Movie Review: "The Dark Knight Rises"

So. "The Dark Knight Rises," then.

Director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy has taken comic book movies to bold new places, quite dark and grim ones, mind you, but there's a keen, probing intelligence behind them. They're not as "popcorn movie fun" as "The Avengers" was but neither are they muddled attempts at "grown-up comix" like "Superman Returns" or "Daredevil" were.

I'm aware that most Batman fans haven't seen the movie yet, so I will avoid major spoilers. It's not cheating to say "Rises" picks up some time after "The Dark Knight," with Batman long missing in action and a mysterious masked mercenary named Bane (Tom Hardy) making evil plots against Gotham City. Oh, and there's Catwoman, although she's never called that here, played wonderfully by a sly and funny Anne Hathaway (who provides just about the only moments of humour in this dark tale).

I'm still chewing over "Rises," I think. I quite liked it, but Nolan's icy cool control make it a movie that's hard to hug. In case we hadn't gotten it with "The Dark Knight," in the third movie of this series Nolan hammers home relentlessly that his Batman is a 9/11 analogy. Gotham City and its protector are mercilessly tested throughout "Rises."

What happened on 9/11 is probably the defining moment of the last dozen years, so it's no surprise it's seeped into Batman. But Nolan also scoops up a lot of the Occupy movement's rhetoric and the fallout from the global financial crisis. He's been masterful at echoing the zeitgeist through the spandex.

However, Bane as a character is no Joker, and while Tom Hardy tries hard he's up against a fundamental problem with the mask obscuring most of his face. It's hard to get sucked into his performance like we all did with Heath Ledger. And his motivations too often sound like they're cribbed from a copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook. But Hardy does provide a great looming sense of menace.

Among the supporting cast, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is excellent as an idealistic Gotham cop who becomes quite important as the show goes on, and Bale delivers his usual sturdy work. (Michael Caine's Alfred, though, crosses over from mentor to whiner a bit too much.)

There's some great twists and turns in the sprawling plot, and Nolan delivers epic, assured action sequences like few other directors. "The Dark Knight Rises" has a scale and confidence to it that places it above most other blockbusters. And while at nearly 3 hours it occasionally lags, it wraps up with a deeply satisfying and heartfelt climax that touches on many elements of the Batman legend from the last 70 years. "Rises" won't satisfy everyone expecting a repeat of "The Dark Knight," with its repeated themes of class and revolutionary reform, but like that movie I suspect it'll hold up very well to repeat viewing. (Flash back to 2008 with my "Dark Knight" review if you like.)

I like that Nolan is willing to make his Batman about more than just a caped crusader. There's a reason Batman has endured as comics' single most popular, malleable character. Nolan's subtexts can sometimes get overwhelming, but as a whole this trilogy is a pretty masterful class in how much wealth there is in the Batman archetype. It'll be hard for whoever "reboots" (gosh, I'm learning to hate that word) Batman movies next to top what he's done.

Learning to love the Hulk again

One of the best side effects of "The Avengers" movie being a mega-hit worldwide is that people are starting to think the Hulk is kind of cool again. Mark Ruffalo's witty, tense performance as Bruce Banner just about steals the movie out from under many other flashier characters, and for the first time, the Hulk himself seems "right" on screen. Like many, I hated Ang Lee's ponderous and misguided 2003 film, and while I enjoyed 2008's "Incredible Hulk" with Edward Norton, there was still something missing from it.

"Avengers" and geek-god writer Joss Whedon figured it out - the Hulk had no real character on screen previously. For 50 years in comics, the Hulk has often been a funny, touching character. The "Avengers" Hulk gives us some of that movie's funniest, and scariest, moments, and looks about as realistic as an 8-foot-tall green muscle man really could. Unlike the last two Hulk movies where the Hulk was basically a CGI Godzilla, in this one we spend enough time with Bruce Banner to truly see him within the Hulk when the moment comes.

I used to think the Hulk was a lame character when I was a young comic-collecting Marvel fanboy. The whole "Hulk smash" and Banner as whiny cursed nerd thing just seemed cliched and boring. Yet I've long since changed my mind and these days I'd rank Bruce Banner as quite possibly Lee and Kirby's second-greatest Marvel creation, just after the Fantastic Four.

I just recently picked up Marvel's new "Hulk: Pardoned" collection, which reprints a huge swag of comics by the great Bill Mantlo from the early 1980s, which contained a story that shook up the whole "Hulk smash/Banner whine" paradigm forever. Mantlo (who was tragically brain-damaged in 1992 in an accident) might just be the most influential writer the Hulk ever had. "Hulk: Pardoned" is the start of an epic 30-issue storyline that ran from "Incredible Hulk" #270-300 or so, where for the first time Bruce Banner gains extended control of the Hulk's body and becomes "the smart Hulk."

Mantlo's writing is really underrated - it's not flashy like Alan Moore or Frank Miller were in the 1980s, so he never quite got the respect he deserved, but for mainstream superhero comics, Mantlo was one of the best at quietly filling in character and depth amongst the smashing. In "Hulk: Pardoned," we find the genius Banner dealing with the power and freedom of being in control of the Hulk for the first time, along with its pitfalls.

One of the key things Mantlo established about Bruce Banner is that the Hulk's fierce rage and animal nature isn't some "other personality" but very much Banner's dark side, the legacy of a childhood filled with abuse (a key bit of Banner's back story Mantlo also added to the character). While Ang Lee fumbled horribly trying to illustrate this sad past in his labored "Hulk" film, in "Avengers" Mark Ruffalo manages to brilliantly distill this down to just one single, crowd-pleasing line in the final confrontation scene, as he answers an earlier question about how he "lives" with the Hulk inside him:

Steve Rogers: Doc... I think now is the perfect time for you to get angry.

Bruce Banner: That's my secret, Cap. I'm always angry.

Mantlo's writing on the "Hulk" gave a character that was beginning to seem a bit tired a new life. The extraordinary 150-issue run by writer Peter David that followed shortly after Mantlo's is probably the best the character's ever been, and largely indebted to Mantlo. David opened the door further for alternate manifestations of the Hulk/Banner duality -- you got the cunning, feral "Grey Hulk," another kind of smart Hulk with "Professor Hulk," and much more. Bruce Banner's head is filling with alternate personalities and manifestations, and while invariably his life turns to crap, Mantlo showed us how many permutations his story could have. More recently, there's been a surfeit of great Hulk comics with the "World War Hulk" miniseries (what happens if a smart but violent Hulk declares war on mankind?) and Jeff Parker's excellent "Red Hulk", which features another key supporting character becoming a 'Hulk' himself and doesn't feel like scraping the bottom of the Hulk barrel at all.

The genius with a tortured dark side isn't a new idea at all - Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are a big influence in Lee and Kirby's original "Hulk" tales. But as "Avengers" shows, the man with a raging, constraint-free id inside is still a very potent character. And the reason Ruffalo's Hulk is such a crowd-pleasing character is partly because Hulk smashing stuff up is always cool, but also because "Avengers" smartly makes Hulk a relatable hero as well, which the previous two Hulk movies never really managed to successfully do.

A not-exactly-review of "The Avengers"

Short review of “Avengers”: I loved it.

Longer story: I remember the crazy, epic excitement I felt when Tim Burton’s “Batman” was being filmed, way back in 1989. I clipped the first fuzzy black-and-white picture of Jack Nicholson’s makeup as the Joker out of the newspaper and carried it around for weeks. I remember waiting in line at the Sierra Cinemas on June 23, 1989 for the first showing and being dazzled by actually seeing Batman, from the comic books, on a movie screen. While in hindsight Burton’s “Batman” is more than a little flawed, it woke me up to the idea that a comic character I loved could come to life. (Yeah, I’d seen and liked the Christopher Reeve “Superman” movies, but didn’t feel the intense connection to the character I did to Batman.)

Time and again I’ve had that same weird sensation evoked by a good comic movie – in “X-Men,” seeing Wolverine pop his claws on screen, or in “Spider-Man 2,” when Spidey and Doctor Octopus have that dizzying battle on a moving train. Not every comic movie has worked – I still rage at Ang Lee’s baffling “Hulk” or the missed opportunities of “Green Lantern” or “Fantastic Four.” But when they do, they hit that sweet spot of making the imaginary seem real, for just a second.

The scene in “Avengers” where it kicked in for me was when Thor, Iron Man and Captain America meet for the first time in a mountainous woods, and they fight, of course, because fighting is how superheroes meet each other. And then there’s this shot of the three of them in a moment of calm, and I was just like, yeah, that’s the Avengers, all right.

I’m a huge Joss Whedon fan and he’s done Marvel Comics freaks proud with his deeply affectionate, epic and yet witty take on the Avengers. Mashing Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, The Hulk and more into a coherent movie would be tough – this could’ve easily been a debacle of “Batman And Robin” proportions. But instead, it’s pretty darn near perfect. And while I'm sure I could nitpick - it's a bit slow to get going, the Hawkeye in this movie is not "my" Hawkeye, the army at the climax are utterly faceless cannon fodder - I'd rather just sit back and bask in that glow of a comic come to life. It’s good to know I can still feel at 40 like I did at 17 watching “Batman.”

Movie Review: The Adventures of Tintin

I know we Americans apparently aren't supposed to be huge fans of Tintin, but I grew up on the intrepid quiff-haired reporter and his globetrotting adventures.

I used to devour the Tintin books from the local library until they started to fall apart. "The Broken Ear," "Tintin in America," "Destination Moon" and many more - the great Herge's art is pristine, detailed and expressive, while the cast of characters surrounding Tintin are some of the great eccentrics of comics.

But I went to "The Adventures of Tintin," the big-budget Hollywood epic, with a bit of concern. I appreciate Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson devoting so much care to bringing Tintin to the screen, and their fancy new CGI motion capture technology achieves a pretty remarkable look -- something that pays homage to Herge's crisp cartooning that isn't quite a cartoon. Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis voice Tintin and the rummy loudmouth Captain Haddock in an adventure that ties together several of Herge's stories into one narrative. Serkis, the king of motion capture, steals the show as the blustering Haddock, while Nick Frost and Simon Pegg are the amusing twin detectives Thomson and Thompson.

There's an awful lot I liked about "The Adventures of Tintin", and my nearly 8-year-old movie companion loved it. They are highly reverent to the basic characters -- Tintin still has his plus-fours and oddly ageless look and isn't carting around an iPhone or anything. The delightful "boy's own adventure" tone of Herge's work is intact, with Tintin merrily circling the globe on a detective quest that involves hidden treasures and ancient rivalries. Frequently, the animation is stunning -- particularly a show-stopping battle between pirate ships that's one of the best I've ever seen in the movies, and could probably have only been done in animation.

But there's things about "Tintin" that leave me vaguely unsatisfied.

The look, while technically an utter marvel, sometimes threw me out of the picture. Not so much Tintin and Haddock, who are just perfect quasi-realistic creations, but more the background characters or the too-rubbery Thompson and Thomson. The "dead-eye" look many CGI characters have is mostly gone here, but the background characters have this weird deformed off-putting look, which kept distracting me. Yeah, they're in Herge's style, but still.

I'm not one of those pedants who gets too worked up over movies differing from the source materials that much, but in "Tintin," the parts I liked the least tend to be the bits Spielberg, Jackson and the rest have bolted on to Herge's elegant stories. There's a little too much Spielberg in Tintin, too much over-the-top, utterly implausible action that just kind of glazes your eyes over. Almost every bit Spielberg has added on - I'm thinking the ludicrous "crane fight" for example - adds nothing to the story.

I always liked Herge's fine detail and the way his action scenes seemed real - punches really hurt, characters really bruise. Sure, there's big goofy action sequences in the comics, but here Tintin too often becomes yet another movie Superman. There's some business with a larcenous falcon or some huge motorized cranes that just goes on forever and doesn't really seem "Tintin" to me. What I liked the best are the bits of Tintin that really do stick close to the book - the meticulous treasure hunt, the wonderful Haddock/Tintin bond, the intrepid, brave Snowy. "Tintin" is a good movie, but it falls a bit short of great - perhaps the likely sequel (the movie hasn't done huge in America but is a big money-maker in Europe) will be a bit more Herge and a bit less Hollywood.

Movie Review: Captain America: The First Avenger

It may have taken me a week or two, but I’ve finally seen “Captain America: The First Avenger,” the red, white and blue wrap-up to our summer of comic book movies galore.

I have to admit I wasn’t quite as excited to see Cap as I’ve been other superheroes on screen – I’ve just never been a gigantic fan of the character, who walks a thin line between inspiring and hokey. Most of my comics experience with Captain America has been as a supporting character in “The Avengers,” although writer Ed Brubaker has been doing some great stuff with him in recent years I’ve been catching up on. But “Captain America” the movie, while not groundbreaking, is a solid, fun time at the movies, a rip-roaring and mildly retro war action picture that is more Indiana Jones in tone than “The Dark Knight.”

What I liked:
Chris Evans has now played two Marvel heroes in recent years – first the Fantastic Four's Human Torch - but Captain America is a tricky role. He's idealistic and inspirational, which can make for a dull character. But Evans does a solid job presenting the man behind the icon, particularly in the marvellous early scenes with a pretty seamless special effect that makes him a 90-lb weakling as young Steve Rogers.

“Captain America” is quite tied into the whole overall Marvel movies mix, but it’s not done QUITE as intrusively as it was in “Iron Man 2” or “Thor.” There’s nifty little nods to the original Human Torch and Iron Man’s dad Howard Stark is a major character, and the ending is a natural lead-in to next year’s “The Avengers.” I love seeing old war comics heroes The Howling Commandos appear (seriously, did anyone ever imagine “Dum-Dum” Dugan would appear in a major Hollywood movie?).

Hayley Atwell makes a marvellous Peggy Carter, who’s both feminine and tough and has a naturalistic, unforced relationship develop with Rogers. Tommy Lee Jones is there pretty much for comic relief as the wisecracking old soldier commander, while Stanley Tucci provides a nice emotional heart in a few scenes as the doctor who gives Rogers his powers.

Director Joe Johnston did the beloved 1990s cult comic adaptation “The Rocketeer,” which “Captain America” almost feels like a sequel to. There's a great production design of 1940s New York that straddles realism and fantasy, and some fine visuals like the Red Skull’s flying wing of destruction and his proto-Stormtrooper armoured henchmen.

What I didn’t like:
Chris Evans, the flip side: once he gets pumped up into Captain America, oddly, I found Evans a little less interesting - the first half of the movie is captivating as we see how Rogers becomes Captain America, but once he does, it gets a bit routine. Probably my one big beef with Evans is that his Captain America lacks a certain authority, that leader of men feeling that the character needs. Even as the movie winds down, he seems a bit too green. I know it's the young Captain America here, but there's still a need for a bit more gravitas.

Hugo Weaving looks all grim and cool as the Red Skull, Captain America's evil doppleganger, but the character just feels a bit thin to me. Actually, I’ve had that problem with the comics Skull too, who’s just so darned evil and nihilistic that it’s hard to really feel any kinship with him. There's nothing that pushes him to a unique level like Heath Ledger's Joker or Terence Stamp's General Zod.

Overall, it hasn’t been a bad summer (or winter down here) for comics fans. I quite enjoyed both “Thor” and “X-Men: First Class,” and while “Green Lantern” was a financial and critical miss, it wasn’t the worst comics movie ever made and really suffers more because the bar has been raised so high the last five years or so.

Movie Review: Green Lantern

Apparently, "Green Lantern" is the worst thing in the history of ever if you read the message boards. But it isn't actually. It's another fairly routine comic book movie, with a handful of flaws and missteps, but I still found it decent entertainment. Its big problem is it comes amongst a tsunami of comic movies and offers too much of the "same old thing," which "Thor" and "X-Men: First Class" managed to avoid. At this point, I think we comics geeks kind of expect more.

Green Lantern is a step or two down from the Batman and Superman level for DC Comics, but he's been a pretty successful character for going on 70 years now, through a variety of incarnations. The Green Lantern Corps -- a cosmic police force - has spun off into all kinds of configurations, but the best known Green Lantern is Hal Jordan, former test pilot who becomes Earth's first Lantern Corpsman.

"Green Lantern" the movie introduces Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) and his world and goes for a kind of "Star Wars" meets "Iron Man" tone. The faraway world of Oa and the diverse alien corps are wonderfully realized in a million hues of green. Where "Lantern" stumbles is the same place other comic movies like "Iron Man 2" did -- trying to cram in too much. Between the Corps members, Sinestro, villains Parallax and Hector Hammond and Hal Jordan's personal life, there's enough for a couple movies. The film develops a choppy rhythm, rushing to its climax where suddenly novice ring-bearer Jordan becomes an expert warrior.

But still -- I liked Reynolds' breezy, yet insecure Hal Jordan. Jordan is one of those comics characters I've never really warmed to - a generic square-jawed hero who later developed deep problems and even became a mass murderer (as you do). The movie takes the shorthand method of characterizing Jordan (using a heaping helping of traits from another comic Green Lantern, Kyle Rayner). Mark Strong also commands the screen as stern alien leader Sinestro, whose name is a dead giveaway for how the character ends up in the comics. Peter Sarsgaard also makes the most of a rather confusingly written character as the nerdy, betrayed Hector Hammond.

I didn't really think much of co-producer and overrated comics writer Geoff Johns trying to awkwardly cram in many of his own creations like Parallax, a nebulous floating fear demon, or yellow power rings and the like. I'm not a fan of the red, yellow, pink and whatever Lanterns he's created in the comics. The blue Guardians of the Universe are also one of those comic-book concepts that just look a bit goofy on screen.

Unlike "Thor" -- where I thought the balance between the fantastical Asgard and the mundane New Mexico actually worked -- "Green Lantern" comes to life best in the outer space sequences. I wanted more of Oa, more of the eye-catching alien Corps, and less of Hal Jordan mooning about over the bland Blake Lively. There's too much that's familiar in "Green Lantern" -- hero discovers powers, hero tested, hero triumphs. For comic movies to succeed when there's so many of them these days they need to set themselves apart, like "Thor" and its Nordic gods or "The Dark Knight" and its epic morality plays.

But y'know, I took Peter, 7, with me to it which is perhaps the best way to see a movie like this, with a boy whose eyes open wide at every sight we grown-ups would call cliche. I mean, Peter even gets a kick out of the much-maligned "Fantastic Four" movies (which "Green Lantern" still surpassed in my humble eye). I know "Green Lantern" isn't a great movie, but I had a great time watching it with Peter. So in that respect, it works pretty well for some ages.

Movie Review: X-Men: First Class

I still remember how amazing it seemed 11 years ago that they were actually making an "X-Men" movie from one of my favorite childhood comics -- and here we are with the fifth now out, "X-Men: First Class."

I won't call it a "reboot," because man am I sick of that phrase, but as a prequel, "First Class" is genuinely exciting stuff, filling in the gaps in the relationship between Professor X and Magneto and providing the required amount of summer-movie explosions and such. It's easily the best of the "X-Men" movies after "X2," I think, although I don't view "X-Men: The Last Stand" and "Wolverine" with quite as much visceral scorn as the rest of the Internet seems to.

The Malcolm X/Martin Luther King kind of dynamic between Xavier and Magneto over mutant rights has been fodder for many of the best "X-Men" stories over the decades, and "First Class" follows the relationship from its start -- including young Magneto's tortured youth in a Nazi concentration camp. There was the solid decision to make this a period piece set in the 1960s, in a world where mutants hold the balance of power in the Cold War and the real-life Cuban Missile Crisis is cleverly folded into the plot.

What I liked:
I have really dug Michael Fassbender in movies like "Inglourious Basterds" and "Centurion," and he owns the screen as a young Magneto. I'd actually say he's better than Sir Ian McKellen was in a lot of ways, tapping into the character's rage and wounded dignity. James McAvoy is less flashy as young Professor X, and plays it a bit goofy with his lounge lizard "groovy" slang sometimes, but ably convinces of Xavier's essential heart and compassion. You believe this man will grow up to be Patrick Stewart.

Jennifer Lawrence brings some needed depth as young Mystique, a shapeshifter trying to fit in. It's a shame her character was nowhere near as well written in the first few "X-Men" movies, and doesn't really mesh well with the more thoughtful woman shown here. The other younger mutants on screen here get less time to develop their characters and some of them are rather weak actors, but Nicholas Hoult as Beast is a stand-out (although I'm afraid I didn't find the CGI/makeup used for his "transformation" later in the film very effective).

The Hellfire Club of the comics, a kind of mutant Masons, were always one of my favorites, and it's good to see them on screen albeit in a somewhat different form. I love Kevin Bacon playing a scenery-chewing Sebastian Shaw. While he isn't exactly the same burly dandy the comics have featured he does a good job of providing sinister menace. January Jones as Emma Frost looks fantastic, but as seen on "Mad Men" the icy Jones seems to have exactly one facial expression about 90% of the time.

What I didn't like:
The movie is fitful in its desire to keep to the 1960s setting. While there's marvelous James Bond/Austin Powers type touches, like Sebastian Shaw's evil submarine and Emma Frost's go-go wardrobes, other times the movie seems to be set in the modern day. Director Matthew Vaughn ("Kick-Ass") has a lot of style, but it feels like he was holding back a bit (kicky split-screen montage sequences are one of his better gimmicks).

It's a real grab-bag of mutants assembled here for any long-time reader of the "X-Men" comics. You've got Beast and Professor X from the "real" comic book first class, then Havok and Banshee from a slightly later era, and then mutants so darned new in the comics I'd barely heard of them, like Darwin and Azazel. Still, unless you're some kind of rampant continuity nut, the team assembled here works for the story -- and if you're a rabid continuity nut you're going to be really annoyed anyway by how the fate of Charles Xavier in this film doesn't seem to match up at all with appearances he made in "X3" and "Wolverine." So it goes.

After the mixed reception "Wolverine" got I kind of hope "First Class" keeps the X-fires burning. There's a lot of good stories yet to be told, and "First Class" reminds us of the potential the first few "X-Men" movies showed, back when we didn't have 6-7 comic books opening a year.

Movie review: Thor

It's strange for a 30-year comic book geek to admit, but I never really much cared for Thor. When I was in my younger avid collecting days there were only a few characters whose books I never bought, and one of 'em was Thor. The long hair, the bare arms, the high-faluting fancy talk? It all seemed too lame to me.

But yet Thor is a compelling character, which took me a while to realize -- a god who walks among men, caught between two worlds, and now that I'm less of a nerdy fanboy I've found some very good Thor comics such as the legendary ones by Walt Simonson and the sturdy originals by Lee and Kirby. The highly entertaining new movie "Thor" reminds me a lot of "Iron Man" -- it takes a B-grade hero who's been in far more mediocre comics than truly great ones over his 50-year history and distills it down to its essence.

"Thor" combines culture clash with smashing action and adventure and feels like something rather new among the current glut of comic movies. It's not a story of some humble nerdy type who learns to become a hero. It's got equal elements of Lord of the Rings-style fantasy and superhero action. It's a tale of a god who learns humility, wrapped up in lots of family drama dynamics and good old frost giant-smashing. It's got a good solid sense of humor and whimsy which you kind of need when dealing with Norse gods throwing giant hammers about, yet it knows when to pile on the serious as well.

What I liked:
I wasn't sure about casting relative unknown Chris Hemsworth as Thor, but he pretty much knocks it out of the park in a starmaking performance -- rather than having the character speak the typical mangled Elizabethan style that the comic did for years, he adopts a more general formal tone. The scenes where Thor is stranded, powerless, in a small New Mexico town are great culture clash fun.

A relentlessly scenery-chewing Anthony Hopkins makes for a logical Odin, while Tom Hiddleston does a very good turn as slippery Loki, although the script fails him sometimes with muddled motivations and character turns. Natalie Portman brings nice charm to Thor's earthly love interest Jane Foster, while director Kenneth Branagh ably balances big-action moments with smaller character beats that make this feel a bit less disposable than it might have.

And it's a pleasure to see a superhero movie that really embraces the cosmic scale -- one failing of, say, "Iron Man 2," is climactic battles that kind of disappoint. Here, we see giant armies of frost giants, a Thor/Loki throwdown that's quite epic, and the extraordinary Jack Kirby creation the Destroyer brought to vivid life.

What I didn't like:
Well as usual, the "3D" edition of the movie is a gimmick and not worth paying extra for -- I'm actively avoiding 3D versions of most movies when I find them, as the 3D films tend to be projected too dark, rarely utilize the format well and generally just a big hype.

The one thing about "Thor" that sticks with me is the general look of Asgard and the Asgardians -- I'm not quite sold on it, yet I'm not quite sure how I would've done it. They're all very shiny-armored and colourful, but I wonder if it would seem more "real" if Asgard looked a bit more lived in rather than like a lot of plastic models. Yet it is a god's realm, and who really knows how that's meant to look? As I've said before, it's a fine line between making Asgard look cool and having it look like a bad rock video. It's also a shame to see Rene Russo relatively wasted as Thor's mother, but so it goes.

Despite all the very solid acting talent and one of my favorite creators Joss Whedon at the helm of next year's giant "Avengers" movie, I'm still rather uncertain about it. Frankly the weakest parts of "Iron Man 2" and "Thor" are those where they try to awkwardly shove in a "shared universe" and twee cameos. (Although seeing ace archer and "Avengers" co-star Hawkeye, briefly, in "Thor" is pretty sweet, actually. Guess I'm still a comics geek after all.)

Summer 2011 Movie Preview Excite-O-Meter

It's nearly summer in US movie theatres (or winter in my part of the world), and all the blockbusters are lining up one after another. This is the comic-bookiest movie season we've seen in a while. Typically every year there's one or two big comic book flicks but this summer seems particularly high on the spandex and sequels. Here's a handful of this summer's biggest movies and how excited I am to see them on a scale of 1 (might watch 10 minutes on the telly one night) to 10 (I'm already waiting in line).

Thor
I always liked the concept of Thor far more than I did the comic books unless they were by Walt Simonson or Jack Kirby. And this first of this year's flood of comic book movies is the first one that feels fresh to me, rather than yet another sequel or standard origin story. You have Norse gods walking the earth, Anthony Hopkins in the role he was born to play as Odin, a spunky Natalie Portman, and director Kenneth Branagh, whose "Henry V" dazzled me with its Thor-like mix of pomp and grit 20 (!!) years ago. I'm not entirely sure the leading man Chris Hemsworth is up to the job here, but I'm quite intrigued by what I've seen so far. Hopefully it doesn't all end up looking like a bad Queen video, but I'd say this and "X-Men: First Class" are most interesting of all the summer's comic booky movies to me.
Excite-O-Meter: 9
 
Captain America: The First Avenger
And yet ANOTHER first-time superhero. It's unpatriotic, but I've never really been a huge Captain America fan, although Ed Brubaker has been doing some great comics the last few years with the character. So I'm not as psyched about this as I was about the first Batman or Spider-Man movie, say. But Chris Evans is very solid casting, and what footage I've seen is intriguing. Setting it during World War II could work, or it could come off as a bit hokey. I'll probably see it in theatres like I have most comic book movies since 2000, but I want to feel a bit more energy first.
Excite-O-Meter: 6.5
 
X-Men: First Class
Speaking of which, The X-Men franchise may be running low on steam, but I'm intrigued by this one. I like the decision to set it in the 1960s, giving it a kind of cool retro-Mod design, and both James McAvoy (as young Professor X) and Michael Fassbender (as Magneto) are excellent casting. I'm not too sure what the actual story is about, but "Kick-Ass" director Matthew Vaughn is at the helm, so I'll go see.
Excite-O-Meter: 8

Rise of the Planet of the Apes
I love the old '70s movie series, barechested Charlton Heston and all, and this is an intriguing kind-of-not-really remake of the fourth film in the series, "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes," taking on how the apes came to rule the world. An interesting trailer is out which is a bit clunky (I like how someone described it as looking like a zombie movie but with apes), yet it's a far more intriguing plot than Tim Burton's frankly awful remake of the original. But are CGI apes really an improvement over awesome rubber masks?
Excite-O-Meter: 6
 
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 82
Y'know, I know I've seen all the Harry Potter movies, but honestly, I barely remember much of them past about part 4. They're all perfectly adequate adaptations, but somehow, they've never really risen to the realm of fine art for me ("Prisoner of Azkaban" is the one I remember the fondest). So I might see this eventually, but I have to admit there's no substitute for them old-media books for me really.
Excite-O-Meter: 4

Green Lantern
Another "second-tier" superhero makes it to Hollywood. This could go either way, really. I like the concept of Green Lantern, and I like Ryan Reynolds, who's been appealing in a variety of movies. The latest footage is pretty cool, going for a kind of "Star Wars" meets "Cops" vibe with some striking design work -- although Green Lantern's costume looks a little too heavy on the CGI for my liking. It'd be nice for a DC hero other than Superman or Batman to succeed on screen, but really I feel this could either soar as lighthearted "Iron Man"-like fun, or be a big miscalculated "Spirit"-scale flop.
Excite-O-Meter: 7 

Transformers 3: Dark Side of the Moon
It was kinda cool to see the big robots come to life in 2007, but it was a Michael Bay film, so there wasn't much to it. Never saw #2, and no interest really in seeing #3 either. I miss the clean if clunky designs they had for the robots on the old TV cartoons myself.
Excite-O-Meter: 2
 
Cowboys and Aliens
Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig in a movie that's about exactly what it sounds like. Steampunk mashups of this sort can be like "Wild Wild West," but it'd be nice if this was actually good. "Iron Man" director Jon Favreau is doing this, so there's hope, but gosh, it feels like the last time Harrison Ford really tried in a movie was back in 1997's "Air Force One," so I dunno....
Excite-O-Meter: 5
 
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
The first one was good fun, the second one went right up its own laboured and overcomplex mythology and lost all sense of fun, and I didn't even see the third one. I might check this out one day as it promises to be more self-contained, but really, Johnny Depp is kind of slumming it doing this for a fourth time.
Excite-O-Meter: 4
 
Cars 2
The boy will drag me to it, and I quite liked the first one even if I couldn't really swallow the idea of an entire ecosystem apparently built around anthropomorphic cars. Seriously, where are all the people? Did Lightning McQueen and his mates kill them all?
Excite-O-Meter: 6
 
The Smurfs
Ohgodno.
Excite-O-Meter: 0

Movie review: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

Sitting there watching this week's comic-book movie adaptation "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" with a big goofy grin on my face much of the time, one thought kept running through my head -- how on earth did this movie get made? It's a gleeful, wacky romp, the demon spawn of 1960s Adam West "Batman" crossed with Donkey Kong spliced with a raving Looney Tunes energy all its own.

It's hardly "The Dark Knight," in the madcap way it slices and dices genres and constantly winks at its own artificiality. And it isn't looking like a big hit movie at the box office, whatever that means, but creatively, it's a high-adrenaline blast from "Shaun of the Dead"/"Spaced"/"Hot Fuzz" mastermind Edgar Wright.

If you're not up on it, it's all about a rather clueless, casually cruel but well-meaning doofus named Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) who grows up to become a man. Pilgrim's a jobless, aimless 22-year-old bass player in a struggling band who falls in love with the mysterious Ramona Flowers – but finds out he has to defeat her 7 evil exes before winning her heart.

I loved the casting -- Michael Cera's wide-eyed nerd routine may have worn thin for some, but I think he really ventured into a new place here. He got that the Scott Pilgrim of the comics is hopelessly self-centered and not that bright, and he's surprisingly convincing as a flyweight action here during the many fight scenes. (Any movie that features a climactic battle pitting Michael Cera vs. Jason "Rushmore" Schwartzman = awesome.) I also really liked Mary Elizabeth Winstead's Ramona -- she resembles a young Kate Winslet, and does well in a really tricky, deadpan role. Kieran Culkin nearly steals the movie as Pilgrim's gay roomate Wallace and in smaller roles "evil exes" Brandon Routh and Chris Evans are awesome. The aforementioned Schwartzman, who I always like, makes a great oily evil Gideon.

Wright's approach to the material is somewhere over the point of being over the top -- he throws in video game references like villains exploding into piles of coins or extra lives popping on screen at opportune moments. And of course, the whole way a romantic comedy is spliced into some sort of mutant superhero film where scrawny Scott Pilgrim can be thrown through buildings and survive unmaimed. It gets rather surreal at times (Vegan Police?!?) but never breaks the rules of its own weird universe.

The movie features a bit less heart, a lot more whiz-bang motion than the longer 1200-page or so comic series by Bryan O'Malley, but Wright does a great job distilling the six novels into one two-hour movie. Sound effects appear on screen a la the old "Batman" TV show; captions appear to give us scene transitions. It's another thrilling example of how in this golden age of comics-spawned movies, not everything is "X-Men Origins: Wolverine." We can still see ones that really push the creative limits like this or "American Splendor." See it now before it vanishes from theatres, or check it out on DVD soon.

Movie review: Iron Man 2

Bigger, better, more -- the rules of movie blockbuster sequels are pretty straightforward. Do what the first one did, only more so. And "Iron Man 2" definitely piles it all on -- more heroes, more villains, and it's great fun coming back to Robert Downey Jr's definitive portrayal of playboy inventor Tony Stark and his metal alter ego.

Any old-school comics geek will have a spaz attack at this movie, which is brimming over with nods to the shared Marvel universe -- joining the golden avenger here are War Machine, Black Widow, Whiplash, Nick Fury and Justin Hammer. The story lifts from the best of Iron Man's 40 years of tales and patches together a plot that revolves around a superhuman arms race that breaks out around the Iron Man technology. Iron Man's history in comics has been kind of spotty -- the best tales are outweighed by a lot of mediocrity, but this film does a nice job of sifting through for solid ideas.

And it's got a great cast.... who would've thought a few years ago that Robert Downey Jr and Mickey Rourke would headline a big summer blockbuster movie? "Iron Man 2" s elevated by quirky, fun actors who liven up the material. Can you imagine if Tom Cruise had been cast as Iron Man, as was rumoured back in the day?

Don Cheadle makes a very good replacement for Terrence Howard's Colonel James Rhodes, who gets a lot more to do to in this installment. Scarlett Johansson as the va-va-va-voom Black Widow, swaddled in black leather, may be a kind of bastardized version of the comics character (it's probably a good thing she didn't try a Russian accent), but she's great to look at. And the great Sam Rockwell, one of my favorite actors, does a fine turn as Justin Hammer, Tony Stark's mirror-image, an unscrupulous, sleazy arms dealer. As for grizzled Rourke, well, he chews every scene he's in as the tattooed, heavily accented and vengeance-minded Whiplash, and I loved it -- he's pure comic-book villain.

As he did in the first film, director Jon Favreau keeps character at the forefront. He's mixed on the action -- a sequence involving Whiplash set in Monaco is tense and gripping, but I found the climactic battle a bit wanting. Downey's Tony Stark continues to be one of the best comic character castings -- in this slightly darker sequel, we see Stark struggle with his ego, his ailments and his temptations. I don't want to spoil a great sequence about halfway through the movie, but fans of the classic "Demon in a Bottle" comics storyline will dig how it plays out. Downey keeps us aware of the man in Iron Man.

While it's a crowded movie, I don't think it generally succumbs to the overstuffed feeling of, say, "Spider-Man 3." But one flaw is that "Iron Man 2" a little too often feels like a trailer for the "Avengers" movie. While Samuel L. Jackson makes a great gruff Nick Fury, his cameos feel less plot-driven and more marketing-driven. Also, a little end-credits surprise scene hits that comic fan sweet spot but the majority of moviegoers will be baffled by it. Marvel runs the risk of making their movies as convoluted as their comics if they don't focus on story first, franchising second.

Still, I think "Iron Man 2" makes a pretty strong follow-up -- it'll make a ton of money, and I sure wouldn't mind seeing Downey (and Scarlett's Black Widow, meoooow) do it one more time.

Movie Review: Kick-Ass

What if Quentin Tarantino had made "Spider-Man"?

The result might well be something like "Kick-Ass," an absurdly violent and profanity-filled romp that is definitely not a superhero movie for kids.

Dave Lizewsky (a nerdy-yet-heroic Aaron Johnson) is a typical New York teen, obsessed with superheroes.

One day, he decides to toss on a colourful wetsuit and patrol his neighbourhood as the superhero Kick-Ass. Unfortunately, Kick-Ass soon draws the attention of the local mob man (a sneering Mark Strong) and other vigilante heroes, including the menacing ex-cop Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his whirling dervish of a daughter, Hit Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz). Needless to say, things get out of control fast.

"Kick-Ass" prides itself on being a "realistic" look at superheroes -- nobody has strange powers, and Kick-Ass -- well, he spends a lot of the movie getting his ass (or arse, if you prefer) kicked.

Director Matthew Vaughan piles on the colorful carnage and comedy, with buckets of profanity, blood and slayings that are more for laughs than anything. But he also cleverly makes "Kick-Ass" feel topical with nods to Internet celebrity and televised terrorism.

"Kick-Ass" is a heck of a lot of fun, although it's kidding itself if it thinks it's really that revolutionary and "realistic." "Kick-Ass" at its core is no more realistic than Batman, really.

Confession and digression: I actually haven't read the "Kick Ass" comics the movie is based on yet, but this movie's whiz-bang shock-and-awe approach is pure Mark Millar, the comic's prolific creator. Millar can be an entertaining comics writer, but he's also hugely up himself when he blathers along on comments like "Watchmen isn't that realistic – there's a big blue guy with his dick out, you know?" Kick-Ass is hardly a model of realism either. Millar's work is all about the action-movie kick - which he does very well in stuff like "Wanted," "The Ultimates" and "The Authority." Frankly, I'm turned off by Millar's egocentric public persona, but his comics do deliver a punch. But Millar's flaw is that his work rarely engages the heart like it does the fanboy gut, and to me nothing Millar's ever written comes within the range of what Grant Morrison or Alan Moore have done with the genre.

Rant aside.

Johnson, in his first big role, makes a mark as Kick-Ass, making this rather clueless do-gooder believable. Cage is marvelous as "Big Daddy," doing a kind of twisted impression of Adam West as Batman in the 1960s TV series. And little Moretz as Hit-Girl just about steals the movie.

But if you find the notion of a 12-year-old girl swearing like a sailor and killing gangsters in assorted inventive ways offensive, "Kick Ass" is probably not the movie for you. It definitely pushes the edge of good taste, but never in a truly sadistic way.

The movie is best when it goes gleefully, goofily over the top, making fun of superheroes but also embracing them in all their colourful glory.

Movie review: Watchmen*

So I've been sitting here for a couple days trying to figure out how I felt about "Watchmen," the motion picture. General thoughts: I liked it, a lot more than I thought I would. I want to see it again and absorb it more. But it's still strange, coming and watching images from a story you've held dear for 20-something years play out on screen -- you can't be surprised by the story (although there were a few changes), so instead you're watching something familiar spool out in a new medium. It's kind of a weird deja vu feeling.

Graphic novel writer Alan Moore is notorious for his disapproval of a "Watchmen" movie, which he's fully entitled to; I've held off writing anything about "Watchmen" during the making of the movie, because I wasn't sure I wanted a movie, halfway wondering if there was any need for it. Of course, a movie, after all, doesn't affect the book -- it doesn't validate its greatness, doesn't erase its impact if it sucks.

But darn it, director Zach Snyder has more or less pulled it off, condensing one of the comics mediums' greatest achievements into a zippy, yet moderately thoughtful Hollywood movie that occasionally has moments of poetic beauty. My fears Snyder would turn it into an airhead video-game like his "300" or "Dawn of the Dead" weren't met.

If anything Snyder is religiously faithful; entire panels and sequences of co-creator Dave Gibbons' art play out line for line. The detail is astounding, full of Easter eggs for the "Watchmen" aficionado. He plays down his annoying directorial fast-slo motion tendencies, using them sparingly (and to extraordinary effect in the haunting opening credits montage that carries us through the rise and fall of superheroes in America, one of the best parts of the movie). Ditched, of course, are a great deal of the symbolic undercurrents of the book (no "Black Freighter" or appendices here), and many of the minor characters are demoted to bit walk-ons.

Excessive fidelity can often lead to a rather inert movie (see: most of the "Harry Potter" flicks), but "Watchmen", through sheer bombast and some stirring imagery, manages to leave a fair amount of emotional impact. It's no "Lord of the Rings," but as adaptations go, it's a decent go. Interestingly, I found the dialogue got most leaden whenever it did veer away from Moore's sacred texts, so maybe you just can't win!

Things I liked:
Generally, the acting was quite good, but particularly Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. The man is freakily like the twisted images of Walter Kovacs in the book, and he's so darned good I wish he wasn't wearing that eerie mask so much of his time on screen. I also really like Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian, who gives the character a real sinister resonance. My favorite, though, might have been Patrick Wilson, so great in "Little Children," who was an uncanny doppelganger to the Dan Dreiberg Nite Owl right down to the hairstyle. Wilson's work isn't as showy as Rorschach or the Comedian but really his is the central figure in the movie, and one of my favorite moments was how the sad-sack Dan transformed when he finally puts on the Nite Owl costume again.

You can't fault Snyder's visual eye, which magically recreates the entire book with stunning accuracy, right down to Nite Owl's winter costume and billboard advertisements. But he also really makes Dr. Manhattan's powers frightening and alien, and the interlude on Mars has a glacial beauty. I was also really pleased when they cast Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan, as I think he gave the demigod a gentle yet stern, above-it-all presence that really works. The effects for Manhattan were generally superb, especially in some of the flashbacks.

The changes to the ending, the biggest tweak from the book, worked well. It's a change more of method than of meaning, really, and y'know, that squid never really woulda worked on the big screen.

Things that I didn't like:
Generally it all came across a bit rushed. Even for a 2-1/2 hour movie it seems a bit trunctated. Supposedly there'll be a 3-hour director's cut which flow a bit smoother. While I understand, of course, the time limitations made it hard to make characters like Bernie the newsman or Bubastis more than cameos, the one major impact this has is that the ending of the book lacks emotional impact when 99% of the story has been focused exclusively on the superheroes. Moore gave close to equal time to the everyday citizens of his New York, and that's what gave the final chapter of "Watchmen" its kick. Here, unless you're a devoted fan of the book much of the climax is lost on you.

Snyder also gave in to his inner zombie filmmaker a bit too often by amping up the gore to distracting levels (a slashed throat becomes a gross double-amputation, the camera fetishizes Dr. Manhattan's powers a bit too much). The violence in the fights also often merely came off as cartoony sub-"Matrix" kung fu.

Matthew Goode's Ozymanidas is capable without ever quite being as imposing as he should be. He's too young for the part (a fortysomething David Bowie would've been perfect, in my humble opinion) and seems a bit callow. Other reviewers have also faulted Malin Ackerman's Silk Spectre, but I found her decent -- she totally looked the part, but like Goode seemed a bit young and unseasoned for the character.

The attempts to portray an aged Richard Nixon don't work at all. Maybe it's because I'd just watched "Frost/Nixon" the night before, but the rubbery latex elderly Nixon of "Watchmen" looks badly out of place.

Still, it's amazing a "Watchmen" movie got made and that it didn't vomit all over Moore's book. I don't think it will be a huge "Dark Knight" style hit as it's rather inside baseball and an awful lot of people won't get past the blue glowing man's penis (which tells you more about them than it does about the movie, frankly). The reviews are all over the place, from New Yorker Anthony Lane's utterly dismissive one (he manages to completely miss the point by writing that it "marks the final demolition of the comic strip, and it leaves you wondering: where did the comedy go?") to Roger Ebert's quite thoughtful musings on the nature of Dr. Manhattan. But I'm glad it's made, and look forward to the inevitable director's cut DVD that will fill in some of the gaps. And hey, if it turns people on to reading the (still superior) graphic novel, that's not a bad consequence at all.

*No, I won't title this post "Watching Watchmen."

I have never seen "Batman and Robin" and I'm OK with that

I am a man of wide and discerning tastes. And I do love the comic-book movies, from the very, very good (The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Superman II) to the just OK (Fantastic Four, Superman Returns) to the oh god why did I watch that? (Ang Lee's Hulk, Elektra, the John Travolta Punisher movie which hurts my brain)

But while I'm a bona-fide comic geek fanboy, there is one comic movie I've never seen: 1997's hugely reviled Batman and Robin. I saw 1989's Batman, which is the perfect example of a movie that seemed awesome at the time but hasn't aged all that well. I saw Batman Returns -- loved Catwoman, hated the Penguin. I saw Batman Forever and I loathed it -- Val Kilmer's Botox-lipped Batman, Tommy Lee Jones chewing through walls as Two-Face (thank god for Aaron Eckhart), the day-glo production design, Chris O'Donnell's oh-sweet-jeezus-can-I-punch-him-in-the-face-pleeze-annoying Robin.

By the time 1997 rolled around I had enough, and things were kind of chaotic that year for me anyway and so I never got to see the glories of Arnold Schwarzengegger as Mr. Freeze, Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy, or George Clooney pre-Oscar as Batman. A year or so later word of mouth had set in on this movie (random IMDB commenter to director Joel Schumacher: "I hate you so much, just for this film."), and despite working part-time at a video store for the late 1990s, I never felt the urge to see it. Then came the 'comic book movie revival' with X-Men and all the rest and so forth.

Occasionally I've thought, gosh, as a comic book geek, fannish completism is part of the gig, and I really ought to just watch this "Batman & Robin" one day to see just how bad it is. I watched Madonna's "Swept Away" after all (and lost the ability to see for a week, but never mind).

Then this morning I idly stumbled across a YouTube 10-minute "best of" clips from "Batman & Robin" online. I watched it all, coffee dribbling from my slack mouth in horror, Arnold Schwarzenegger's lame puns ricocheting about my brain, and I realized, that life is a precious jewel that is far too short and our time is far better spent. Ten minutes was enough.

Ten minutes I will never, ever get back:


Update: Comics blogging icon (well, demigod) Mike Sterling weighs in on "Batman & Robin", totally ripping me off really but I have to give him props because he actually watched the movie, and took notes. He's a hard, hard man, that Sterling.

Movies: So there's this Dark Knight....

...Well, I've finally seen "The Dark Knight," which didn't open in New Zealand until this week (so basically I've spent the last week frantically trying to avoid online spoilers from everyone who saw it already in the US). I can't add too much of substance to the reams of online applause, except to say yeah, it really is pretty good, and I'm rather stunned to see it breaking box office records as it's a rather dark, long picture with little of the buoyant joy you've seen in the Spider-Man/Superman movies. It ain't for wee kids, that's for sure, and pushes the PG-13 envelope very hard.

Time will tell how it holds up (hey, I loved "Batman" 1989 when it came out, but now, it's certainly a bit creaky around the edges). "Dark Knight" is not flawless – director Christopher Nolan's plot is sometimes too twisty for its own good, and there's a few clunky transitions (what exactly was the point of having Cillian Murphy show up again? Missed opportunity there) – but overall, fantastic performances and a meaty set of themes make this a comic book movie worth chewing over. It's far more like "The Departed" or "Heat" with superhero capes than it is any other comic-book flick I've seen. It's grasping for hard truths at the core of the Batman mythos, and really treats the concept with more respect (even deification) than any of the Batman movies to date.

Heath Ledger, is, I'll add to the accolades, absolutely stunning as The Joker, even if the character is a bit of a leap from most of the comic-book interpretations. I loved the sheer sticky, fidgety physicality he brought to the character, and the mad-dog violence that made you believe he could actually be a physical threat for the Batman. (Unlike Jack Nicholson, who was so swaddled in latex I never found him all that scary.) It just makes you feel so damned bad that this guy's incredible talent – honestly, is this the same person who was in "Brokeback Mountain"? – never got a chance to fully mature. But what a fine epitaph this role is, sure to be nominated for an Oscar next year. Ledger captures the core of menace and mystery that has made The Joker comics' most resonant villain for 70 years now.

Ledger's getting all the ink, but wow, isn't Gary Oldman something as Commissioner James Gordon? He was very good in the first movie, too, but in this sequel he's even better – lifting the never-give-up ordinary man's point of view into the picture. I always hated the way the '90s "Batman" series wasted the blubbery Pat Hingle as Gordon, and am glad to finally see the character get a bit of respect. Oldman's spent so much time playing creeps, lunatics and vampires that it's great to see him so fundamentally decent a role.

I particularly enjoyed the movie's take on Harvey Dent/Two-Face, which captured the sheer tragedy at the heart of the character (a moment utterly lost with Tommy Lee Jones' cavorting in the godawful "Batman Forever"). While the "Two-Face" makeup was so grotesque I actually found it kind of distracting, Aaron Eckhart still managed to take Harvey Dent on a truly tragic journey throughout the course of the movie.

And Christian Bale continues to refine his restrained take on Bruce Wayne/Batman, and remains the best of the half-dozen or so actors to play the role. Bale's almost overshadowed in this movie with all the other actors, but he has a kind of calm center that makes you focus on him whenever he's on screen. (Although, yeah, the "growly Batman" voice is just this side of ridiculous.)

...Anyway, you don't need my silly blog post to tell you to go see this. I wouldn't quite call it the best comic book movie ever (sorry, I'm still too much of a Spider-Man fanboy so still say the Spider-Man 1/2 combo trumps this), but it surely is one of the best. Christopher Nolan's crafted a compelling, truly grown-up vision of Batman in these films, and I only hope it doesn't get cheapened and diluted down in the inevitable sequels, as too often happens.

Movie Review: The Incredible Hulk

...Well, that was a lot more fun that I'd imagined at the beginning of the summer when I gave old Hulk 2 a mere "4" on my Summer Movie Excite-O-Meter. "Incredible Hulk," the not-really-a-sequel to Ang Lee's 2003 version, is mostly jolly green superhero smashing fun, even if it's a bit rough around the edges. It's no "Iron Man," but that's hardly an insult.

Ang Lee's widely maligned "Hulk" flick was probably the most disappointing movie of the decade so far for me. Lee's created some genius movies, but him and "Hulk" were a confused non-starter that had moments of beauty but a heck of a lot of incoherence and ponderous psychobabble. So "Incredible Hulk" automatically starts out with some bad will, and to top it off reports of a troubled production. Given all the debits, it's a qualified success.

Director Louis Letterier kind of assembles a grab-bag of "Hulk" lore – he scoops up a fair bit of the "Hulk" '70s TV show, a smattering of classic and modern comics bits, and a hint of "Godzilla" towards the end. The movie feels a little choppy, not sure if it's a character-based drama or a summer-action flick (it fails to combine the two near-seamlessly like the best "Spider-Man" or "Iron Man" have done). But it rarely stumbles completely.

THE PROS: Edward Norton is a solid actor and takes on the role of Bruce Banner well, with a jittery paranoia combined with a steel spine underneath (I never liked the Banner-as-helpless-geek portrayal). You really get the sense of a man wrestling with a kind of addiction, and it's a measure of Norton's talent that I actually enjoyed the scenes with him more than the Hulk ones.

Speaking of Hulk, the computer effects have definitely improved a lot in five years, but how much you "buy" the Hulk's realism depends on exactly how "real" a 7-foot-tall green giant can be. There's a gritty texture to the new Hulk that makes him feel more real than Lee's Gumby. Although, in the final bash-and-crash showdown with his evil doppleganger the Abomination, it all turned into a rubbery CGI overload. The best scene with the Hulk is actually the quietest one, a rainy post-battle interlude in a cave with Betty Ross that achieves a kind of "Frankenstein"-esque poetry.

I always love Tim Roth (the best thing about the awful "Planet Of The Apes" remake a while back), and he's a sneering, cocky delight as Emil Blonsky, the aging soldier who lusts for Hulk-style power. Again, though, when he gets all computer-enhanced he actually becomes a lot less interesting as a character. So it goes, I guess.

Even though he's a minor role, Tim Blake Nelson ("O Brother Where Art Thou?") is a scene-stealer as the addled genius scientist Samuel Stearns, who "Hulk"-o-philes know ends up a major Hulk villain himself, the uber-intelligent The Leader. That future is set up nicely here.

This one's definitely higher on Hulk-smashing action than Lee's slow burning film, and some of it is great – a big showdown on a college campus is the highlight, but I also really enjoyed the Hulk's spooky, shadow-enshrouded debut in a Brazilian bottle factory (and I have to say, the whole Brazilian slums setting at the start of the movie is beautifully realized chaos).

THE CONS: Liv Tyler doesn't embarrass herself, exactly, but she's merely OK as Betty Ross and you never for one millisecond buy her as a cellular biologist. I would've liked to see Jennifer Connelly return in the role from "Hulk," actually -- her and Norton would've been good together. William Hurt is decent as General Thunderbolt Ross, although I felt him straining to recreate the comic character's blustering bravado.

I've never seen any of director Letterier's other action-kung fu type movies -- but I have to admit I found the editing kind of choppy, "Bourne Identity"-homaging fast cuts that often distracted from the action unfolding. The final battle scenes were a lot less engaging than I'd hoped they'd be. Indeed, in the last half-hour you can really feel the editing scissors were at work here (a rumored 40-50 minutes of footage were cut from the original movie, it seems, in a move to "action it up" a notch). Also, while the Hulk clashes are quite violent, it's all rather bloodless – you have to imagine dozens die during the course of this movie, but you never really feel it. I don't think a hard "R"-rated "Hulk" would work either for the character, but the lack of consequences for most of the rampaging kind of takes away some of the picture's punch.

THE GIST: I'd say this inches up into the "quite good" range of Marvel comics flicks (in other words, up there with the first "X-Men" movie but not quite "Spider-Man 2" or "Iron Man" range). Worth seeing on the big screen if you're a "Hulk" fan to get all the impact. Grade: B

Movie review: Iron Man

"Iron Man" is here. And abandoning any pretense at being critically impartial, I've got to say – "Iron Man" rocks. It's a near-perfect summer movie confection.

The latest in the never-ending line-up of comic book-films is right up there with the first couple of "X-Men" and "Spider-Man" movies in my mind, a perfectly balanced combination of character, humor, action and whiz-bang special effects. The storyline is your basic origin tale, with a plot that's fairly predictable, but it's the quirks and small tweaks director Jon Favreau and a smart, snappy script add that make "Iron Man" fly.

The lovingly detailed production really makes you believe a man could cobble together a flying suit of armour; the grease, nuts and bolts show. Iron Man is a character I've long liked - some of the first comics I remember reading back in the '80s were from the great Micheline/Layton run - but he's been served poorly in comics in recent years. I don't even recognize the guy they have being Iron Man these days. Which is why "Iron Man" the movie is such ripping fun - it takes you back to the core essence of the character, a spoiled hyperactive genius playboy who becomes a hero, but who's basically still a boy with the biggest toys in the room. The storyline has been slightly rejiggered to examine the post-9/11 murky reality of the world, but not in an obtrusive fashion.

Robert Downey Jr. is perhaps the best superhero casting choice since Christopher Reeve. I love how he's matured from the wise-ass young punk into a battered, riveting leading man, and he simply IS inventor and gazillionaire Tony Stark. The tremendous presence he's shown in recent flicks like "Zodiac" and "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang" is here in spades, but honed into action-movie coolness. While the hard-living, flawed Tony Stark takes the piss out of traditional square-jawed superhero notions, Downey also wisely manages to keep his turn from being strictly comedy. He balances action and humor very well.

I don't want to spoil Downey's wonderful final line in the picture, given at a press conference, but to me it just sums up his wiseacre charm and the movie's entirely beguiling fanboy whimsy. While it's got darker moments, Downey's Stark is simply a less tormented figure than the Batman, Hulk, Spider-Man and Wolverine – and even Superman – than we've seen in the past couple of years. He digs being Iron Man. (As Downey says with a kind of stunned amazement, "Yeah, I can fly.") He combines the do-it-yourself heroism of Batman with a James Bond-like love of gadgetry.

Downey without a doubt makes "Iron Man" work, but he's backed up by a swell cast. Terrence Howard's role as sidekick James Rhodes is underwritten, but Howard brings a wry strut to it, while Gwyneth Paltrow's spunky Pepper Potts takes a fairly forgettable female sidekick role and makes it subtle, and sexy. Best of all is Jeff Bridges as villain Obadiah Stane, hamming it up tremendously. I usually associate Bridges with benevolent authority figure roles or gently befuddled goofballs, ala "The Contender" or "The Big Lebowski." But here, he channels his genial presence into genuine menace, with a shaved head that evokes Lex Luthor and a purr that quickly becomes a growl. Sure, I found his character's transformation a little drastic, but heck - it is a comic book movie after all.

Do I have a quibble or two? Well, sure, it's a little light on the action maybe, but then again so was "Spider-Man" frankly and I loved that too. Character is never abandoned for special effects. The story is Tony Stark's, rather than Iron Man's. The final battle sequence is a wee bit rushed compared to the leisurely build-up, but hey, it works for me. I have to admit that when Tony Stark dons the familiar "Mark 3" gold-and-red armor and starts flying about, I felt a rush of honest adrenaline and fanboy glee at seeing the comic become reality. Toss in all the nifty little "Easter eggs" for Marvel Comics fans like myself and you've got a comic book movie that's solid as Iron Man's armor. Check it out.

Movie review: 'Spider-Man 3'

"Part III" movies don't usually fare too well with folks – I'm thinking "The Godfather Part III," "Superman III," "Batman Forever," et cetera. "Spider-Man 3" is certainly coming in for a surprisingly strong amount of bashing, but y'know what – forget the pundits and fanboy nitpickers. While not quite in the same league as the first two movies, maybe, this dyed-in-the-wool webhead fan found "Spider-Man 3" an action-packed summer movie romp that still keeps the characters in mind at center stage. If it tries to do a little too much with its triple villain storyline, it mostly pulls it off – in its very excess, "Spider-Man 3" is consistently entertaining.

I think what keeps "Spider-Man 3" afloat is the same steady hand of director (and co-writer) Sam Raimi, who's helmed the entire trilogy, and the returning cast. It makes all three movies feel like a single story to have this consistency.

Is it perfect? No – there is an awful lot going on. Sure, the Venom plot could've been an entire movie on its own, but I kind of liked the pack everything in go-for-broke feeling of this flick, as Peter Parker's entire life careens out of control. Raimi pulls this chaos off a lot better than, say, the godawful "Batman Forever," which also crammed in several villains, a new sidekick, love affairs, etc., but came off as pop-colored cornball kitsch. Character is king in these movies, despite some great action sequences and special effects.

My random thoughts (SPOILERS ahoy, of course):
The good:
All right, so the movie is balancing three major plotlines at least (and that's just the villains) – yet for most of its running time, Raimi is a master juggler as he zips around the tales. The final act is a bit rushed (and you can practically feel the strain where, rumor has it, the studio forced Raimi to include Venom in the film), but it really does all tie together pretty nicely in the end.

OK, so this movie is basically about Peter Parker's ego and its rise, fall and redemption. And thanks to a plot device that introduces his "dark side," Tobey Maguire has a heck of a lot of fun with "evil" (or perhaps "ego") Peter Parker. Raimi balances the nasty acts of Parker with the silly, pushing the envelope in how over-the-top he can go with his behavior. Was the "disco Peter" stuff ridiculous? Of course – that was the point! Parker's a nerd, so when he becomes cool he's still going to be a cool nerd, isn't he? I had fun watching Maguire break out of the "noble suffering Parker" mode for a few scenes, and thought he brought a nice barely-contained rage to these sequences.

I loved James Franco's Harry Osborn in this movie (the underrated Franco has also been a bright spot in the previous flicks). The arc of his character is a tragic one, and in lesser hands might strain credulity, but Franco really sells the character's personality changes throughout.

Thomas Haden Church is a terrific Sandman – in that silly striped shirt, he looks exactly like the comic character. While he turned into too much of a muddy King Kong ripoff in the final act, I thought the effects used to bring Sandman to life were remarkable (particularly in the "birth" sequence, which attained a haunting beauty).

The not great:
Unlike some, I do think Topher Grace gave a mighty good show as Eddie Brock/Venom, and think the movie script considerably bettered the character's tangled comic origins (some of the disappointment by fans seems to be that Venom isn't precisely like he was in the comics; having never considered him one of my favorite foes, I don't mind that he is a little underused). I love Brock here as Peter Parker's twisted mirror, a Spider-Man without soul or conscience; as opposed to the steroid freak, inconsistently motivated comic goon Venom became (the superb Madgoblin has a two-part essay series looking at how the comic Venom's potential was lost, by the way).

All that said, it was just too long in the movie until Venom appears, and his story feels very rushed. Grace packs as much scenery-chewing as he can into his limited time, but another 15 minutes or so could've fleshed this arc out and kept the same action-filled four-way battle at the end. There are some very awkward transitions into the final act (The overwrought television camera crew narration, very lazy storytelling, was my least favorite part of the film). Venom and Sandman's abrupt alliance also feels very forced.

I kinda fell in love with Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane in the first two movies (the final shot of her in "Spider-Man 2" might just be one of my favorite movie moments), yet it felt like she phoned it in on this one. Her conflicts with Peter Parker weren't as organic as they might have been, and she often seems glaringly self-absorbed. Although she was really a minor role in this movie, Bryce Dallas Howard's Gwen Stacy was enjoyable eye candy – fans shouldn't go in expecting anything much like the comic character, though.

The ugly:
Isn't it a little absurd that the climax of all three of these movies revolves around Mary Jane getting kidnapped?

There's no real elegant way to do an "alien symbiote" entrance into what's been a kind of earthbound series, but the meteor from the sky was clumsy – if a nice nod to old-school monster flicks like "The Blob." I might've liked to see the symbiote be the result of a science experiment instead, though.

So why does Peter Parker spend half these movies without a mask on? It got rather ridiculous in "Spider-Man 3," but y'know, I thought about it, and actually, it makes a lot of sense from a moviemaking angle. That mask is hardly very emotive, and even Marlon Brando couldn't deliver a great performance shackled by it. While it looks awesome in the comics, there's a reason that Maguire keeps ripping it off in the films – it's the only way he can really act in a scene (I know some folks think he's a little too stoic an actor, but he works for me). There was an awful scene in the first "Spider-Man" with Spider-Man and "Power Ranger" Green Goblin having a heart-to-heart talk, yet you didn't see a single mouth move during the scene. So awkward as it can get, I can understand the "Amazing Mask-less Spider-Man" being so prominent in these movies.

Like I said, though, quibbles aside, I had a fine time at "Spider-Man 3," which I'd give a strong "A-/B+." I'd have to say these three together make the finest superhero trilogy we've yet seen (with "X-Men" following close behind, I think). A "Spider-Man 4" is probably inevitable, but part of me wishes they wouldn't think about it without Raimi, Maguire and even Dunst. Through the highs and lows, they have defined Spider-Man on screen, and without 'em, I'm not sure I'd like what I'd see.