The Amazing Spider-Man

Running Time: 136 minutes.

Media: Cinematic release.

When Batman went through four movies and seemed to lose its grip, having gone through two with Michael Keaton, one with Val Kilmer and one with George Clooney... well, what can I say, there was a lot of talk about how schmaltzy it all started to become... plus the fears of continuing it may considerably drop in popularity.

I feel there was a considerable push in that direction when it came to the first Spider-Man film series that starred Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco and Willem Dafoe. Now, don't get me wrong, it was a great film series... but this schmaltzy feel to the films was something that seemed to raise its ugly head probably around the time of maybe the second movie when Franco's sole purpose became more focused on the killing of Spider-Man than that of being Peter Parker's best friend. It seemed to continue onto the third film where the hammy-ness of acting seemed to escalate where even Peter Parker's symbiote possession in the third movie was parodied in the Youtube channel "How It Should Have Ended", which is also worth seeing, by the way. That being said, there was also a lot of talk about how this new movie came about... There was some mention of some time that early May last year would be the release date for the new movie by Sam Raimi, and unfortunately Raimi had admitted that he could not meet the scheduled release date and retain creative integrity. By this time, Columbia Pictures had admitted that in January 2010, that the whole series would be rebooted.

Bearing this in mind, does The Amazing Spider-Man live up to expectations? I say yes, and rather whole-heartedly. The main reason is that while the Raimi series of films with Tobey Maguire brought an incredibly fresh spin to the Spider-Man canon; this new series which has been directed by Marc Webb (and may I say, a perfectly apt surname for a director for this film!) has basically taken the original mythology of how Spider-Man came to be, and brought it to the 21st century, and without much need to alter the original story. They've kept the original bite concept, the technical web-shooters, as opposed to the organic ones seen in the original film series and they've introduced Gwen Stacy as the first love interest, as opposed to Mary Jane Watson, which was how it began in the original comic book canon.

We have Andrew Garfield, who is probably known better for his roles in Lions for Lambs and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, gives us the troubled teen in angst, Peter Parker, coming to terms with his newly found power as well as his loss of his Uncle Ben, played by Martin Sheen. Aunt May, played by Sally Field works well to help balance out the cast with being the maternal figure to Peter.

We have Gwen Stacy, played by a blonde Emma Stone... the second actress to go from redhead to blonde as Gwen, the first being Bryce Dallas Howard, Ron Howard's daughter... which is interesting considering that Kirsten Dunst in the original film series went from blonde to redhead to play the role of Mary Jane Watson... But I digress... Stone's portrayal of Gwen Stacy is one that radiates a more confident, warming and intellectual version in comparison to Bryce's cheeky, confident and seductive version. Gwen seems to play the anchor to Parker's angst and responsibility... rather much like Pepper Potts is to Tony Stark in Iron Man. To see such a strong character in an important female role to this movie is refreshing.

Gwen's father, Captain George Stacy, played by comedian and actor, Denis Leary is formidable, but you can't help but chuckle by seeing the comedian side of him come out with his attitude and blasts of sarcasm that seem to seep out in most of his roles. Whether this is intentional, I'm not sure, but I find that it brought out the character well.

One final character which seems to work incredibly well, is that of Doctor Curt Connors, played by Welsh actor, Rhys Ifans... who also doubles as Connor's alter ego, the Lizard... Kudos and credit must be given to Ifans for taking the concept of Connors and throwing in a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sort of theme... it works brilliantly in this kind of genre, and I have to confess that this performance of his has brought him up several notches since I first saw him as Spike in Notting Hill all those years ago. I did see some potential in him to be a great actor when he played Xenophilius Lovegood in the first part of the last Harry Potter film, and now he has excelled beyond my expectations.

The film works well together, the characters seem to complement each other perfectly, though there are a number of "holes", for the lack of a better word, that I know will be filled in the sequels to come. This is not a bad thing, this is just very well-structured screen-writing. I'm glad that Avi Arad from Marvel Studios and Laura Ziskin decided to continue to produce this film after Columbia Pictures announced the reboot, because this storyline will pave the way to not only more gripping scenes with the next film in the series, but hopefully, for the unanswered questions to be answered. I am very pleased to award The Amazing Spider-Man a five-star rating.

Labyrinth

Running Time: 101 minutes

Media: DVD

I've had to think long and hard about this review, mainly because this review is dedicated to my niece, Ashleigh, who adores this movie... But I have to admit, I have my reservations about this flick... Granted, it stars a 16 year-old Jennifer Connelly, with whom I had a major crush on back then, (hey, I was ten back then, what can I say?) and granted, it was one of her first movies, and granted it has Jim Henson's puppets in place... But that's kinda where the fun stops...

Connelly's portrayal of Sarah seems a little reminiscent of a little princess type who always seem to get her way until her father married someone new... It's assumed from the movie that the mother must have passed on some time back but that Sarah is still not happy about having a step-mother, nor a new half-brother called Toby, with whom she unknowingly manages to get kidnapped by Jareth, the Goblin King, played by singer David Bowie... And it's now up to Sarah to make her way through Jareth's labyrinth in order to reach his castle and rescue her baby brother before he becomes a goblin himself.

Although David Bowie is a talented and handsome man, er... goblin... er... yeah, whatever... His performance, falls a little flat when playing off the character of Sarah... It's almost like there's a missing element between these two that without it, doesn't quite mesh them together... Bowie seems to act well with Henson's puppets incredibly well, as though he were a guest on an episode of Sesame Street... This along with some somewhat dis-jointed song cues within the film as well as some rather... "revealing" ballerina tights or equestrian pants Bowie wears, and you're left feeling a bit uncomfortable...

There is a scene with some almost romantic element which I think was a bit confronting to me, but I guess I tend to analyze things a fair bit... But given the almost near seductive quality that a 39 year-old Bowie had on a 16 year-old Connelly in this scene, I have some entitlement to this opinion... The balance just seems a bit off, despite how charismatic Mr Bowie can be...

Regardless, the movie has a few areas where I had myself repeating lines, like those of a large horned behemoth called Ludo who has a lot of friends who just happen to be rocks... Henson has done a great job with this as he had with Fraggle Rock and The Dark Crystal with his amazing direction and puppetry... Though this time, it's the human characters are the ones that seem to fall short... And as a result, while Labyrinth is still a wonderful movie, the acting by the puppets seems to outweigh in strength than those performances by Bowie and Connelly, and thus this film is awarded 3½ stars...

Romeo Must Die

Running Time: 115 minutes.
Media: TV Broadcast.

I can't recall the first time I saw this film, but I know it wasn't at the cinemas. This film always had me confused... after all, how does one combine a romantic drama with martial arts? The closest thing I have come to this is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, another movie, I need to actually review some time in the near future, but even then, the two concepts of martial arts and romance, seem... well, polar opposites... You can imagine that in such a combination, a character would be inclined to say something like:

"I love you, and yet I also want to kick someone's ass to next Tuesday."

How does one make it work? Basically Jet Li plays Han Sing, who is serving time in a prison in Hong Kong, learns of his brother's death in America, and it's made apparent that there's something suspicious about it. He manages to escape and come to America where he comes across a plot between two warring families who are both business to gain prime real estate. The only thing is, one of the families is his own, headed by his father, Ch'u Sing, played by Henry O; the other is headed by Isak O'Day, played Delroy Lindo, whose daughter Trish, played by late singer and actress, Aaliyah is completely unaware of what's been happening. Supposedly the relationship between Han and Trish develops as the twists to this conspiracy are uncovered.

There is some comedy relief in the film with one of Isak's lackeys, Maurice, a rather rotund chap, played by Anthony Anderson, who has since made his mark in a more serious role in one of the thirty-seven million spin-offs of Law and Order. Russell Wong plays the part of Kai, a brother-type figure to Li's Han in this film. Wong looks like a very fit Asian (but less paranoid) equivalent of John Cusack, don't ask me why... The supposed "romance" (which I didn't really see to be perfectly honest) is intermittently spaced with a number of fight scenes between Li and various characters, with one where Li uses Aaliyah as a sort of conduit to fight a female assailant.

One of the things for which I have to give credit, though, is a number of scenes where the final blow for certain fight scenes is met with an X-ray view of how the death occurs whether it be a punctured torso or a broken neck... And although this effect is cool, when you strip the somewhat lame attempts at romance, and the somewhat predictable storyline, these effects seem to be the only saving point worth watching.

One thing I did read was that Han and Trish were supposed to have a kissing scene, in the film... which explains the title containing the Romeo reference, but this was met with some contempt from a pre-screening audiences. Jet Li stated on his personal website that they had filmed both versions of the scene (with kiss and without), and decided to use the one without instead because it would be "somewhat strange and awkward" for Han to have [SPOILER!!]witnessed his father's suicide and then to come out and kiss someone.

 All in all, the film is average with a number of great fight scenes, but the main plot and supposed love story between Li and Aaliyah are lost... This was a debut film for Jet Li for English-speaking films, and a debut for Aaliyah as an actress... I only am remorseful in knowing this was one of her only few films before her tragic death in 2001. Romeo Must Die gets a three star rating today...

Thor (2011)

Running Time: 114 minutes.

Media: Cinematic release.

Having gone to see this with my fiancée last year I had hoped to see a little more homage to the original Marvel canon, and I was  pleasantly surprised,  though I have to confess, I did have a few disappointing issues with the film.

Natalie Portman was one of them... Don't get me wrong, I know that Jane Foster is a nurse in the original canon, and she's now an astrophysicist in the film... it kinda ties in with the whole wormholes/rainbow bridge plot they have going... but her character is actually quite wooden and the performance is somewhat lacking. What pains me even more is that I'm criticizing an absolute babe like Natalie Portman... I love her, I really do, and all the work she has done in the past... but this was not one of the best performances... You probably could have written her out of the entire storyline and it would not have made much of a difference, or it could have improved it... The point is, that nowadays most of these Marvel films now have a considerably predictable formula where the hero has a love interest of some sort and the hero has to save the interest at some point in one way or another... This is no different in this film, or any other Marvel film.

Odin, is played by the somewhat immortal Sir Anthony Hopkins... His performance is a little cringe-worthy, maybe because, in my personal opinion, it's a little hammy... Sure, it may seem a little necessary to throw in the Shakespearean vibe... After all, let's face it, we have Kenneth Branagh directing this film, and he also directed and starred in a whopping 242 minute version of Hamlet... But this hammy-ness of Hopkin's portrayal of Odin still didn't quite gel with me...

The only other disappointment I had was with the ever lovely Rene Russo, who plays the role of Frigga (or Freya, depending on how you were brought up in regards to Norse Mythology)... Russo, as lovely as she is, was both a) not as recognizable at first, in fact I had to see Thor a second time just to be dead certain, and b) she was seldom used in the storyline... And that was actually quite a shame... I would have loved to have seen more of her in the film. A gorgeous woman if ever I saw one, and one hell of an actress...

Now, having gotten all that off my chest... Let's proceed... Given Thor was a smash and paved the way for The Avengers movie to come about...the story follows the battle fought in the tenth century between the realm of Asgard and the frost giants of Jotunheim. The Casket of Ancient Winters is claimed as prize by Asgard for winning the battle and all ends well... supposedly. Fast forward to present times and Thor is about to ascend the throne as king of Asgard, all hell breaks loose and Thor gets on his high horse and starts yet another battle with the frost giants... Thor's dad, Odin, a little pissed that Thor has arrogantly gone against his wishes and broken a somewhat fragile truce between the two realms (not that anyone in the audience was aware of any "truce" being established), and banishes him to Earth without his hammer, sending that elsewhere with an enchantment to ensure that only the worthy are allowed to wield it.

Here's where things get kinda funny, Thor after plummeting to Earth has a few issues with running into trouble, be it Natalie Portman's van (twice), military installations or giant medieval metallic fire breathing guardians. But in the process of all this craziness occurring, Thor's brother Loki, played by an amazingly charismatic Tom Hiddleston, who would be by far, the most appreciated character in the film in my personal opinion, but supposedly not the most admired by other characters within the film itself; who wants nothing more than to rule Asgard, Earth, the universe, your grandmother's bakery, the neighbor's doghouse, Germany, certain parts of Monaco and maybe Pluto... Let's just say that Loki is one ambitious son of a bitch... But Tom delivers his character with such direction and emotion, that you almost feel like cheering for him and not for Hemsworth's Thor. He very much follows through on this further in The Avengers, I'm very happy to say. To be honest, I'm very pleased with the portrayal of Loki's character by Hiddleston, one of the most refreshing since Taylor Kitsch played Gambit in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

As amazing as this film is, there lacks some continuity between scenes here and there, with trying to link certain aspects together, and although Hemsworth's Thor does attempt to pull it all together and save the day... it does leave the audience feeling like there was something missing... Loki seems to make the movie more than the title character. This movie, which has earned a four star rating from me, still has a few holes that may begin filling up once you've seen it a few more times... Thor is out on DVD and Blu-Ray and should be taken up as soon as possible as it contains a vital component post-credits that is a must-see should you wish to see The Avengers shortly thereafter.

Marvel's "The Avengers"

Running Time: 143 minutes.

Media: Cinematic release.

Before we go any further, let's make one thing clear... this is not the film with Ralph Hiennes and Uma Thurman... If you want to read about that, go here, otherwise continue reading.

Marvel's version of The Avengers would have to be one of the biggest films in history, now drowning in almost $1.5 billion US worldwide... At the time of this review, the value had reached a whopping $1,492,215,000... the mind boggles at just how big this is...

With three film franchises furiously knitting themselves together with a number of other characters, Marvel's The Avengers is a gestalt... it's greater than the sum of its parts... and for all intensive purposes one of the biggest films ever. The year 2003 saw the somewhat tatty performance of the original "Hulk" movie starring Eric Bana... A good testing ground for the Avengers' greenest member... Then came Edward Norton's performance which seemed a little more homage-worthy to Bill Bixby's portrayal of Bruce Banner, back in 2008. All very well and good, you may think, but who ends up getting the role of The Hulk? Our green friend is re-cast a third time by Mark Ruffalo, who to be perfectly honest, seems to fuse the seriousness from Eric Bana, and the simplicity of Edward Norton to create an amalgam of what the Hulk should really be. Adding Lou Ferrigno to voice the Hulk in this film has made this worthy of including the Green Machine.

Iron Man also came around that same year, resurrecting Robert Downey Jr's career and life all in the one hit. RDJ's ability to channel Tony Stark's character time and time again with perfection just oozes assurance without any shadow of doubt that he is the ideal person for the role. Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans respectively marking their territory as strong contributors to the Avengers film as Thor and Captain America show that their characters will be forever immortalized as these two Marvel characters for years to come, though it does raise the question as to whether Chris Evans will still be reprising his role as The Human Torch in any future Fantastic Four films. The ever sexy Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow is also present from her role in Iron Man 2, and The Bourne Legacy's Jeremy Renner carries on his role as Clint Barton (aka Hawkeye) from the Thor movie, and Samuel L. Jackson reprises his role as SHIELD director, Nick Fury, who has appeared in all of the Avenger films to varying capacities.

The film basically revolves around the dynamic of all the members to work together to fight off the forces of Loki's army, who has recently acquired the Tesseract and intends to rule Earth with it... Of course the Avengers Initiative is activated and the awesomeness begins... In fact, this entire film is just bursting at the seams with pure awesomeness, and filled with extra tidbits such as Tim Hiddelston reprising his role as Loki, charming up the scenes once more... and more abitious than ever to rule the Earth. Clark Gregg also shows up once more as SHIELD's Agent Phil Coulson and Gwyneth Paltrow as a slightly blonder Pepper Potts... (what was the go there?) Cobie Smulders is Agent Maria Hill, who seems more like a ramped-up and sexy personal assistant with combat skills... and Paul Bettany takes up the helm once more as JARVIS, the AI for Stark's Iron Man suit.

I enjoyed this film immensely, and despite a few slight disappointments... One which is a major spoiler, so I can't mention it here... but seemed necessary to advance the film along; but nevertheless, the film seriously kicked ass. The dynamic of this team trying to work together is hilarious because of the number of egos these characters possess, but it all settles down in the end. This film has rightly earned its 5-star rating, and I can't wait for pay-day so that I can buy the damn Blu-Ray which only just came out on sale a week ago!

Men In Black 3 (aka MIB³)

Running Time: 116 minutes.

Media: Cinematic release.

When I heard they were finally concluding the trilogy of Men in Black earlier this year I was taken back to a time where I first having people refer to me as "El" and consequently as just "L"... Those were much simpler times back then... MIB3 runs on a similar parallel in the sense that Agent J is sent back to a period where "simpler times" was the norm...

When Will Smith's character of Agent J is tasked to solve his partner K's mysterious disappearance from the time stream, he gets pulled from his usual comfortable environment and thrust into 1969... Where K's younger self played by a remarkably accurate Josh Brolin joins forces with J to set things right, including the capture of Boris, a very... angry alien who wants to kill off everyone in MIB...

Brolin's portrayal of Tommy Lee Jones's Agent K from 1969... Well, what can I say... It defies description... His intimations, slight nuances and even the southern drawl that Tommy has are hypnotic... The fact that Josh can practically become a younger version of a well-known character like K and nail it time after time after time is incredible... It's so convincing that I'm compelled to watch his portrayal of George W. Bush in W very soon...

Sadly, with plusses there are a few minuses... Zed, played previously by Rip Torn (now 81) has been replaced by Emma Thompson, on the premise that Zed has passed on... And her portrayal of being a chief of MIB staff seems a little lackluster in comparison to her 1969 counterpart played by Alice Eve... It's not convincing enough... Frank the dog, is also absent from the film, as well as Tony Shaloub's Jack Jeebs... So a lot of the humor has to come from the Smith-Jones-Brolin dynamic within the film than from these secondary characters... despite Thompson's one main attempt to gain a few laughs from the audience, which from my observation in the cinema was a lot of questioning as to whether Thompson was suffering from a mild form of Tourette's...

However, the film does redeem itself with an incredible twist which ties in the first film perfectly... It had me blown away and left me wanting to go home and see the first film just to see the links to the this film... Men in Black 3 has my approval and my respect, as well as a rating of 4½ stars... If they make a fourth film... And this is a very remote "if", I'd be very happy to see what they come up with...

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

Running Time: 116 minutes.
Media: DVD.

Matthew McConaughey is a bit of a hero of mine, only in the sense that he seems to be the kind of gentleman actor who always ends up getting the girl in the end in whatever movie he's in... well, 90% of the time... so long as it's an action movie or a romantic comedy (of which this is definitely the latter and not the former.)

In fact, I would say that any romantic comedy that Matthew has starred in or will ever star in will raise the testosterone levels a considerable notch as he always seems to ramp up such levels up to a point where you can sit there and enjoy the McConaughey-ness of the movie, without reaching a point where you're spitting or scratching your private parts... Also most McConaughey-based romantic comedies usually come with a fairly wonderful cast, inclusive of an equally wonderful leading lady... of which How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days does so in spades, with the ever lovely Kate Hudson...

The plot is such that he's been challenged to woo Kate Hudson over in ten days, in order to win an exclusive carte-blanche over the advertising account of a diamond supplier in Europe. What he doesn't know is that there is a similar bet for Kate to date McConaughey and over 10 days destroy him completely to the point that he will break up with her...

So it results in boy meets girl, girl drives boy crazy, boy charms girl... All seems to go well until both actually fall for one another... So when the truth comes out, the remaining twenty or so minutes are spent trying to reach that "happily ever after" cliché of one trying to win the other back... I know it's a tried and tested formula, but it can, after a number of these movies, get quite tedious... And you long for a plot twist that only M. Night Shyamalan can provide...

Still, this isn't one of those "chick flicks" that make men grow a uterus... Despite the slight immaturity that some people may see in a number of characters played by McConaughey in movies both recent and previous, he pulls off his character spectacularly and gains respect from both male and female audiences alike... Hudson balances out McConaughey perfectly, forming a wonderful yin-yang combination.

I award "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" 4½ stars... Probably one of the highest ratings I've given to a chic- er, I mean, romantic comedy... Well, at least since reviewing Knight and Day... ;)