Rebooting the legend after Ang Lee’s esoteric flop five year before, Louis Letterier’s The Incredible Hulk (B) reminds viewers from the opening frames that this is an action movie, pure and simple. A parkeur-style chase across rooftops is just the beginning as the film winds through a global adventure wuth Edward Norton as Bruce Banner/THe Hulk in full enraged scientist mode. Liv Tyler and Tim Roth provide ample support for this solid action film that brings Hulk closer into the Marvel canon in time for Avengers activity.
Gus Van Sant’s Milk (A) is a stirring biopic, faithfully recreating a San Francisco of the 1970’s and, as embodied by Sean Penn, giving a star turn of an American hero in Harvey Milk. The film blends personal and political triumphs, with a touching performance by James Franco as Milk’s love interest. The sometimes avant garde Van Sant minimizes his grittier aesthetic for a wide canvas Hollywood epic, and the result is a soaring triumph.
Andrew Stanton’s WALL-E (B) is a fantastical futuristic fantasy in which the earth is filled with garbage and a tiny, adorable clean-up robot is awakened from his drudgery by a beautiful girl droid and a chance to blast off into adventure. The lyrical earthboard sequences are far superior to the latter ones, but this is another Pixar original that will have something to offer both kids and adults.
Can we pretend the Indy films were just a trilogy? Because from the opening moment when the prairie dog pops his head out of the ground to the sequences with young sidekick Shia LaBeouf swinging from trees with monkeys, I found Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (D+) stomped on many elements this franchise held sacred. Harrison Ford gives a truly haggard performance opposite Cate Blanchett as a Russian villain, also phoning it in. There is also a survivable nuclear blast and a UFO visit. And surprisingly, there’s not one interestingly staged action sequence. There are cameos from past movies, and then those characters are given nothing interesting to do. This is the only film in the series in which the quest isn’t well articulated, in which the characters are lazy and cynical and in which there’s little joy or continuity from scene to scene. A 19-year hiatus between films should have yielded better than this. It’s an epic misfire.
Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (A-) focuses on Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie as soldiers who dispose of bombs during the Iraq War and how they get deeper and deeper into their mission. Told with stunning authenticity and reverence for the work of the military, it’s a highly dramatic and exciting film as well as a technical marvel.
Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona (B+) is the latest in the writer/director’s European travelogue in which a Spaniard (Javier Bardem) proposes a three-way to two lovely travelers (Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson), and then they all encounter his former wife (Penélope Cruz). Alternately ambiguous and enchanting, the film is full of comedy and rich characters, with everyone at the top of their game.
Matthew Vaughn’s Stardust (B+) is a whimsical adventure in the tradition of The Princess Bride. Michelle Pfeiffer, Claire Danes and Robert DeNiro are standouts in this fantasy about getting over the walls that block our way to our dreams. Witches, pirates, unicorns, voodoo dolls and so much more are part of the journey ahead. This is a pleasant surprise of a movie that nobody seemed to see in theatres but that has enchanted folks who have seen it.
Sam Raimi throws in everything against his cinematic spiderweb to see what sticks in the overloaded, bloated and often irritating Spider-Man 3 (C-). It basically becomes the third film in a trilogy by default as viewers watch the oxygen seap out of the enterprise in a way that basically proclaims, “There’s really not much more to do or say in this universe of storytelling.” Continuing to breathe lifelessness into their performances, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst return to battle super-villains and the superego. Specifically, Peter Parker/Spider-Man’s celebrity is on the rise as Mary Jane’s Broadway career hits the rocks; and the jovial hero is blissfully oblivious of his girlfriend’s emerging depression (granted, it would be hard to notice, since Dunst’s acting is just the same when she’s happy or sad). Throw into this mix a black suit that turns Spidey into Jim Carrey from The Mask, a series of forgettable antagonists ranging from Sandman to Venom (did we learn nothing from Joel Schumacher’s Batman films about stuffing movies with too many villains?) and an undisciplined storyline and running time, and it’s like Raimi is simply begging to be fired from the series. Still, it’s not so drastically different in quality than its two predecessors; the trilogy is giddily middle of the road.
John Carney’s Once (B+) is a treasure box of a musical with an unassuming storyline showcasing a man and a woman who enter each other’s lives when they need each other most. Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglova play the unnamed pair – he, a busking Irish guitarist and she, a Czech pianist, who find themselves “Falling Slowly” into the spell of making beautiful music together. Very much in the vein of Before Sunrise, the duo are fated to be together and bring out talents and insights in each other that they never could have found separately. In its simplicity and handheld look and feel, it celebrates the joy of discovery and the brilliant promises of second chances at love.