Movie Review: The Avengers

            My fellow superhero nerds.

            It is my duty to announce to you that all is not lost! Marvel Studios, in pulling Disney’s rights, have completely overturned their bad reputation for awful superhero adaptations and made one whoopin' movie entitled The Avengers.

            I’ve been on Marvel’s ride of highs and lows starting with Spiderman and ending with the horribly-written X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I need not name all the disappointments in between because I only have so much attention span for terrible cinema, as do you, I imagine. But, just to remind you and make you see the studio’s progress, look back for a moment on Ang Lee’s Hulk.

            A moment of silence for those weeping . . . .

            Thank you.

            ANYWAY. Ever since Iron Man came out, and rumors of Captain America, and Thor started circulating, I have sat and rocked back and forth in impatient anticipation for The Avengers. The novelist in me LOOOOOOOVES when characters cross paths and end up working together. Avengers did not disappoint.

Arguably one of my favorite characters, Hawkeye

            From minute one—one!—action is the key component, and then the story paces out from there with the barbed hook of “WHOA” stuck in the viewers’ mouths. I got so excited, I downed a whole box of Reese’s Pieces within the first ten minutes. (Sadly, I had no more food for the rest of the movie.) A lot of the middle is spent aboard S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Helicarrier, and this serves for good interactions between the Avengers. However, just when you think everything is safe and secure, WHAM! More action intertwined right with the story! Nothing is random! Everything makes sense! The characters are consistent and keep to who they are! And comic book lore is followed to the letter! HUZZAH! MARVEL SUCCEEDS IN CREATING AN AWESOME PIECE OF CINEMA ART!

            To say the least, I have not had the chance to park it in a theater seat and enjoy this movie again, and with the busy summer schedule of hopefuls coming out, I don’t know if I’ll be able to. (I shed a tear here.) However, this is one to add to the Blu-Ray list, FOR SURE. Nerds rejoice! Marvel is in big business! Seven big kernels out of five.

            P.S. Stay after all the credits. It’s so worth it.

Movie Review: Safe

            Answer me honestly: Who doesn’t like a good action-suspense movie fueled with nothing but testosterone? (And well-written testosterone at that!) Jason Statham had barely blipped on my celebrity radar until I saw Safe.

Luke Wright, the bad a**

            Not to give too much of the story away, Luke Wright (Jason Statham) screws up a match he was supposed to lose and his boss ends up losing a looooot of money on that match, as well as the people who hired him to set the match up: the Russian mob. Needless to say, the Russians get mighty mad and go after Wright. Wright ends up homeless.

            Meanwhile, in China, a super-genius eleven-year-old named Mei is kidnapped into doing the Triads’ dirty work in New York City. They have her memorize a sequence of numbers, but in transit to get the second sequence, the Russians spirit her away to try and get the numbers out of her. She escapes them and ends up with Wright. And everything—the story, the action, the corruption, the gun fighting—escalates from there in one whirl of testosterone.

            Now, when I think about “T-Films,” as we’ll call them, I think of the 80s movie Commando with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Explosions, muscles, car chases, helicopters, guys gettin’ their skulls severed in half with saw blades. The works. However, the dialogue, the writing, and the overall plot structure suffers because of all the testosterone infused into the film. Safe does not suffer from this plague.

            Multiple stories intertwine you into the world of underground NYC corruption, and you’re fascinated and outraged at once. You root for Wright, pray that Mei doesn’t fall into the wrongs hands or say something that could get her shot, and wonder what’s gonna happen each time the scenes transition. Things are revealed slowly, making the pacing of the story wonderfully juicy, and the watcher doesn’t feel inundated with useless facts about the characters. Everything is meaningful; everything has substance. It couldn’t have been written any better.

Mei, the Genius

            The characters are real, and the plot could happen right under our noses. And you’re served a butt-load of action and butt-whooping, along with a nice dash of thriller to cleanse the palette. Safe was played anything but, and the results were savory, to say the least. Five kernels out of five.

Movie Review: The Pirates! Band of Misfits

            Stop-go animation happens to be one of the things that fascinates me most about the world of animation. How do they get the people to do those aerial stunts? How does a cannonball manage to bash into the ship and you see no wire or anything holding it up? DON’T ANSWER. I like my own imaginings.

            When I heard that the people responsible for Chicken Run were back doing a movie, I knew the year before it came to theaters that I was seeing it, come hell or high water. Now, I wondered if the studio would be able to produce another successful animated film in an age where good animation is rare—and good stories for the animation always come from Pixar. (Sorry, Disney, ya fall flat a lot.) With all the new animated movies coming out, I thought Pirates: Band of Misfits would be one of those ones you sort of chuckle at because the humor is aimed at foolish stuff only a toddler would laugh at.

            I was wrong.

            Filled with the sort of comicality we’ve come to dub “British Humor,” Pirates is a good romp for any age. Everything in the movie is ridiculous, but not in the way that you face-palm and groan. “Really? That’s stupid.” No, no! Humor ranges from the politically incorrect to the sheer tasteless. For instance, Pirate Captain’s quote about “using babies as squid bait” shocked me until I had to laugh at it.

Pirate Captain and Polly the "parrot"

            And that’s another thing that amused me: The pirates don’t have real names. It’s Pirate Captain, The Pirate with the Scarf, The Pirate with Gout, The Albino Pirate, on and on (my favorite being The Pirate Who Likes Sunsets and Kittens). Hugh Grant (Pirate Captain) did an amazing job using (gasp!) emotion in the role, and I actually couldn’t tell it was him until I was told by someone who’d read the credits.

            The story, while witty, was written for kids, you could tell. But at the same time, it wasn’t bad. I actually enjoyed the incorporation of fiction with real nineteenth-century figures. You know how some kids movies just have awful writing (*cough* Chipmunks 3 *cough*)? Well, Pirates can’t say that. They did brilliant. Five kernels out of 5.