Avengers, Age of Ultron -2.0 MT

I am just back from Age of Ultron at the cinema. Honestly, I wouldn't have picked it to see, but my wife's friend recommended it, so she bought tickets this afternoon, saying she thought I'd prefer superheroes to Pitch Perfect 2.

Wrong, it turns out. I'd've preferred most films to this steaming pile of crap. In fact, it is one of the few films I've ever wanted to walk out of, along with Really Bad Things, the second Matrix movie (also here) and, of course, Inglourious Basterds (and here). If it wasn't so loud, I would've asked my wife if she also wanted to leave, and I would have heard the answer "yes please!" But it was too loud. She managed to fall asleep though, and I would have had I been able to get comfortable.

Let's break it down:

Age of Ultron has a very bare plot. Basically, man invents artificial intelligence, new sentient being (Ultron in this case) realises people suck and decides to destroy them, then the people, whose intelligence compared to Ultron is as a jelly fish compared to a man, go out to kill it so they can continue on their own path to doom. How many times have we heard it before? Terminator springs to mind. As does Eagle Eye, and many, many others.

There's a part-way interesting subplot about Natasha Badinov (?)... Romanov (?)... the hot chick... being keen on Bruce Banner, but that doesn't get a lot of air time with all the fighting. Check it out. Not a lot of room to discuss something interesting:

Opening: big fight with the bad guys from previous movies.
Party scene and creation of Ultron. Some flirting between Natasha and Bruce.
Fight with Ultron and minions
Short segue to another fight where the Avengers get mind-messed by an Olsen twin
Big fight between Iron Man and Hulk because... Joss Whedon wanted them to kill countless civilians between them, I guess.
Random farm holiday to chop wood. No jokes. Natasha puts the moves on Bruce.
Fight with Ultron and minions.
Possibly a segue scene? I might have been looking at the ceiling. It was pretty forgettable.
Big fight with Ulton and minions. Avengers win.
End scene to wave goodbye to the actors who realise that this franchise is played out.
Roll credits
Mystery scene from upcoming film or something.
Check wallet, discover that yes, you did pay a lot of money to Hollywood for zero gratification.

Apart from the plot, the acting was nothing special. Characters were wholly undeveloped. The fights were tedious and all done on a computer. It was just crap.

God this movie sucks balls.

I love a good superhero movie. Batman was great (a couple of times). The Fantastic Four were fun. The Flash on TV is alright, too. But when that's all there is, it's too much. (Especially when the series keep getting rebooted, like Spiderman. It's not like their aren't 53 years of stories to draw on. Better redo the origin story again, but with more fights!) Age of Ultron was a stupid step too stupid far. It sucks. It could even be the film where the superhero movie genre jump the shark. That would be a shame because there are some good stories out there in the comics which could make good films. The new Miss Marvel, for example. But this was total dross. As if Joss Whedon was channelling (recent career) George Lucas and Nicolas Cage at the same time.

I'm going to score it -2.0 Money Trains.

It wasn't as bad as Animal Kingdom, but it was worse than the Interpreter, both of which scored -2.0 MT. (I probably need to adjust the scale...) God, it sucked.


 

Godzilla +1.0 MT

Godzilla has Ken Watanabe and Bryan Cranson heading the bill, so you think it'll be awesome on that alone.

Bzzzz. Sorry, wrong answer. One is a minor character and the other dies in the first reel, leaving you with nobodies. [Ha! Not quite a spoiler!] That's ok, I understand why studios minimise screen time for expensive actors, but it's a bit of a let down.

The other let down (and I'm sure I've written this before, but don't remember where), is the plot. Let's break it down. See if you can spot the plot holes.

1. Ancient radiation-eating cockroach is awakened in Japan. It needs to find a mate so heads out across the Pacific to the US, where the only other known example of this genus is housed in Yucca Mountain, along with a load of spent fuel rods.

2. Lady-cockroach (I'm unclear on the sex, so go with me on this) also wakes up and busts out of her food-filled home and heads west to meet up with her cockroach love.

3. Meanwhile, the only thing above the roaches in the foodchain, Godzilla, wakes up and tries to eat the first critter. This results in some damage to Honolulu, matched by the damage down by lady-roach in Las Vegas. They all converge on the west coast of the US.

So far, so good.

4. But then the army decides to lure everyone out to sea out of harm's way. This involves dangling a single nuclear warhead in front of lady-roach and leading her to the sea, through downtown San Francisco. The same roach who just left Yucca Mountain, a nuclear waste smorgasbord of Dubai brunch proportions, is meant to follow a few crumbs out to sea. Why wouldn't the stupid thing just sit tight in her food palace and wait for her beau?

5. Because it's a mega insect, of course. Ok, fine.

6. But why would the army go through the centre of the city? That's a court martial right there.

7. But the really dumb thing is the ending. With about five minutes on the warhead clock until detonation, our hero, Ford Brody, sails it out to sea and far from land in a tugboat. (I'm not exaggerating about that time or the mode of transport, by the way.)

8. In the final scene, Ford manages to somehow avoid the explosion. The only way to make sense of this is that it's actually his last wishful thought as he and the city of San Francisco are vaporised.

It's a pretty dumb film. My friends left the theatre actually angry about how bad it was and how much Bryan Cranston's character was killed off early on [remember that half-spoiler, above?]. But I enjoyed it more, and had a sold laugh at many of the logical inconsistencies, only some of which are mentioned here. Watch it on late night TV in a hotel room on a business trip, but don't pay for it, and not if you have a good book you could read instead.

+1.0 Money Trains

Superman - Man of Steel. 0.5MT

Superman is an idiot. There he is with Zod, who's telling him they can take over Earth and repopulate it with Kryptonians after a spot of terraforming. Now Superman has gone soft on mankind, having been raised on Earth, where the local conditions make him faster and stronger than regular folk. But he also has a love for is own people. What does he do? He says to Hell with this spaceship full of Kyptofetuses, I'm throwing my lot in with a race of beings so stupid they can't even look after their own planet properly. People so dumb they don't wear seat belts. People with scant regard for other lifeforms, and certainly not Superman's. Why would he do that?

If it were me, I'd say to Zod: "Zod, me old China, I like your plan, but may I suggest a slight improvement. Let's not terraform Earth into a barren wasteland. Let's repopulate anyway and, with the current conditions, we Kryptonians will all have super powers. We will be able to rule over these imbecilic Earthlings like gods. Where's the downside?" Cue the champagne, a quick montage, and roll credits.

Seriously, where is the downside? The Kryptonians survive, Earth survives, and mankind survives. True, as slaves, but aren't we already slaves to the 0.1% of the population with super wealth?

The other bugbear I have is Kal El's fight (calling him Superman at this point just doesn't feel right) with Zod. Zod is a professional soldier. A trained killer. Kal El is a hippy. And yet he wins in hand-to-hand combat. (While somehow stopping Zod moving his eyeballs a millimetre or so to fry a cowering family. Holding a guy's head won't stop his eyes from moving in their sockets!) So that's pretty dumb.

Superman as a concept is pretty dumb, if you ask me. Where's the challenge? He is this unstoppable being from outer space with godlike powers who imposes his will and his farm-grown morality on the people. But he's like Wolverine in that, no matter what, you know he'll be ok unless someone pulls out some kryptonite/magics away his regeneration power. Hence there is no suspense and the stories necessarily depend on minor characters, who are invariably stupid. So they can reboot it all they like, it'll always be the same.

Unless they cast Superman as the bad guy...

0.5 Money Trains. Not as good as Godzilla, no original thoughts in it.

Borgman -3.0 MT

There are three sorts of people who watch Borgman: those that don't get that Camiel Borgman and his pals are devils and are dumbfounded by the randomness and weirdness of the movie (they don't like it); those that do realise they're devils and are so proud of themselves for their insight that they ascribe all sorts of good qualities to the film (they like it, but like themselves more); and those who realise they're devils but still see the gaping plot holes and narrative inconsistencies and utter ridiculousness of the movie (they don't like it).

First up, just because you "get" something doesn't make it funny. Tarantino's use of French slang in Inglourious Basterds doesn't make it genius just because you're one of the few who picks it up. And his homage to Bruce Lee's unfinished Game of Death is an insult to the great man, not something to gaze at in wonder. Similarly, realising Borgman and co are satan-spawn doesn't make it a funny film. Here's one extract from a review I read: "If you don’t see the humor in a scene in which Borgman and his companions dispose of three bodies in a rural pond – and then go swimming in it – then this movie isn’t for you." Of course, if you do see the humour in that, you're most likely either an Arts undergraduate type who shuts your eyes when you talk because you're just so damned passionate about finding the hidden meanings in absolutely everything, or you are unbalanced mentally and untethered morally. (Which probably explains why your quoted statement was factually incorrect in the first place! I'll link that review here).

So anyway, this film is about a suburban family that takes in a drifter (spoiler alert: he's Satan spawn) and the idyllic family life falls apart for... no real reason. There's no backstory that suggests anyone was upset with their lot in life. I'm not even going to continue. This was a turgid piece of crap that unfortunately sticks in your mind for a little too long, making you hate yourself for wasting your life on it. Like Inglourious Basterds. But not as pretentious.

Overall, I'm scoring this at -3.0 Money Trains. It's in a similar vein to Man Bites Dog, but without the irony. I'll score it on par with Really Bad Things.

I really need to see a *fun* crap film...

The Rover -1.5 MT

So if I'd known David Michôd (Animal Kingdom) directed The Rover, I wouldn't have watched it. But the BBC website listed it in its monthly "Films to Watch This Month" piece a while ago and, being a bit disconnected from popular culture, I took the Beeb on its word.

The Rover, like Animal Kingdom, is about mentally challenged violent thugs wandering a landscape of plot holes. Like Mad Max it is post-apocalyptical and set in Australia. Like Mad Max 3 there are random Americans. Unlike Mad Max the infrastructure of the country still works: petrol is readily available and there is mains electricity. Which is in direct contradiction to the overall setting, but it's Michôd, after all.

Now I'm no movie director, nor am I an actor. Hell, I'm not even a good reviewer. But I have seen enough movies to have seen movies about movie making, and invariably an actor will ask the director something like "What's my character's motivation in this scene?"

Guy Pearce has been around, and I'm sure he would've asked that exact question at least once. Probably several times, in fact. Such as when his character rushes to fight three armed men who, with a firearm each, have three guns more than Guy does. "What's the motivation, David? Why would anyone do that? It doesn't make sense."

Similarly, Robert Pattison might ask "David, why is my character holding up his old gang? I mean, what the hell? At no point does the movie suggest I've changed sides, just that I get on with Guy's character."

My favourite would be the question from one of the baddies: "David, so my character's just knocked out Guy's character. We're in a post-apocalyptical world of no rules and zero consequences where everyone is willing to murder at the drop of hat. What possible motivation would my character, nay, the whole gang, have for a) knocking out Guy's character rather than killing him; b) driving him into the scrub in our old car; c) leaving the car there and the keys as well? Why wouldn't we just kill him and take both cars?"

The car thing is the central question to this movie. The entire plot revolves around Guy getting his car back as his dead dog is in the boot and he wants to bury it. (Oh yeah, spoiler alert. As if you care. Even if you watch it you won't.) And yet the bad guys, for want of a better term in a movie where everyone is a bad guy, hang onto this car throughout. They don't take the available Humvee, for example, nor do they take their own pickup back. Instead, they crowd into a small sedan in summer with a rotting canine in the boot.

I mean, seriously: WTF?

"WTF" pretty much sums up the entire film. Don't see it, it's horrible. It was slightly more bearable than Animal Kingdom because Michôd only pissed on the memory of the fictional Mad Max, not the very real Constables Tynan and Eyre, murdered at Walsh Street. (What kind of a cheap bottom-of-the-class-at-film-school trick is that?)

-1.5 Money Trains.