Tomorrowland

TAKE 1: One Man’s Opinion

…because film is largely subjective

by Frederick William Springer III

 Tomorrowland

Release Date:  22 May 2015                                                                Runtime:  130 Minutes              
Review Date:  14 July 2015                                                                  Rating:  3 (of 6)

     Lackluster is a good description of Tomorrowland.  The whole first hour until the main characters finally begin to interact with one another onscreen is dull, only becoming a little more interesting once they do.  If this serves as any kind of indicator, I think writer/director Brad Bird ought to stick to computer animation with fare such as The Incredibles.

     I do appreciate the minor social message, that people have within their power the ability to make positive changes rather than seeing the negative as inevitable and doing nothing at all.  However, I do think that's over simplifying the issue as most people more likely have ostrich syndrome, not even realizing a problem exists or ignoring it if they do, sticking their head in the sand.  Or they see negative repercussions or positive restructuring as something that takes too much time with the payoff being too far down the road for them to care beyond themselves in the moment NOW.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

TAKE 1: One Man’s Opinion

…because film is largely subjective

by Frederick William Springer III

 

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Release Date:  1 May 2015                                                                   Runtime:  141 Minutes              

Review Date:  7 July 2015                                                                     Rating:  4 (of 6)

      If you want your audience to feel as though it's witnessing someone else playing a video game rather than watching a movie, than, by all means, load the first couple minutes of your film with as much CGI as Avengers: Age of Ultron.

     Past that, this installment was generally better than the last because it actually had a feasible plot--the team falling for Loki's transparent trap last time around absurd.  But, at the same time, we feel the absence of Loki's fun character.  Another missing element that had worked in the last was the playful give and take between Stark and Banner, present only in a diminished capacity here.

     Writer/Director Joss Whedon was able to nicely weave in cameos by other characters from each of the standalone films--Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America--which was a nice touch, tying them altogether beyond just involving the titular characters.  However, even though we did dig just a little deeper into some of the characters this time round, particularly with Hawkeye and Black Widow, and even with Samuel Jackson finally bringing his A-game after underwhelming and unconvincing performances in the others pictures in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the piece as a whole still felt a little flat. 

     (As a side note that may be of interest to some, I saw the original Avengers a month before I started writing movie reviews.  I immediately thereafter mused that I should have begun earlier with that film, as I had a lot to say about it at the time, mostly negative observations.  I have since lightly ribbed it in 7 other reviews over the past 3 years, still not fully covering my distain but at least broaching it.  Here's a taste:

     "The Dark Knight Rises delivers where Avengers did not--story."

     "If I could only pick one superhero movie to see this summer, it would still be The Dark Knight Rises but in a distant second, I just might pick The Amazing Spider-Man over the overrated Avengers."

     In Robocop, "...Samuel Jackson's Pat Novak, a satire of cable personalities purporting to represent the news, falls flat just as his Nick Fury does in all the Marvel movies, particularly in The Avengers."

     "I will say that 3D technology has seemingly improved over the past year, the action sequences in The Avengers (which were a large part of that movie) blurry and hard to follow, whereas here [G.I. Joe: Retaliation] they are more crisp and clean (but not quite perfected yet)."

     "I can also say it's more enjoyable watching Loki (Tom Hiddleston) here [Thor: The Dark World] than it was in The Avengers."

     "Here [Django Unchained], my faith in Samuel L. Jackson’s ability to act has been restored.  His brief appearances in the Marvel movies culminating in a main role in The Avengers all fell flat to me.  Worse than flat—phony."

     And, "Iron Man 3 returned the franchise (and Marvel) to the quality level it should be, surpassing the misfire that was Iron Man 2 (as well as The Avengers--I didn't get on that bandwagon, thought it was pretty bad--and Captain America for that matter, too--the worst in the whole series).")