by Age of Ultron. (Plus, while I love me some angst, I don’t know how much I’m looking forward to Steve vs. Tony or Steve vs. Natasha.) I was into the Star Trek Beyond trailer (yes, Beastie Boys and all), but Into Darkness was my Most Disappointing Movie in 2013, so that impression’s hard to shake. And I’m absolutely going to see Dawn of Justice, but . . . well, my hopes aren’t exactly high.

So, yeah. While there’s a lot of big movies coming this year that I plan to see, I think I’m looking forward to Deadpool more than anything.

Honorable Mentions: Captain America: Civil War; Pride and Prejudice and Zombies; Star Trek Beyond; Suicide Squad

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

All right. Here we go with everything else.

WEAKEST FEMALE CHARACTER

Roxy – Kingsman: The Secret Service

I thought for sure Nomi from Showgirls would get this, but as awful as she is, Nomi at least has her own agenda. Roxy, though. Kingsman wants to pretend that Roxy is somehow important, since she becomes Lancelot and has an oh-so-important mission at the end of the movie. But let’s be real here: that mission was bullshit, and Roxy serves zero purpose in this story except to worry about the hero. She is a cliche I’ve seen a dozen times over and is especially disappointing here since Kingsman was, other than its treatment of female characters, a lot of fun.

(Since I’m on the subject: Kingsman also wins FILM THAT SORELY TESTED MY FEMINISM. It’s certainly not more offensive than Showgirls or Gone With the Wind–both of which featured awful, awful rape stories–but in 2015 I kind of want better than useless female characters, sex trophy characters, and bullshit gratuitous ass shots.)

Honorable Mentions: Nomi (Showgirls); Megan (Friday the 13th, Part VI: Jason Lives); Oliva (Fermat’s Room); The Princess (Kingsman: The Secret Service); Delores (In the Heat of the Night); Teresa (The Maze Runner)

BEST BROMANCE

Ethan & Benji – Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

The Science Bros fangirl in me is dying a little right now, but Bruce and Tony don’t have so much time together in Age of Ultron, and besides, I like Ethan and Benji’s friendship. Because Ethan’s GONE ROGUE, Benji has to fool a polygraph every week and act like the bromance is dead, like he doesn’t still totally heart his big action hero buddy. It’s so damn awwww. Also, Ethan tries to nobly protect Benji and send him out of danger, as BFF spies are wont to do, and Benji, appropriately, yells at Ethan for it. That was a pretty good movie moment for me.

Honorable Mentions: Tony & Bruce (Avengers: Age of Ultron); Finn & Poe (Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

BEST LADYMANCE

Max, Vicki, & Gertie – The Final Girls

There isn’t a lot of time spent on girl friendships in Hollywood, so I appreciate it when a movie takes the time to have female characters know other female characters and have dialogue that doesn’t just boil down to “Oh my god, you stole my man!” Here, Gertie and Max are best friends, Vicki and Max used to be best friends, and Gertie and Vicki hate each other. The dock scene between the three of them is just perfect, not to mention the little touches beforehand to show you that Vicki still cares about Max, even though Max pulled away. And Vicki and Gertie dying together, holding hands. UGH. Stop killing my heart, movie.

BEST PLATONIC FRIENDSHIP

TIE!

Rey & Finn – Star Wars: The Force Awakens; Natasha & Steve – Avengers: Age of Ultron

I fear Rey and Finn aren’t going to stay platonic for the rest of the series, but I hope they do, and not just because I desperately ship Finn & Poe. I just really like their energy as a friends, and it would mean a lot to me if Finn was willing to infiltrate the First Order (who he fears more than anything) to save someone he wasn’t in luv with, and likewise, if Rey was desperate to protect him even though she doesn’t necessarily want to ride him like a pogo stick.

But there’s just something about Natasha and Steve, man. I know Natasha and Clint have been best buddies for longer, and my interest in Natasha and Steve being bros is partially fueled by The Winter Solider (where they have much more time together). Still, I just adore that scene in Age of Ultron where Cap’s like, “You and Bruce? Yeah, I ship it.” I just want to watch these two give each other dating advice for, like, ever.

Honorable Mentions: Clint & Natasha (Avengers: Age of Ultron); Rhett & Mellie (Gone With the Wind)

BEST CAMEO

Robert Picardo – Don’t Blink

I know there are probably more high profile cameos from bigger movies that I could have picked, but there’s just something so inherently right about the choice of Robert Picardo as this enigmatic government agent dude who, apparently, never blinks. Maybe I was just happy to see Robert Picardo again. I’m not ashamed of that. I miss you and your totally random opera, Doctor!

Honorable Mentions: Mark Hamil (Kingsman: The Secret Service); Hayley Atwell (Avengers: Age of Ultron); Majel Barrett (Westworld)

WORST ROMANCE

Scarlett & Rhett – Gone With the Wind

Nope. I don’t even want to hear it, you guys. I am not wrong here. YOU ARE ALL THE CRAZY ONES.

Look, Rhett and Scarlett totally had chemistry. I will give you that. And I shipped them too, for a while, but you know when I stopped shipping them? About that unfortunate time when Rhett raped his wife. I know a lot of people don’t consider marital rape to be a thing, and that you have to take the time period into consideration, and that rape is weirdly a part of many romance stories, but . . . nope. Not having it. (This movie wins WORST RAPE MOMENT/SUBPLOT/SCENE as well, but Showgirls came very, very close. These two are just awful to one another, and by the end of this movie I absolutely don’t ship them at all.

Melanie, though. Everyone can be shipped with Melanie.

Honorable Mentions: Nomi & James (Showgirls); Tommy & Megan (Friday the 13th: Part VI: Jason Lives); Sleeping Beauty & Prince Charming (Sleeping Beauty)

FAVORITE OTP

Finn & Poe – Star Wars: The Force Awakens

It may never happen in canon, but it will live forever in my heart. And on A03.

Honorable Mention: Scarlett & Mellie (Gone With the Wind)

BEST BOO-YAH MOMENT

Virgil Tibbs slaps Endicott – In the Heat of the Night

This isn’t necessarily the gasp-inducing and revolutionary moment that it surely was 1967, but it was still extremely satisfying to watch. I love you, Mr. Tibbs.

Honorable Mentions: Furiosa killing Immortan Joe (Mad Max: Fury Road); Furiosa shooting bad guy over Max’s shoulder (Mad Max: Fury Road); Katniss killing Alma Coin (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part II); Rey picking up the lightsaber (Star Wars: The Force Awakens); Finn picking up the lightsaber (Star Wars: The Force Awakens); Natasha making the Hulk come out and play (The Avengers: Age of Ultron); Scarlett killing Union Soldier and burying him with Mellie’s help (Gone With the Wind); Ilsa killing the Bone Doctor (Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation)

WORST HEART KNOWLEDGE

Brandt and Luther divine Ethan’s location by searching for Ilsa after finding a sketched picture of her in one of Ethan’s hideouts and realizing, somehow, that he trusts her – Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Yeah, it’s as dumb as it sounds. Actually, it’s worse: Ilsa’s picture isn’t the only one they find. They also find a picture of Big Bad Solomon Lane. But Brandt and Luther can tell just by looking at Ethan’s sketch that he obviously trusts Ilsa, so that’s whose picture they run through facial recognition. Why they don’t just, I don’t know, run both pictures through facial recognition, I could hardly guess. But apparently they only had time for one, and I’m guessing they could see kindness in Ilsa’s eyes or something?

It is a very special kind of bullshit because there is absolutely zero need for it.

Honorable Mentions: Megan knows that Tommy’s good, somehow (Friday the 13^th, Part VI: Jason Lives); Claire knows Tracy is pregnant just by glancing at her (Don’t Blink); Popeye is sure the deal hasn’t happened yet for no apparent reason (The French Connection)

WORST EXPOSITION

Gone With the Wind

Cause holy shit racism. That’s why.

WORST FORESHADOW

President Snow taunts Katniss – The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part I

Okay, this isn’t dead tribble bad or anything. Still, I groaned out loud when President Snow, smirking as hard as Donald Sutherland can possibly smirk, tells Katniss, “It’s the things we love most that destroy us. I want you to remember that I said that.” They’ve just been talking about Peeta the very second before, so basically everyone in the audience now knows that Peeta is going to try and kill Katniss. But in case it isn’t clear enough, Snow also tells Katniss that he knows the good guys are trying to rescue Peeta, and shortly after that, Gale says, apparently completely befuddled, that Snow just let them go.

Gosh. WHAT COULD IT ALL MEAN?

Honorable Mentions: Chuck’s token (The Maze Runner); “As long as there’s light, we’ve got a chance.” (Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

WORST TWIST

Oliva slept with Hilbert – Fermat’s Room

Part of the fun of escape-the-room thrillers is learning what secrets each of our characters are holding and how those secrets fit into the bigger puzzle of why they’re all there and how they’re going to escape. Oliva’s big secret, though, is that she apparently had super depraved sex with the old guy after he seduced her with Sexy Online Chess, all so he could confirm something he could easily have figured out on Google. And that’s it. That’s all our one female character brings to the table. It’s massively disappointing.

WORST DEATH

TIE!

Bonnie Blue – Gone With the Wind & Fermat – Fermat’s Room

Because dying by irony is the very, very worst, unless it’s actually supposed to be vindictive and/or funny. (And even then, it’s a hard trick to pull off.) Little Bonnie Blue dies for even more needless melodrama in the exact same way Scarlett’s father kicked the bucket, while Fermat dies while finally putting on a safety device that’s been triggered to kill him. Needless and annoying, the both of them.

BEST DEATH

Nancy – The Final Girls

This scene also almost won out for Best Individual Song because “Bette Davis Eyes” is now inextricably linked to tears and death in my mind. Thanks, you bastards.

Seriously, though. This is such a good scene. Nancy sacrificing herself so that Max can be the final girl isn’t a hugely shocking plot twist, but it’s still a huge gut punch when it happens, partially because Max has fought so hard to save her, and partially because Nancy is lip-synching the same song that Amanda was when she died. (Before this year, I could never have possibly anticipated that someone doing a PG-rated strip dance while lip-synching to a Kim Carnes song would someday make me tear up. Also, this movie definitely wins MOVIE THAT MADE ME CRY LIKE A BABY, although The Martian was also a surprising contender for that one. Damn you, Matt Damon.)

It’s not surprising that Nancy doesn’t get to live in the real world, going to college and discovering the joys of online shopping, but you’re still hoping for it anyway, so when that hope is taken away, man. Brutal. And yet Malin Ackerman manages to bring a certain amount of joy and love to the scene, which takes serious talent.

Honorable Mentions: Cage — ah, the one where he unsuccessfully tries to roll away to freedom under a truck (Edge of Tomorrow); Harry (Kingsman: The Secret Service); John (Westworld); Gertie & Vickie (The Final Girls)

JIMMY, NOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Daisy – John Wick

Sometimes, even often, the best executed deaths aren’t necessarily the ones that have you doing your best “Will Smith in Independence Day after Harry Connick Jr. bought the farm” impression. Sometimes, movies kill helpless, adorable dogs.

I won’t pretend I’m one of those people who gets so upset about fictional animal deaths that I can’t watch movies where they take place, but that doesn’t mean I clap with fiendish delight when someone shoots The Most Adorable Dog alive, either. (Really, there should have been a superlative this year about Cutest Dog, but I couldn’t possibly choose between this dog and the one from The Artist. Also, the dog from The Beast Must Die, who wasn’t quite as ridiculously endearing as the first two, but still pretty cute and also the only character you’re really rooting for, alas.)

I knew going in, of course, that Daisy wasn’t going to survive, that this was the movie that would make Dogs in Refrigerators a thing, and still the dog’s death was like, “NOOOOOO! NOT YOU, DOG, NOT YOU!!!!!!”

Honorable Mentions: Vickie & Gertie (The Final Girls); The Dog (The Beast Must Die); Finnick (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part II)

ULTIMATE SURVIVOR

Mark Watney – The Martian

Okay, this isn’t much of a spoiler. Can you imagine how depressing of a movie this would be if they didn’t manage to save Matt Damon? Still, the dude got stranded on Mars, and not for like a couple of hours and with a giant supply of hot dogs and Pop Tarts, you know?You manage to fend off starvation by using your own poop to grow potatoes on another planet, and you pretty much have Ultimate Survivor in the bag.

Honorable Mentions: Katniss (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part II)

DARWIN AWARD

Duncan – The Final Girls

Because even in a horror comedy, turning your back on the supposedly harmless serial killer to take a selfie with him means you deserve to die. Badly.

CHIEF ASSHAT

Galois – Fermat’s Room

Galois (or Bangs, as I referred to him throughout my review) is just generally a whiny and useless piece of shit throughout the film, but he manages to be this year’s Chief Asshat because, in the midst of a giant temper tantrum, he breaks the one thing that can stop the room he’s in from squeezing shut and crushing him (and others) to death. And let me be clear about this: it’s not like a careless whoopsie, like he drops the PDA and accidentally steps on it because he’s not wearing his glasses or something. The one thing keeping everyone from squishy horrible doom, and Galois throws it to the floor and busts it while acting like a godamn three-year-old.

Ultimately, the good guys escape, but it’s zero thanks to this fucker. Disappointingly, nobody slaps him across the face or tries to drown him in the lake.

Honorable Mentions: Tom (The Beast Must Die); Popeye (The French Connection); Scarlett (Gone With the Wind); Rhett (Gone With the Wind); Tommy (Friday the 13th, Part VI: Jason Lives); Sheriff (Friday the 13th, Part VI: Jason Lives); Zack (Showgirls); James (Showgirls); Nomi (Showgirls); Iosef (John Wick); Endicott (In the Heat of the Night)

BEST FIGHT SCENE

Harry vs The Westboro Church – Kingsman: The Secret Service

Well, okay. Practically the Westboro Church, anyway.

There were some really awesome fight sequences this year but unfortunately for everyone else, this award was pretty much decided way back in April because the glorious, wanton violence on display here was just on a whole other level. Watching Colin Firth kill the hell out of everybody in that church was easily one of my favorite moments in theater this year; hell, probably one of my favorite theater moments of all time.

Yes, I’m aware that makes me sound like a sociopath. I don’t care.

Honorable Mentions: Max vs. Furiosa & Wives vs. Nux (Mad Max: Fury Road); John Wick vs. Henchmen at Club (John Wick); Hulkbuster vs. Hulk (Age of Ultron); Ilsa & Ethan vs. Henchmen (Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation); Ilsa vs. Bone Doctor (Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation); Rey & Finn vs Kylo Ren (Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

BEST INDIVIDUAL SONG

TIE!

“Pomp & Circumstance” – Kingsman: The Secret Service; “Think” (Kaleida) – John Wick

Oh, I just give up. These are awesome for completely different reasons. The head-bursting scene set to “Pomp and Circumstance” is just so perfectly hilarious. I laughed so hard watching this in theater. Easily one of my favorite parts of the whole movie.

But I adore “Think” too. (It’s the music that plays for the first 2 1/2 minutes of the video.) It’s awesome and unusual, absolutely not the kind of song that people generally use for scenes like “Big Badass Infiltrates the Bad Guys’ Club.” Fictional violence set to unusual music is the best kind of fictional violence. Also, I own this song and am listening to it now.

Honorable Mentions: “Bette Davis Eyes” – Kim Carnes (The Final Girls); “Mickey” (The Final Girls); “Freebird” – Lynyrd Skynyrd (Kingsman: The Secret Service)

MOST UNINTENTIONALLY HILARIOUS MOMENT

The, uh, old mentor returns for some sage advice – Showgirls

Oh, man. This one was hard. The Beast Must Die had some hysterically bad moments, and of course Showgirls is notorious for it’s epileptic aquatic sex scene. But still, there was just something about Robert Davi’s character coming back like he was some godamn Obi-Wan/father figure type instead of, you know, an old rapey boss, and being all, “Saw the show. You were good, real good. You take care, kid . . . it must be weird, not having anybody cum on you.”

I was dying because seriously. What the flying fuck?

Honorable Mentions: Epileptic aquatic sex (Showgirls); The Werewolf Break (The Beast Must Die); The heartless murder of an innocent helicopter (The Beast Must Die); Surviving the car crash (Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation); “I never loved you!” (The Artist); “That dog was the final gift from my DYING WIFE.” (John Wick); Gale promising to mercy kill Peeta like it’s some big sacrifice on his part (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part II)

WORST PLOT CONTRIVANCE

Not using amnesia darts on kids who fail the Loyalty Test – Kingsman: The Secret Service

Honestly. Why do you even have amnesia darts if you’re not going to administer them to people who prove that they will betray you if violent, squishy death is on the line? There’s no way that King Douchebag (not pictured above) would still have his memories intact after this. And yet he has to, even if it makes absolutely zero sense, because a) he has to screw Eggsy over at an inopportune time and b) if all the flunking recruits got their memories wiped, Eggsy couldn’t save the day at the end.

It doesn’t ruin the movie or anything, but it is pretty stupidly convenient.

Honorable Mentions: Almost all the employees conveniently gathered in one place to die (Westworld); Viggo not killing John Wick (John Wick); Jack taking Ella upstairs for a nap/sexy times (Don’t Blink)

WORST ENDING

Don’t Blink

For the same reason it wins for WORST PAYOFF: there is none. At all. I was surprised by how much I got into Don’t Blink (honestly, the characters and dialogue in this movie are better than 80% of most horror films, at least), but that conclusion didn’t even feel open-ended to me; it felt like the filmmakers had no idea how to solve their mystery and just gave up trying. (Seriously, the hell is up with the weather in this place?) And while that’s probably not the actual case, I was deeply disappointed by this film’s total lack of resolution.

Honorable Mentions: Edge of Tomorrow; The Hunger Games: Mockingjay; Part II; Gone With the Wind

BEST ENDING

The Artist

First, there are worse ways to end your movie than with a big, joyful tap dance. I can’t lie: I love me a good tap dance. More importantly, though, the transition back to sound is beautifully done and is especially effective after the past two hours sans any kind of noise at all, other than music. Hearing everyone’s voices (well, save Bérénice Bejo’s, sadly) is definitely jarring, but in a weirdly great way. The fact that I wanted to shake George around for most of the movie did detract from my enjoyment of The Artist, but the conclusion itself is perfection.

Honorable Mentions: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part I; Star Wars: The Force Awakens; Mad Max: Fury Road; The Final Girls

FAVORITE MOVIE QUOTE

“Sir, Ethan Hunt is the living manifestation of destiny.” – Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Because Alec Baldwin manages to say it with a straight face, and because it makes me laugh every single time I think about it. Don’t you just desperately want to have the opportunity to say something like that? I should start putting it in my writer’s bio when I submit shit: Carlie St. George is a Clarion West graduate, an active SFWA member, and the living manifestation of destiny.

And now, finally, I give you all the other awesome movie quotes. Warning: there are, uh, more than a few, and that’s with me instituting my Seven Quotes Per Movie Rule. (It was supposed to be five, but I basically started weeping once I got to Age of Ultron, so I upped the max limit.)

Anton: “Hey, don’t swear! What are we?”
Werewolves: “We’re werewolves, not swear-wolves.” – What We Do In the Shadows

Vladislav: “Stu is the first human friend I’ve had in a long time. With humans, there is the tendency to die.” – What We Do In the Shadows

Deacon: “I think we drink virgin blood because it sounds cool.”
Vladislav: I think of it like this: if you were going to eat a sandwich, you would just enjoy it more if you knew no one had fucked it.” – What We Do in the Shadows

Viago: “Yeah, some of our clothes are from our victims. You might bite someone and then think, ‘Oooh, these are nice pants’.” – What We Do In the Shadows

Galois: “You think it’ll resist?”
Pascal: “Pressure is unpredictable. It can turn coal into dust or a diamond.”
Hilbert: “Was that Archimedes?”
Pascal: “MacGyver.” – Fermat’s Room

Ultron: “I’m glad you asked that because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan.” – Avengers: Age of Ultron

Natasha: “I adore you . . . but I need the Other Guy.” – Avengers: Age of Ultron

Tony: “How do we cope with something like that?”
Steve: “Together.”
Tony: “We’ll lose.”
Steve: “We’ll do that together, too.” — Avengers: Age of Ultron

Tony: “Good talk.”
Henchman in Background: “No, it wasn’t!” – Avengers: Age of Ultron

Natasha: “Thor, report on the Hulk.”
Thor: “The gates of Hell are filled with the screams of his victims.” – Avengers: Age of Ultron

Steve: “Sorry for barging in.”
Tony: “Yeah, we would’ve called ahead, but we were busy having no idea you existed.” –Avengers: Age of Ultron

Hawkeye: “No one would know, no one would know. Last I saw, Ultron was sitting on him. The bastard will be dearly missed. I miss him already.” – Avengers: Age of Ultron

Rhett: “You should be kissed often and by someone who knows how.” – Gone With the Wind

Rhett: “This is an honorable proposal of marriage made at what I consider a most opportune moment. I can’t go all my life waiting to catch you between husbands.” – Gone With the Wind

Scarlett: “Well, I’ve guess I’ve done murder. I won’t think about that now. I’ll think about that tomorrow.” – Gone With the Wind

Scarlett: “Go on! I want you to go! I hope a cannonball lands slap on you! I hope you’re blown into a million pieces! I — ”
Rhett: “Never mind the rest. I follow your general idea.” – Gone With the Wind

Harry: “Boys, I’ve had a rather emotional day, so whatever your beef with Eggsy is — and I’m sure it’s well-founded — I’d appreciate it if you could just leave us in peace until I’ve finished this lovely pint of Guinness.” – Kingsman: The Secret Service

Harry: “I’m a Catholic whore, currently enjoying congress out of wedlock with my black Jewish boyfriend who works at a military abortion clinic. Hail Satan, and have a lovely afternoon, madam.” – Kingsman: The Secret Service

Alma Coin: “Do you have any other conditions?”
Katniss: “. . . my sister gets to keep her cat.” – The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part I

Finnick: “It takes ten times as long to pull yourself together than it does to fall apart.” – The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part I

Alma Coin: “And if you’re killed?”
Katniss: “Make sure you get it on camera.” – The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part I

Kurt: “What are you, a fag? You don’t like some nice big hoots? Hooting!”
Chris: “My dads are gay, so shut the hell up.”
Kurt: “Yeah, right! Gay guys can’t have kids! They’re too busy going to discos and having sex with each other. It’s actually a pretty cool lifestyle.” – The Final Girls

Nancy: “I could like go to college!”
Max: “Right!”
Nancy: “And drive a convertible.”
Max: “Totally!”
Nancy: “And go shopping at the mall!”
Max: “Actually, people don’t really shop at malls anymore; they shop online.”
Nancy: “What’s online?”
Max: “Never mind, I made that up. Just keep going.”
Nancy: “But I want to shop online. And I want to start over, you know, I could be different in the Valley . . . what if I don’t make it, Max?”
Max: “This time you will.” – The Final Girls

Chris: “How you holding up?”
Max: “I’ve been better. How about you?”
Chris: “I’m really scared.” – The Final Girls

Max: “Vicki, you don’t have to die.”
Vicki: “I’m the mean girl in the 80’s horror movie and we’re past the midpoint, so, you know, I’d say that I’ve overstayed my welcome.” – The Final Girls

Mark Watney: “I don’t want to come off as arrogant here, but I’m the greatest botanist on this planet.” – The Martian

Mark Watney: “In the face of overwhelming odds, I’m left with only one option: I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this.” – The Martian

Mark Watney: “They say once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially colonized it. So, technically, I colonized Mars. In your face, Neil Armstrong!” – The Martian

Mark Watney: “If the oxygenator breaks down, I’ll suffocate. If the water reclaimer breaks down, I’ll die of thirst. If the Hab beaches, I’ll just kind of implode. If none of those things happen, I’ll eventually run out of food and starve to death. So, yeah.” – The Martian

Mark Watney: “Of course I’m going to be the fastest man to ever travel in space, because they’re sending me up in a convertible.” – The Martian

Mark Watney: “No, I will not ‘turn the beat around’.” – The Martian

Mark Watney: “Mars will come to fear my botany powers.” – The Martian

Lizbeth: “I’ve seen enough horror movies to know any weirdo wearing a mask is never friendly.” – Friday the 13th, Part VI: Jason Lives

Benji: “Important note: the profile is in Slot 108. And a slightly more important note: if you haven’t switched that profile before I reach the gait analysis, I’m dead.” – Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Benji: “She tried to shoot me!”
Ethan: “That doesn’t make her a bad person.” – Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Benji: “That’s not your decision to make, Ethan! I am a field agent! I know the risks! More than that, I am your friend, no matter . . . what I con a polygraph every week. Now you called me because you needed my help. And you still do, so I’m staying. And that’s all we’re going to say about that.” – Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Benji: “Well, we have a European Head of State here at the same time we’re looking for a nefarious terrorist. And I’m sure the two things are completely unrelated.” – Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Benji: “Join the IMF, see the world! On a monitor. In a closet.” – Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

John Wick: “I lost everything. That dog was the final gift from my dying wife.” – John Wick

Maleficent: “Oh, they’re hopeless. A disgrace to the forces of evil.” – Sleeping Beauty

Alex: “The needle’s been on empty for the last ten miles.”
Sam: “Okay, there’s usually gas in the tank when the needle’s on empty.”
Alex: “Yeah, I’m well aware of the relationship between gas tank and the needle. I’ve actually driven a car before? Uh, however, eventually when the needle’s on empty long enough, it really means it.” – Don’t Blink

Jake: “Where are you going to go?
Alex: “Um, anywhere but here?”
Jake: “You have no gas. Your car’s on fumes.”
Alex: “Well, now I’m going to fucking find out how far fumes will get me, cause I’m not spending any more time in this bad fucking Twilight Zone camp-like death trap of a weekend getaway. Now fuck off.”  – Don’t Blink

Amelia: “God is striking down all who have fallen off the path of righteousness.”
Alex: “Okay! But Tracy? Tracy was studying to be a kindergarten teacher. Tracy was a devout Catholic. So you tell me, why did Tracy get swallowed up by the Holy Fucking Spirit?”
Claire: “Lets, uh. Let’s pray over here, shall we?” – Don’t Blink

Alex: “I could kill him, and he’d be like a . . . a zombie? Or something? Would that explain any of this shit?”
Jack: “Not really, no.” – Don’t Blink

Claire: “Can we fix it?”
Jack: “We can try. We could find a fusebox. I don’t know where the hell it is. It’s probably outside.”
Claire: “I’m not going outside.” – Don’t Blink

Jack: “I just want it to be over. If I’m going to disappear, I just want it to happen already.”
Claire: “You know, all I ever really wanted to be was a biologist. I worked my ass of in college. I was always driven and focused and I never really lived outside of that, you know? I was never popular. I’ve been to six movies since I started up my thesis, and every single one I went to alone, so I don’t want to die. I don’t want to disappear because I really haven’t had that much time just being here to begin with.”
Jack: “Okay. Okay, I won’t give up hope, okay?”
Claire: “Okay . . . I need to tell you something, but you have to promise not to laugh.”
Jack: “What?”
Claire: “I have to go to the bathroom.”
Jack: “That’s fantastic. Sorry.” – Don’t Blink

Jack: “This is really awkward.”
Claire: “Yeah, you don’t have to tell me that.”
Jack: ” . . . can I put Charlotte down now?” – Don’t Blink

Nux: “What a day, what a lovely day!” – Mad Max: Fury Road

Max: “You know, hope is a mistake. If you don’t fix what’s broke, you’ll go insane.” – Mad Max: Fury Road

Furiosa: “Out here, everything hurts.” – Mad Max: Fury Road

Ms. Giddy: “We are not things! We are not things!” – Mad Max: Fury Road

The Dag: “I thought he wasn’t insane anymore.” – Mad Max: Fury Road

Virgil: “They call me MISTER Tibbs!” – In the Heat of the Night

Gillespie: “Any reason you have to leave today?”
Virgil: “Lots of reasons.” – In the Heat of the Night

Gillespie: “I got the motive which is money and the body which is dead.” – In the Heat of the Night

Virgil: “There’s white time in jail and there’s colored time in jail. The worst kind of time you can do is colored time.” – In the Heat of the Night

Gillespie: “I do want to thank you for offering such a powerful piece of manpower as Virgil Tibbs.” – In the Heat of the Night

Cage: “Master Sergeant Farrell, you’re an American.”
Farrell: “No, sir! I’m from Kentucky.” – Edge of Tomorrow

Rita: “Ten minutes.”
Cage: “Okay.”
Rita: “And then I’m killing you.”
Cage: “Fine.” – Edge of Tomorrow

Cage: “Wait a second, wait a second! I’ve been thinking . . . I mean, this thing is in my blood. So maybe there’s some way I can transfer it to you.”
Rita: “I’ve tried everything. It doesn’t work.”
Cage: “I mean, have you tried . . . you know . . . ALL the options?”
Rita: “Oh, you mean sex? Yeah, I tried it.”
Cage: “. . . how many times?”
Rita: “All right.”
(Rita hits Cage with a giant robot) – Edge of Tomorrow

Peeta: “You love me. Real or not real?” – The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part II

Poe: “Why are you helping me?”
Finn: “Because it’s the right thing to do.”
Poe: “. . .you need a pilot.”
Finn: “I need a pilot.” – Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Finn: “We’ll figure it out. We’ll use the Force!”
Han: “That’s not how the Force works!” – Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Han: “Escape now. Hug later.” – Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Poe: “. . . do I talk first or do you talk first? I talk first?” – Star Wars: The Force Awakens

And that’s it! HA! I’m finally done! (Also, damn it. Why is there never victory chocolate around when I could use some?)

Well, my friends. The time has come.

CIVIL WAR IS UPON US.

DISCLAIMER:

There will be no spoilers for Civil War until the aptly named and easily avoidable Spoiler Section. However, there will be SPOILERS throughout the review for previous movies in the Marvel franchise, particularly Age of Ultron and The Winter Soldier.

SUMMARY:

The Sokovia Accords are created to ensure superheroes work solely for the UN, rather than as vigilantes with no oversight. The Avengers are divided on whether to sign the Accords, with half the team agreeing with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) that it’s the responsible thing to do, and half following Steve Roger’s (Chris Evans) lead when he refuses to sign. Things become further complicated when a manhunt begins for Cap’s BFF and wanted fugitive, Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan).

NOTES:

1. I’m not going to lie, folks. I was a little worried going into this movie. I know I probably shouldn’t have been. I adore The Winter Soldier, which the Russo brothers also directed, and the early reviews of Civil War were glowing so hard that they were basically radioactive. (Well, Hollywood radioactive anyway. It’s a very specific shade of bright neon green.) But I worried anyway, due to some combo of these factors:

1A) I really wanted to like this movie, and expectations are a bitch.

1B) Especially taking Age of Ultron into consideration, which genuinely has some good stuff going for it but did ultimately disappoint me.

1C) There are a lot of players in Civil War, and the more you’ve got to juggle, the more likely everything’s gonna come crashing down.

1D) If I didn’t understand where both Captain America and Iron Man were coming from, I was going to have serious problems. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ll forgive a lot if I’m having a good time watching something, but if I don’t buy character motivation, you will lose me entirely, and that goes double for the characters I actually like. If this movie was so hell bent on making Tony the antagonist that it turned him into an insanely idiotic jackass (the way he was in the Civil War comics, apparently), I was not going to be happy and you were all going to suffer for it.

Thankfully, that is (mostly) not the case.

2. In truth, Civil War is a lot of fun. It effortlessly juggles its ridiculously large band of superheroes like you would not believe; more ensemble casts (looking at you, Star Trek) could stand to take a cue from this film. Almost everyone gets something pretty memorable to do; even the smaller roles that are basically just glorified cameos are exciting to watch. It’s fairly impressive.

The movie also manages to strike a pretty perfect balance between Funny As Hell and Angsty As Shit, which, of course, is just my favorite thing in the world. All the Laughter, All the Feels should basically be my fan motto.

And, of course, the action scenes and battle sequences are just spectacular.

The One Scene That Everyone’s Talking About with, like, eighteen different superheroes? (Okay, actually twelve.) You guys. It’s so good. Like, okay, there’s this spot inside my soul where all my impossible childhood dreams live, right, and one of those dreams comes from being a huge X-Men: The Animated Series fan as a kid. In the opening titles, there’s a shot of all the good mutants and all the evil mutants running at each other in some big, epic battle, and I’ve always wanted to watch that scene–but, unfortunately, it was never a real scene, just something they made to look cool for the opener. This disappointment has lingered in my childish heart for YEARS . . . but now, it’s been lifted because the giant ass battle in the middle of Civil War pretty much just gave me the best live-action version of that scene (albeit with different heroes) that I could have ever imagined. For that alone, I have to love this movie.

3. Still, that doesn’t mean I don’t have some problems with the film . . . because I’m me, yes, but also because as awesome as this film is, there are certain things that could have been handled better (or, in some cases, just eliminated entirely). I can’t get into too many details outside the Spoiler Section, of course, but here are a few vague allusions to my problems with the film:

3A. In matters of the heart, I take some issue with how two different relationships are handled. By no means do they ruin the movie for me, but . . . I also wouldn’t call them small issues.

3B. A particular element of the denouement feels pretty anticlimactic to me and almost a bit . . . convenient? It’s a minor problem, but I was annoyed by it.

3C. For the most part, the Team Cap vs Team Tony stuff is handled really well. There aren’t a lot of easy answers, and I can see where both sides are coming from . . . except at one point, where I think Captain America makes a crucial error in judgment that, frankly, slides me just a little to Team Tony’s side. (Should it be Team Iron Man? Probably, but I like the alliteration of Team Tony.) Now, I wouldn’t consider this a problem, necessarily, except that I didn’t get the impression that the writers felt Cap made a mistake here, and since I absolutely did . . . it bugged me. (It’s also a plot convenience issues. Oh, the things characters choose to do or not do in order to serve the plot.)

4. The truth, though, is that whether you were Team Tony or Team Cap (or Team Can’t We All Just Get Along) before this movie started, your allegiance probably changed to Team T’Challa or Team Spider-Man by the time the movie ended. Because hot damn, are they both awesome.

I liked Black Panther well enough while watching Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, but I must admit to being a little worried about how T’Challa and Wakanda itself were going to play out in a live-action movie. I mean, I don’t know why I worried–Hollywood having that stellar reputation for its careful depictions of other cultures, countries, and continents that it does—-but still. I was a bit concerned.

But Chadwick Boseman just hits it out of the park. He has such presence as T’Challa, I’m not even quite sure how to describe it. He is equal parts dignity, regality, and BADASSERY, and I am all on board for a Black Panther movie now.

Meanwhile, I have to admit that for all my doubts about a third Peter Parker in under fifteen years, Tom Holland does a pretty great job with the role.

His Spider-Man is nerdy, hyper, hilarious, and kind of adorable, and his presence brightens up the whole movie. I also have a weird amount of feels about the interactions between him and Tony. They’re kind of the best. And while I wasn’t surprised to find out that Holland was British–he just has a British sort of look to him?–I also don’t remember hearing his accent at all. So, kudos, kid. You’re what, 19? Yeah, don’t mind me as I collapse, weeping, as I consider the wide range of nothing I’d managed to accomplish by 19.

5. Unfortunately, most everything else I want to talk about includes spoilers, so I’m going to wrap this section up pretty early with a quick note about our antagonist, Zemo (Daniel Brühl).

What I can say about Zemo is limited, but I will note that, while not going on my list of Most Awesome Cinematic Villains Ever or anything, Zemo isn’t bad, especially by Marvel’s standards. He’s a little different than the usual Annihilate Everyone on the Planet for Evil Reasons of Evil bad guy, and I liked Brühl’s performance, especially in one scene near the end.

I am, of course, obviously disappointed that Marvel chose not to go with Baron Zemo’s costume from EMH, but I guess we can’t have everything we want in life. (For shame, Marvel. For shame. Think of what we could have had: ostentatious gold belt! Dalmatian fur shoulders! Matching Dalmation fur-lined boots! Purple EVERYWHERE! This is the pinnacle of supervillain fashion right here, Marvel, and you missed out big time. Go sit in a corner and think about what you’ve done.)

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

So, we begin our story back in 1990, when Bucky Barnes was still the Winter Solider. The bad guys use a set of particularly random words to trigger Bucky’s Killing Mode, and I’m absolutely sure those words won’t be relevant again. Bucky’s mission, it appears, is to crash some dude’s car so he can steal some blue junk out of the trunk. (Er, not a euphemism? Honestly, I don’t even know what that would be a euphemism for. It just sounds vaguely wrong. Please don’t offer suggestions.)

We don’t see the occupants of the car, but even before we get to Hilariously Young Tony Stark reminding us that his parents died on the way to the airport, I was like, “Oh yeah, Bucky totally just murdered Iron Man’s Mom and Dad. Shit be going DOWN tonight.” And then I was like, “Wait, 1990? Isn’t that math a little . . . off?” But I decided to trust my understanding of narrative over my incredibly limited abilities to do math in my head. This is always the right call.

(Also, can I just say: thank God CGI has advanced some since the days of X-Men: The Last Stand. 20-year-old CGI RDJ is weird because, like, your brain knows it’s wrong, but his face didn’t actually look bad, or at least not to me. This is a far cry from the attempt at Young Patrick Stewart and Young Ian McKellan in the worst X-Men movie of all time.)

Anyway. We’re now brought to the present, where Cap, Black Widow, Falcon, and Scarlet Witch stop Brock Rumlow (last seen on fire in The Winter Soldier) from stealing some weapon or other. Unfortunately, Rumlow also manages to distract Cap long enough to trigger a bomb, and when Scarlet Witch tries to levitate it into the sky to save Cap, it detonates too soon, destroying a building and killing a number of people inside.

This, along with what happened to Sokovia in Age of Ultron, prompts something of an outcry. Which, by the way, I do understand. There’s always the debate on whether superheroes should be held accountable for the civilian deaths that happen while they’re busy saving the world, which I think is an interesting one. On one hand, if the superheroes weren’t there, maybe–even likely–everyone dies. It’s not fair to blame them for an inability to save everyone. On the other hand, it really depends on how those civilian deaths occur, doesn’t it? Because I think there’s a difference between, say, these two different scenarios:

Scenario A: A cop is unable to evacuate two of the ten hostages in a building before the bad guys set off a bomb.

Scenario B: A cop sets off a small bomb to kill the bad guys holding ten people hostage, but the same blast which kills the bad guys also takes out two of the hostages.

As applied to superheroes . . . well, it’s complicated. Think the first Avengers movies with the Chitauri invasion: if Hulk tosses one of the Chitauri’s flying sea turtles into a building, and it crashes into six people, killing them, is that more Scenario B than A? Or do you think that Scenario A and B can’t be applied to extra-powered people? I’m just saying, I find the whole thing interesting. I think there’s more nuance in the debate than some people give it credit for.

But I’ve gotten off track again. Okay, so, the UN creates the Sokovia Accords, which honestly seem fairly reasonable, all things considered, although you’ve got to seriously side eye any plan that has General Ross (now Secretary of State Ross, apparently) on board. Anyway, The Avengers (current and retired) divide pretty squarely in half:

Cap votes NAY. He does not trust any government, even a collection of governments, to send the team on missions that are morally right. He also believes that the UN will keep the Avengers from helping people who need help purely due to political reasons, and he’s almost certainly not wrong about that. Cap definitely has cause not to trust the upper-ups (kids, can we say HAIL HYDRA?), and his journey over the last few movies from a dude who just wants to fight for his country to a guy who doesn’t really trust his country is actually kind of awesome. Still, it’s worth pointing out that his philosophical stand against the Accords rather quickly become almost entirely about saving Bucky.

Iron Man votes YAY. It’s a weird vote if you’ve recently watched Iron Man 2, where Tony’s absolutely refusing to give the government control of his suits, but since Age of Ultron, Tony’s got mad remorse like whoa, especially after grieving mother Alfre Woodard appears to guilt the holy living shit out of him. Tony thinks the Avengers need accountability, and I don’t think he’s wrong about that. Some of the moves he makes, though, start getting a little sketch, despite the best of intentions.

Black Widow votes YAY, mostly because she reads the political landscape and figures this is happening whether she likes it or not.

Oh, some shit’s about to go down.

Vision votes YAY because statistical analysis suggests that there may be a causation between superheroes trying to save the world and supervillains trying to destroy the holy hell out of it.

Scarlet Witch ABSTAINS but then switches to NAY when Vision, acting under Tony’s orders, keeps her confined against her will to Avengers Headquarters. (See what I mean about sketch? Tony’s trying to keep Wanda safe, but imprisoning anyone against their will when they haven’t broken any laws is pretty much never a good idea.)

Hawkeye ABSTAINS because he’s retired but then switches to NAY when he goes to break out Scarlet Witch. I’m guessing that it’s her imprisonment which causes Hawkeye to get into the game? He’s really the only one in the whole film whose motivation seems a little bit shaky. Maybe it’s the fangirl in me, but I kind of assumed he’d pick whatever side Nat was on unless he had strong motivation not to, which I’m not sure the Sokovia Accords alone provides, not for him.

Falcon votes NAY because he’s Captain America’s bestie.

War Machine votes YAY because he’s Iron Man’s bestie, but also because he genuinely believes in the Sokovia Accords, which is entirely consistent with his character throughout the Iron Man movies.

And in the midst of this debate, something deeply upsetting happens: Peggy Carter dies, and I am Jack’s total despair.

Yes, yes, Peggy lived a full, happy life, and I had a few months to make my peace with the likelihood of her death, as my sister correctly predicted she would bite it from the trailer, but . . . ugh. I’m just so bummed now. Peggy Carter was the best. Word is that Season Three of Agent Carter is looking less and less likely–oh, no, it just got cancelled? AS I WAS EDITING THIS?! Motherfucker. We have now killed and cancelled Peggy Carter. Now I’m just depressed.

Especially because we’ve hit upon my first semi-serious problem with the movie:

WHERE HAVE ALL THE GOOD LOVE INTERESTS GONE?

I want to be 100% clear about this: I do not ship Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp) at ALL.

Hey! That’s my girl you’re talking about.

Look, I never thought Sharon had much in the way of personality. VanCamp and Evans barely have even a thimble of chemistry between them, and I was deeply unenthused when I found out that Steve’s new love interest was Peggy’s great niece. Like, that’s taking “dumping the old ball and chain for the hot, younger model” thing to a whole new level of squick, you know? But not only is Sharon an incredibly lackluster replacement for Peggy, I seriously object to the timing of Steve and Sharon’s smoochies. Like, okay, clearly I love Peggy, but even I didn’t expect Steve to stick with Peg when she’s, like, 90-years-old. I figured he’d move on, and I was fine with that, especially if he moves on with Tony Stark because COME ON YOU KNOW YOU SHIP IT. (Unless you’re a Bucky/Steve shipper, of course, in which case I can’t help you because I’m just not. I know, Half of the Internet: I’m letting you down right now. I can’t help it. I just dig this too much.)

So, yeah, moving on? I’m cool with that. What I’m less cool with is Steve and Sharon macking on each other, what, later that very same day? Or is it supposed to be the next day? Either way, I’m sorry, it’s gross. Peggy’s supposed to be the big love of Steve’s life. She is barely in the ground, and he’s already giving tongue to Peggy’s great-niece? Well, that’s romantic. I mean, the whole thing is so rushed. I can’t help but feel like Peggy kicked the bucket just to pave the way for these two to get together, and really, who’s actually invested in Agent 13 and Cap anyway? (Well, other than Bucky and Sam, who, admittedly, have pretty hilarious matching “Go Steve, it’s your birthday” faces while watching The Kiss. I did laugh pretty hard at that.) Sharon and Steve have had a couple of scenes in two movies where they kinda/sorta half-ass flirt, and that’s about it. Do they even have a ship name? (Is it Agent America, because it should be.) I know romance in the Marvel movies can be kind of hit-or-miss, but this one is such a miss for me it’s not even funny.

And while we’re on the subject of problematic romance stories in this movie . . .

So, yeah. Let me tell you about some bullshit.

Apparently, Tony and Pepper broke up sometime off screen, presumably because Tony couldn’t quit being Iron Man, but really because . . . I don’t know, the Russo Brothers wanted to make sure Tony was super, super isolated and depressed? (Or maybe because Gwyneth Paltrow couldn’t appear? But I’m pretty sure they could have written around that.) And it’s just like, come on, dudes. I like that you at least acknowledge the end of Iron Man 3 (the way Age of Ultron totally failed to do), but seriously, Tony Stark has enough angst in this film as is. He has, like, four previous movies worth of guilt, plus his BFF gets badly hurt, plus he finds out that his parents were murdered. You know? Did you really need to give him a breakup too? (I know it’s never going to happen, but I’ve got to say: I’m kind of ready to see a Tony Stark story which doesn’t go like this: Tony fucks up, Tony has guilt, Tony tries to fix his mistake which leads to Tony fucking up again, Tony having more guilt, Tony trying to fix his mistake, etc. Maybe we could just have a lot less fucking up and guilt the next time around?)

Plus, while I’m not particularly interested in watching Tony and Pepper’s unnecessary romantic melodrama, their relationship is easily the biggest, most well-liked canon relationship in the MCU. (It certainly helps that, unlike Evans and VanCamp, Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow have mad chemistry.) We’ve been following their romance since 2008. Breaking them up off screen is bullshit. If they were going to breakup, we deserved to actually, you know, see it. Instead, the Russo brothers cast Pepper aside like she was just some extra, a minor part in a past film, and between that and the Peggy/Sharon Carter fiasco, I’m left with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Love interests seem awfully replaceable in Civil War, which might not frustrate me so much in a film that had a better female-to-male ratio, but, yeah. This is what we’ve got:

Important Male Characters: Steve, Bucky, Tony, Rhodey, Sam, Vision, Clint, T’Challa, Ant-Man, Spider-Man, Zemo, and Thaddeus Ross.
Important Female Characters: Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Sharon Carter.

And truthfully, I still don’t find Scarlet Witch much more compelling than Sharon Carter. She seems to have more potential, at least, and her powers remain cool. Still, her whole story (people are scared of me!) feels more like an outline of a character arc than an actual character arc. And while her hint at a romance with Vision (who also doesn’t interest me much) is probably my favorite romance in the movie, I still was kind of like “Must we? We must? Fine.” I will freely admit to being amused by the paprika bit, but still, no amount of cute floundering with yummy spices will make up for imprisoning your would-be girlfriend, so I find I’m having trouble being excited by their possible romance. Although it’s worth pointing out that Scarlet Witch and Vision manage about 80 times more burgeoning chemistry in their forty-second cooking lesson than Cap and Sharon have managed in two movies.

Time to get back to the main plot? Okay. World leaders meet to sign and implement the Sokovia Accords, but it goes badly when Zemo (pretending to be the Winter Soldier) assassinates T’Challa’s father, the King of Wakanda.

And T’Challa is PISSED about it.

Even if I’d known nothing about Black Panther going into this movie, I like to think I would’ve figured out that the poor former king of Wakanda was a dead man walking. He might as well have worn a shirt that said DOOMED FOR PLOT PURPOSES. (I should like to own such a shirt. It would go nicely with my red one that has EXPENDABLE written across it.) Naturally, T’Challa goes into Badass Revenge Mode, and the official manhunt for Bucky begins with orders to kill on sight. Naturally, Steve takes issue with that, so he and Sam try to get to Bucky first. Much action ensues, but the takeaway is that Steve, Sam, and Bucky are all arrested.

Before I go any further, it occurs to me that I have not yet discussed Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman), not to be confused with Secretary of State Ross. I didn’t know anything about Ross, so I looked him up, and apparently he’s an ally to Black Panther in the comics, which, honestly, surprises me quite a bit because all I really got from Freeman’s performance was a) a surprisingly decent American accent, and b) the impression of a schmucky little G-man who thinks he’s a bigger deal than he is. Like, that whole speech daring whoever to misbehave? (I can no longer remember if he’s talking to Bucky or Zemo here.) I was flat out rolling my eyes at his idiocy. Maybe this will change with the Black Panther movie, but right now Everett K. Ross strikes me as a minor villain, not a superhero’s ally.

But back to the story: Bucky meets is a psychologist (well, supposedly). The session goes poorly.

The psychologist, of course, is Zemo, who uses those random trigger words we heard in the beginning of the movie to activate the Winter Soldier. Bucky escapes, causing destruction and death as he goes, but he’s more or less back to normal by the time Steve and Sam (who have also escaped) catch up to him. Bucky explains about the trigger words and what he believes is Zemo’s Master Plan of Evil: to release the five bigger, badder Winter Soldiers (who we’ve never heard of before) because they have the capability of DESTROYING THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT.

This turns out not to be Zemo’s plan, which, thank God. On one hand, it makes sense that if you can brainwash one dude and turn him into a human weapon, why not brainwash some more dudes? More bang for your Buck, so to speak. (No, I’m not sorry for the pun.) On the other hand, revealing that the ultimate evil is a handful of miscellaneous assassins on ice (Disney’s best figure skating show yet!) is pretty underwhelming, like, is this really the threat that’s going to bring Captain America and Iron Man back together again?

Well, kind of. But before we get there, let’s get to my next problem with the film.

LEARN TO SHARE WITH THE FUCKING CLASS, CHILDREN.

I’m Captain America, and I’m here to teach you about NOT using your words.

Here are the things that Steve knows:

A) Bucky didn’t kill T’Challa’s father.
B) Bucky was purposefully triggered by a fake psychologist.
C) The same fake psychologist (supposedly) hopes to control five SUPER ASSASSINS.

Now, it’s true that Steve can’t prove any of these things yet. And I wouldn’t expect him to try and reason with Ross (who clearly can’t be reasoned with) or, say, T’Challa (who’s unlikely to hear much while in Full-On Vengeance Mode). But instead of reaching out and telling these not-insignificant things to Tony or Natasha (you know, people he’s saved the world with and trusted to have his back), Steve just says something like, “Tony will never believe it,” and moves on. Which is a huge fucking mistake.

Look, Tony probably wouldn’t have believed Steve without proof, or at least, wouldn’t have trusted Steve to be objective about his BFF’s innocence. I doubt Tony would have stopped trying to bring Cap and his cohorts in. He might, however, have put some resources into investigating Steve’s claims, you know, as happens much later in the film when the real psychologist is found dead. And if Tony had made that discovery before, say, the Big Awesome Battle at the Airfield? Here’s how the story would have played out:

Instead of a Big Awesome Battle at the Airfield, Team Tony and Team Cap warily call a truce to investigate Bucky’s new lead into Zemo’s whereabouts. Because there’s no battle, Rhodey isn’t paralyzed, nor are Hawkeye, Falcon, Scarlet Witch, and Ant-Man captured and imprisoned. All twelve superheroes head out to the Ice Fortress, where Zemo probably still breaks Tony’s heart by revealing the truth about his parents, but the fight doesn’t last nearly as long since he’ll have eleven people trying to keep him from outright murdering Bucky Barnes. So, it’s still sad, but not, like, quite so much catastrophe, right?

Instead of making sense, Steve only tells Tony about the fake psychologist when they’re duking it out at the airfield, and obviously, that’s just a half-assed effort that comes way too late in the game. It actually reminds me a little of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (if you’ve seen it, you probably know which scene), and honestly, this might actually be a little worse because there’s a way better chance that Tony would be receptive to what Steve is saying, considering they’re, you know, friends, and no one’s actually trying to kill one another.

And what really annoys me about Cap’s decision is not just that it’s made for clearly plot-related reasons, but because nobody calls it out as a mistake. After the Big Awesome Battle at the Airfield, Natasha tells Tony that they played this wrong, and I’m just like, “No, no you didn’t! Before this scene, no one has bothered to tell you anything like ‘Bucky didn’t do this’ or ‘Bucky was set up.’ Your reactions and responses to the information you had at your disposal were completely logical. It’s Captain America who played this wrong, damn it!” But nobody listens to me.

Moving on. Both teams feel like they’re the underdog, so they each recruit some ringers. Team Cap gets Ant-Man, who’s very enthusiastic about the prospect. Meanwhile, Tony goes to recruit Spider-Man, and these two teaming up might be my very favorite part of the whole movie.

Other than the fact that they’re just hilarious together, Tony finding this kid, giving him costume upgrades, and looking out for him in the big fight ties in pretty well thematically, given both his philanthropy in past films and his introduction at the beginning of this movie, donating a bunch of dough to college kids in financial need. I’m happy that Tony’s going to appear in the next Spider-Man movie. Shit, I can’t believe I even want to see the next Spider-Man movie. (I never loved the Tobey Maguire films the way other people seemed to, and I never saw Andrew Garfield’s at all.) I even enjoyed Tony flirting with Marisa Tomei, although that does not at all negate my annoyance about the unceremonious disappearance of Pepper Potts.

Then we get to Big Awesome Battle at the Airfield, which is just . . . well, awesome.

There isn’t much I can say about it here that hasn’t already been said, but a couple of highlights:

A. Hawkeye and Black Widow have an amusing “are we still friends” moment, which I was very grateful for. I was going to be very unhappy if the film refused to acknowledge their relationship.

B. Falcon, to Winter Soldier: “I hate you.”

I love that Cap’s two BFFs are decidedly unimpressed with one another.

C. Ant-Man becomes Giant-Man, and it’s pretty awesome. I probably should have been expecting it, but wasn’t. Iron Man’s reaction is pretty priceless, too.

D. Natasha betrays Team Iron Man, which despite my annoyance with Cap’s reticence above, does actually work for me because if anyone’s going to play both sides, it’s obviously going to be Natasha, who continues to be the best. Stop screwing with me, Marvel. I want a firm commitment to a Black Widow movie NOW.

E. Vision attempts to take down Falcon but, instead, hits War Machine, who plummets to the ground and hits it hard, despite both Falcon and Iron Man trying to save him.

I have slightly mixed feelings about Rhodey’s fall. On one hand, it’s such a great scene, and it’s good to see actual physical consequences come from such a huge superhero confrontation. (How often does the superhero actually fail to catch someone, especially someone who matters to both the superhero and the audience?) On the other hand, I just finished writing an essay on the trope of Throwing Off the Disability, so I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the pretty quick transition from “Rhodey’s probable permanent paralysis” to “Rhodey using a Stark exoskeleton to walk (with, admittedly, some difficulty).” I think I’ll reserve judgment for now and see how it plays out in future films. I’d like this experience to be an important part of his character development going forward (and not just another rung on Tony’s Ever-Growing Guilt Ladder), but I have a sneaking suspicion that this will not be the case. Would be lovely to be wrong, though.

So, everyone on Team Cap (other than Bucky and Cap himself) are thrown into Ross’s Floating Prison, which is clearly not quite what Tony had in mind when he signed the Accords. Hawkeye is fairly derisive, which is fair: Tony keeps trying to prevent bad things from happening, but also keeps failing to visualize the potential ramifications of his preventative measures. On the other hand, I also agree with Tony: he didn’t make Hawkeye or anyone else break the law. Whether they were right or wrong, Team Cap’s actions got them where they are.

Meanwhile, Bucky and Cap make it to the Secret Ice Fortress. Tony also arrives, offering a truce after realizing that Bucky’s been framed. T’challa, covertly, follows Tony and watches from the shadows. It turns out that Zemo killed all the Random Winter Soldiers; his real agenda was always to destroy the Avengers from the inside. To do this, he reveals that Bucky is the one who killed Tony’s parents, and despite the fact that I already knew this, I somehow never put it together that this big secret was Zemo’s Master Plan all along. I just figured it would come out somehow.

I liked this turn, though. It’s sort of nice, having a villain whose motive isn’t just RULE THE WORLD or DESTROY THE WORLD or something of that nature. Also, it nicely fulfills the not-so-subtle foreshadowing: Natasha and Clint separately tell Tony to watch his back within about three minutes of each other, so I’m sitting there in the theater thinking, Okay, I get it, I see your foreshadow, guys. I just don’t know who’s betraying Tony here.

Well, turns out it’s Steve, of all people. Because when Tony, devastated and furious, asks if Cap knew, and Cap has to admit that he did . . . I mean, I was like, oh, SHIT. For some reason, I just assumed that Steve had no idea Tony’s parents were murdered. This just makes everything so much worse.

Time to fuck some shit up.

Tony, not shockingly, attacks, and the whole fight sequence is so good because it’s fueled by such actual emotion. Seriously, the moment where Tony’s like, “I don’t care. He killed my mom,” just kicks me right in the feels, you know? Everyone gets the upper hand at one point or another, but in the end, Steve uses his shield to break the arc reactor in Tony’s suit. The symbolism of this is not subtle, but it’s effective as hell. Steve Rogers breaks Tony Stark’s heart. Come, shippers, weep with me.

Steve and Bucky take off, leaving the shield behind. Meanwhile, T’Challa chooses not to kill Zemo after all (and prevents Zemo from killing himself), which is sort of a stereotypical superhero choice that, in this case, really works well for me, something I mostly credit to Boseman’s dignified performance. (And when I say stereotypical, I’m not trying to suggest that I wanted to see the alternative. It’s just that vengeful superhero choosing justice over revenge at the eleventh hour is a pretty standard story.)

We then move into the denouement, where we hit my last and probably least serious problem:

THIS ISN’T THE ASSASSINS ON ICE SHOW I WAS LOOKING FOR, DISNEY.

After all this shit, Bucky decides to hibernate in a refrigerator again until they can find a way to keep him from being triggered. I’m not sure how likely it is that anyone else will learn his weird Brainwashing Grocery List, nor am I sure how they plan to come up with any cure to brainwashing solutions while their primary test subject is asleep, but whatever, fine.

While I’m sure that Marvel is setting Bucky up to return at some critical juncture, right now it really feels like Bucky was just inconvenient, so they shoved him in a fridge. While it’s sort of nice to see that kind of thing happen to a man for once, it does feel like a serious lack of payoff to me. Bucky’s finally at a stage where he seems to know who he is, who he was, and what he’s done. There’s a lot of really interesting character stuff that could come from him and Steve being on the run together. Instead, Bucky decides to temporarily martyr himself, and we’re just supposed to call it “peace” because T’Challa says it? Sorry, guys, I’m not buying that, even from Awesome Sauce T’Challa.

Meanwhile, Steve rescues the rest of Team Cap from the Floating Jail and sends a letter to Tony, apologizing for not telling him about his parents’ murder. I suspect Tony won’t be all, “Well, that’s okay, I totally understand now!” the next time he sees Steve, but nonetheless there’s a hint that these two might eventually be able to move forward into a loving embrace. At the very least, Tony seems happy that the other Avengers have been rescued, as he gleefully puts Ross on hold with no intention of picking up when the Secretary calls to yell about the escape.

And . . . well, I guess that’s about it.

QUOTES:

Captain America: “This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck.”
Bucky: “It always ends in a fight.”

Hawkeye: “We haven’t met. I’m Clint.”
Black Panther: “I don’t care.”

Iron Man: “Who’s that? Who’s speaking?”
Ant-Man: “It’s your conscience. We don’t talk a lot these days.”

Peter: “I can’t go to Germany.”
Tony: “Why not?”
Peter: “Because I have homework.”

Bucky: “Can you move your seat up?”
Sam: “No.”

Falcon: “Tiny dude is big now!”

Spider-Man: “Holy shit.”

Spider-Man: “You have a metal arm? That’s AWESOME, dude.”

Tony: “So, you’re the . . . Spiderling. Crime Fighting Spider? You’re Spider Boy?”
Peter: “Spider-Man.”
Tony: “Not in that onesie, you’re not.”
Peter: “It’s not a onesie.”

Black Widow: “Are we still friends?”
Hawkeye: “That depends on how hard you hit me.”

Iron Man: “Okay, anybody on our side hiding any shocking or fantastic abilities they’d like to disclose, I’m open to suggestion.”

Scott Lang: “Hank Pym did say never to trust a Stark.”
Tony: “Who are you?”
Scott: “Come on, man.”

Spider-Man: “Did you guys ever see that really old movie, Empire Strikes Back?”
War Machine: “Jesus, Tony, how old is this guy?”
Iron Man: “I don’t know. I didn’t carbon date him. He’s on the young side.”

Bucky: “Couldn’t you have done that earlier?”
Falcon: “I hate you.”

Falcon: “I don’t know how many fights you’ve been in, but there’s not usually this much talking.”

Captain America: “He’s my friend.”
Iron Man: “So was I.”

Sam: “Bird costume? Come on.”

Iron Man: “All right, I’ve run out of patience. Underoos!”

Iron Man: “Clearly retirement doesn’t suit you. Get tired of playing golf?”
Hawkeye: “Well, I played 18. I shot 18.”

Steve: “You know, I’m glad Howard got married. I only knew him when he was young and single.”
Tony: “Oh really? You two knew each other? He never mentioned that. Maybe only a thousand times. God, I hated you.”
Steve: “I don’t mean to make things difficult.”
Tony: “I know. Because you’re a very polite person.”

Tony: “Sometimes I wanna punch you in your perfect teeth.”

Wanda: “Is that paprika?”
Vision: “I thought it might lift your spirits.”
Wanda: “Spirits . . . lifted.”
Vision: “In my defense, I’ve never actually . . . eaten anything.”

Natasha: “Tony, you’re being uncharacteristically non-hyperverbal.”

Iron Man: “Manchurian Candidate, you’re killing me here. We’re on a truce. Put the gun down.”

Black Widow: “Looking over your shoulder should be second nature.”
Falcon: “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a little paranoid?”
Black Widow: “Not to my face. Why, did you hear something?”

Sam: “So. You like cats?”
Steve: “Sam.”
Sam: “What? Dude shows up dressed like a cat, and you don’t want to know more?”

T’Challa: “The Black Panther has been a protector of Wakanda for generations. A mantle passed from warrior to warrior. Now because your friend murdered my father, I also wear the mantle of king. So I ask you, as both warrior and king, how long do you think you can keep your friend safe from me?”

Clint: “I retire for like, what, five minutes, and it all goes to shit?”

Friday: “Multiple contusions detected.”
Iron Man: “Yeah, I detected that too.”

Spider-Man (about Cap’s shield): “That thing doesn’t obey the laws of physics at all!”

Scarlet Witch: “What are you doing here?”
Hawkeye: “Disappointing my kids.”

Captain America: “This isn’t going to change what happened.”
Iron Man: “I don’t care. He killed my mom.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Overall, pretty great. Awesome action, wonderful character beats, mostly believable motivations. Tying the whole story together with a personal (rather than an idealogical) conflict was a great call. Would be happier if Black Widow wasn’t the only female character in the whole franchise that I actually gave a damn about, though, and if Steve had at least tried to explain things to the other side.

MVP:

Chadwick Boseman, I think. There was just something magnetic about him. But Tom Holland was a lot of fun, too, and Robert Downey Jr. effectively punched me in the heartstrings.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORAL:

Communication is important. You hear that, Captain America? You have a perfectly functioning larynx. Use it.

The Fast and The Furious movies fascinate me.

Not so much the movies themselves, necessarily, but how passionate people are about them. I watched the original film back whenever it came out, what, 15 years ago? And I’ve gotta tell you: I found it pretty hopelessly boring, so much so that I had zero interest in checking out any of the sequels. Of course, at the time, I also wasn’t anticipating the franchise going stronger than ever in 2017, with its eighth film having just recently released to a theater near you.

In the space of two days, without seeking anything out, I saw a review saying The Fate of The Furious was a glorious film; I saw another saying it was the worst, a franchise killer. Someone argued that no, Fast & Furious 6 was easily the worst film of the bunch and Fast Five was unequivocally the best. Two people passionately defended Tokyo Drift as the shining star of the series. Loads of other fans seem to detest it. And then I saw two or three people on Twitter whole-heartedly defending the entire series against anybody who tried to say it was crap.

I’ve seen this type of defense multiple times on Twitter over the past few years. Specifically, I’ve heard people celebrating both the multi-ethnic cast and the fact that the action has gotten progressively sillier and sillier. Quite naturally, my interest rose from “Christ, no” to “Okay, sure, I’ll try it” as a result. But I really didn’t want to watch the franchise from the beginning because, like, ugh. So in the past couple of months, Mek and I started slowly working our way through the movies beginning with Fast & Furious (the fourth one). If you’re screaming at me for skipping Tokyo Drift, well, sorry, but I already knew all the important plot elements, and I couldn’t work up the interest in watching a film about that white Southern kid from The X-Files movie, now grown up and presumably a better driver than everyone in Japan–especially when I knew nothing good was gonna happen to the only character I actually was interested in.

My take thus far: Fast & Furious was enjoyable enough, despite them temporarily axing a character I didn’t want them to axe. I found Fast Five pretty forgettable, despite the introduction of The Rock. And then we watched Fast & Furious 6.

This one, well. This one was ridiculous enough to merit a (relatively) short review.

DISCLAIMER:

There will be SPOILERS for this film and all prior films in the franchise.

SUMMARY:

Terrible DSS Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) can’t catch Big Bad Shaw (Luke Evans) on his own, so he ropes Dom (Vin Diesel) and his FAMILY  squad of elite crimefighters  merry band of retired criminals to help. They agree to do so because Previously Assumed Dead Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is apparently alive after all and, quite naturally, working for the bad guys.

NOTES:

1. Fast and Furious 6 has easily been the most ludicrous of the series thus far, which is probably why it’s my favorite, despite the fact that they kill off both Wonder Woman and Han, my favorite goddamn character. (I know, he really died three movies ago, but now, like, he’s super dead because they’ve caught up with the timeline–with, presumably, a helpful bit of retconning, since I’m relatively sure Jason Statham’s British ass wasn’t in Tokyo Drift.)

I have a few things to say about these deaths.

1A. Yeah, totally called Gisele biting it. This is unfortunate, but as it did free her up to be Wonder Woman, I guess I can’t complain too much. Plus, I like that she at least goes like a total badass, not only sacrificing herself to save Han but also somehow shooting the bad guy dead even as she spectacularly falls to her doom. I’d also like to point out that, IMO, Giselle could totally have survived that. You laugh, but I’m absolutely seriously; if Tyrese could’ve survived that insane car crash early in the movie literally without a scratch or even the vaguest of limps, then Giselle could totally be alive somehow.

1B. Likewise, based on the ending of this movie, Han could totally have survived that explosion if he secretly crawled out the window and then fell down a manhole or something while Jason Statham was busy walking away like an evil badass. (I presume Tokyo Drift provides a different angle that would make this impossible, but I reject any testimony from that movie because I haven’t seen it, and also because seriously, Statham isn’t in that film, right? If you’re already retconning, I get to retcon too.)

I bring this up because the screenwriter for these movies recently gave an interview where he said he wouldn’t rule out Han reappearing in some form in future films. The majority of sites I’ve read are assuming that this means we’ll get a Han flashback, and many seem adamant that he shouldn’t come back to life For Real, partially because Letty already spun that particular plot twist in this movie, and partially because it would bust the emotional impact of Furious 7.

And, look. Maybe I’ll feel differently after having actually seen Furious 7, but my initial instinct? Fuck that noise. This is a deeply, whole-heartedly unrealistic action series; I’d argue that the damn Marvel movies are, despite their big green guys and magic hammers, consistently far more grounded action films than these flicks. This franchise wants nothing to with realism. This franchise is primarily about one thing: joyously breaking the laws of physics with cars. Bringing Han back to life totally isn’t going to take away from that, especially when you’re not even ruling out the idea of sending the franchise to SPACE. (Which, obviously, needs to happen. That doesn’t even need to be said, right?)

2. Speaking of joyously breaking the laws of physics:

This moment, right here, when Dom saves Letty? This is the film’s most holy shit! ludicrous moment ever. I laughed out loud for like a solid minute. It’s kind of the best.

3. Of course, the whole premise of this film is pretty ludicrous. Like, I’d get it if Terrible Agent Hobbs was at least recruiting these guys to go undercover or something, you know, like criminals might realistically do. Instead, Hobbs basically treats them like cops; early in the movie, he even sends them to capture the bad guys before they can steal something, like Dom’s Merry Band of Criminals have somehow become a division of SWAT that just happens to have cooler cars or something. It makes absolutely no sense.

This, by the way, is only one of the reasons I keep referring to Hobbs as Terrible Agent Hobbs. In the last film, he straight-up murdered a dude; in this film, he throws a guy around so much that he gives the police interrogation room a new sunroof. Asshole. Murder and police brutality–somehow–aside, that shit costs money, you know? He also puts a gun to some British cop’s head because the dude had the audacity to make sense, AND he has no idea that his partner is secretly evil. Normally, I’d let that kind of shit go, but after all his other flaws as a Diplomatic Secret Service agent, I’m not particularly inclined to be generous right now.

Samoan Thor is basically the best nickname ever, but I’m not entirely sure that Terrible Agent Hobbs deserves the honor.

4. About that twist that Riley (Gina Carano) has been secretly evil ALL ALONG?

It’s not that I predicted it from the very first second or anything. It’s just that I didn’t care in any way, shape, or form. The Big Reveal happened, and I was like . . . yeah, okay. Whatever.

5. On the plus side, my favorite fight scenes in the whole movie were the ones between Gina Carano and Michelle Rodriguez.

The subway fight scene was especially badass: fast, heavy-hitting, and extremely physical. Both ladies were all-in, which was a lot of fun to watch, especially as they’re juxtaposed with our dude heroes totally getting their asses handed to them.

Other bonuses about this movie?

5A. Letty coming back to life in the first place.

She died as an inciting plot point in Fast & Furious, and that always disappointed me, despite the fact that I already knew she’d Get Better in a couple of movies. Cause I like Letty. Also, Michelle Rodriguez and Vin Diesel have fantastic chemistry–easily the best chemistry of anyone in these movies. Her return, though anticipated, was welcome.

5B. Elsa Pataky didn’t have to die just so Michelle Rodriguez could come back.

I can’t pretend I ever much cared about Elena, but I find that particular discardable lady trope annoying. Plus, seriously, we already killed off Han and Gisele. I think that’s quite enough, don’t you?

5C. Tyrese didn’t annoy me nearly as much in this movie as he did in Fast Five!

Roman is still easily my least favorite character, but if he had died in the fiery crash that totally should have killed him near the beginning of this movie? I mean, I wouldn’t have wept, no, but I also probably wouldn’t have busted out the kazoos and cheered, which absolutely would have been my reaction if he’d died in the prior film. So, like. That’s progress, right? (Honestly, I’m not sure I can explain why I disliked him so much, other than that he was a supposed comic relief who I didn’t find remotely funny. His presence is a pretty big reason why Fast Five didn’t do much for me, despite the fact that unlike its predecessor and successor, it doesn’t actually kill anybody that I like.)

6. Finally, Pre-Gaston Luke Evans as the Big Bad is . . . fine.

There’s nothing terribly exciting about Shaw one way or the other, which, honestly, is pretty par for the course for many of Luke Evans’s roles up to Beauty and the Beast. (I’ve gotta be honest here: I’m super curious about where his career will go next. I’m hoping he gets another win, instead of being the “basically okay guy in otherwise shitty movies,” like Immortals or The Raven.) Anyway, we all know Shaw: he’s that guy who’s always a thousand moves ahead, up to and including the time he secretly gets captured ON PURPOSE.

Once again, YAWN. Do I need to bring back Christopher Walken, people? I’m pretty sure this was a tired trope even in 2013.

At least Shaw never stops his general villainy to play a symbolic game of chess, I suppose. There are some good things still left in this world. It’s important to remember that during these troubled times.

QUOTES:

CONCLUSIONS:

High octane silliness.

MVP:

Michelle Rodriguez

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B

MORAL:

Family is what matters, okay? FAMILY FAMILY FAMILY.