The Avengers (2012)

Despite Disney's desperate claims in its failed last-minute marketing of John Carter, this year's first blockbuster was not a contrived March release about a civil war soldier who somehow ended up on Mars. Instead, it was Marvel's The Avengers, a flashy, unsurprisingly entertaining effects bonanza about a superhero all-star team that includes Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo).

The plot, a minor annoyance that exists mainly to be circumvented in search of more scenes of witty banter between superheroes and shots of things blowing up, revolves around the return to Earth of Thor's evil brother, Creepy Snake-Dude, who plans to destroy the planet and take it over for some weird-looking, comically animated extraterrestrial overlord. In this regard, Avengers seems to ask that its viewers first see Thor, a fairly unreasonable request given that it was the least publicized and well-received of the precursors (which also include the wildly successful Iron Man and Iron Man 2, plus last year's Captain America).

In any case, the set-up quickly falls into the background as the heroes fight the evil that the villain lavishes upon them, learning to work as a team together all in the name of the human race. This premise--the "these ten dudes are defending all people, and we're people, so we should root for them in this totally ridiculous movie"--didn't work for me, but at some point the group adjacent to mine in the theater literally began to cheer for the Avengers, so it clearly elicited some degree of the reaction it was hoping to.

In making the film, one of the key decisions must have been how to break down the screen time between so many characters who hold down their own successful franchises single-handedly, and it is one that writer-director Joss Whedon handles capably, if not spectacularly. More camera time for Iron Man, the most charismatic and generally interesting character by a long shot, might have been in order, as would toned-down roles for patriotism-sweating Captain America and super-powerless spy extraordinaire Black Widow (Scarlett Johanson).

(While on the topic of Black Widow, a few of my viewing companions ridiculously suggested that Director Fury's (Samuel L. Jackson) sidekick, played by Cobie Smulders of How I Met Your Mother, was more attractive than Black Widow/Scarlett Johannson. This assertion is ridiculous. Cobie Smulders is the Avengers to Scarlett's Dark Knight Rises--an attractive sideshow to be sure, but we know she's just filling time for the main attraction. Glad we could get that cleared up.)

In all, The Avengers proves a tremendously watchable summer(-ish) diversion, the cumulation of years worth of Marvel films and millions of dollars spent on special effects (which are, for the record, staggering in many places and slightly ludicrous in others). A bit more guided plan, rather than the fairly haphazard sketch series that it seems to be, may have done wonders, but as it is Avengers is quite good, especially relative to the disaster it could have been. We'll take it.

Score: 3/4

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Quentin Tarantino's debut feature Reservoir Dogs is fast-paced, crisply executed, and an all-around pleasure to watch, inasmuch as movies about terrible people, some of whom end up in pools of blood, can be pleasures to watch. The clever premise, which explores the crew of a botched bank robbery before and after the heist without ever showing the crime itself, allows for maximum character development by drawing its plot points out through dialogue and interaction rather than by showing them explicitly occurring. Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, and Steve Buscemi co-star as the principles in the operation, with a fairly passable appearance from Tarantino himself, but the show is stolen by a terrific and deeply haunting Michael Madsen.

Each pawn in the robbery (one of whom, it appears, is a "rat") is known only to the others by his code name, a color (Mr. Blue, Mr. White, Mr. Orange, etc.), such that each character knows as little about the others as we do. For the first half of the film, the mystery unravels for us as it does for the characters, until we are suddenly given an omniscient view into the build-up to the crime and the identity of the snitch is revealed. This decision to break the secret so early may seem a misstep at first, but the quickly unfolding action immediately afterward is enough to make one forget such thoughts. To its brutal, hectic end, Reservoir Dogs holds the viewer's utmost attention, proving to be a cutthroat crime thriller that rings in the audience's memory far past the final, tragic shot.

Score: 4/4

The Kingdom (2007)

Jamie Foxx fights terrorists--just about everything you need to know about The Kingdom, a by-the-book special military mission movie that also features Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, and--awesomely--Jason Bateman. The film inflates itself with the notion that it has something important and/or insightful to say about the "war on terror," and slowly deflates itself by proving that it has nothing of the sort to say. Unsurprisingly, it turns out to be a pure Hollywood action/war movie, with plenty of guns, plenty of black-and-white lines drawn to divide good from evil, and plenty of sappy exchanges between characters we don't care about.

Whether you enjoy The Kingdom will depend an awful lot on your tolerance level for pure genre movies and adherence to tried-and-true formulas, as well as on how much you like the cast. It is almost a given that no one would be here in the first place if Foxx weren't attached--this kind of movie doesn't draw on plot alone--and it's not like Jamie Foxx is Will Smith. Worth a try if you're really intrigued by Jason Bateman in a different setting, but otherwise, stick to the Arrested Development and take a pass.

Score: 2/4

Haywire (2012)

The relative "size" of a film is not something that can be defined in real terms, but is often a clear and succinct way to evaluate its ambitions and scope. Haywire, the newest film from director Steven Soderbergh, seems resigned from the get-go to dabbling in smallness, refusing to make a statement of any kind. Indeed, while it is clear from the onset that this is not an action movie that intends to rely on large-scale special effects, it could have been expected that Soderbergh might take the opportunity to be bold thematically or stylistically. Instead, he is content to fall back on the notion that an action movie starring a female MMA star (Gina Carrano) as its lead is in and of itself a gamble. Really, it isn't--at the end of the day, Jason Bourne could have been replaced by a woman (hopefully one more competent than Carrano) without sacrificing much of the quality of that franchise--the challenge is in making the action compelling, independent of the lead's gender.

All that being said, Haywire is too packed with talent to not be somewhat entertaining. A poorly used Michael Fassbender holds his own as an unsuccessful assassin for his all-too-brief screen time, but Antonio Banderas and Ewan McGregor really brighten the show as wait-these-good-guys-are-bad-guys-because-everyone-turns-out-to-be-a-bad-guy bad guys. As it happens, Bill Paxton, Channing Tatum, and Michael Douglas all also make appearances in the ultimate B+/A- casting call, and all outperform Carrano when they are side-by-side (sorry, but we've seen better from the unnecessarily-out-of-combat-sports-to-act demographic). It all makes for a watchable plot buildup culminating in a mildly intense climactic confrontation, and the whole shebang is lightly brushed with Soderbergh panache. In the end, though, this addition to the Soderbergh canon is nothing more than a decently worthwhile way to pass an hour or two, falling far short of what could be expected from a talent pool as deep as the one it has.

Score: 2.5/4