‘Captain America: Civil War’

Those rascals at Marvel — they won me over in 2008 with Jon Favreau’s nearly flawless “Iron Man” and lost me big-time last year with Joss Whedon’s lumbering “The Avengers: Age of Ultron.” It’s been a roller coaster franchise with a lot of other highs (“Guardians of the Galaxy,”  “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”), lows (“Iron Man 2,” “Captain America: The First Avenger”), and middling entries that were decent enough despite their overall ephemeral quality (the “Thor” films, “Ant Man,”).

 Interestingly enough, “Captain America: Civil War,” the newest addition to the Marvel comic universe, feels like more of an appropriate sequel to Whedon’s “The Avengers” than “Age of Ultron,” and also improves massively on that film’s energy, focus, story, structure, humor, and creativity.

Hot off of their taut espionage thriller “Captain America: Civil War,” the Russo brothers (Anthony and Joe) manage to successfully tame and take strong command over this overwhelming smorgasbord of superheroes with some of the finest action directing I’ve seen in recent years. 

In the process of saving the lives of innocent citizens from super villains such as demigod Loki and maniacal robot Ultron, the Avengers have caused a ton of collateral damage including the deaths of several of the innocent citizens they set out to liberate from global (and intergalactic) villainy. The eponymous “Civil War” refers to a rift that has formed between the Avengers over whether or not superheroes should be policed, restricted, and held culpable for said damages.

Heading up one side of the civil war is Tony Stark, A.K.A. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), who believes that the Avengers need lawful limits in order to protect future incidents of innocent bloodshed—he’s joined in this belief by War Machine (Don Cheadle), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), the Vision (Paul Bettany), and newcomers to this franchise Black Panther and Spider-Man (Chadwick Boseman and Tom Holland, respectively). 

Captain America (Chris Evans) believes in the status quo of the Avengers operating as an independent outfit, but in this story cares far more about his former friend Bucky, A.K.A. the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), who was brainwashed after WWII and has since been a volatile sleeper cell for the terrorist organization HYDRA.

The Captain therefore spends far more time focused on the repercussions of his friend’s framing in a terrorist plot than on the proposed U.N treaty to sign over the Avengers operation to the government — regardless, a team of heroes does join the Captain’s side against Iron Man’s, and includes Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), and the Winter Soldier himself.

Of course, there always is a wild card. In this case, that would be terrorist Helmut Zemo (Daniel Brühl), who has a plan to take down the Avengers once and for all — in my mind, the execution of this plot ends up being the most satisfying, surprising, dark and ingenious thing Marvel studios has ever released, as the final act of this film takes a devastating turn that changes the nature of a few key scenes that came before it.

Despite my attempts to free myself of this cinematic universe, the folks at Marvel keep managing to pull me back in like Michael Corleone. Something just clicks when the Russo brothers, directing a pretty remarkable screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, take control over this material. I call the screenplay remarkable because although they’ve been tasked with the mundane job of having to connect this film with future projects, they have nevertheless managed to come up with spectacular set-pieces and story developments that allow “Civil War” to succeed on its own merit, and not just as a bridge to other events.

That’s why “Civil War” feels like a greater success than “Age of Ultron,” because that film bent to accommodate studio plans for the future, and bent so far that in fact by the end it was a broken effort. “Civil War” bends toward the same ends, but is made from far more pliable and sturdy material so that even as it does make accommodations here and there, it mostly lives and breathes within its own atmosphere without getting too ahead of itself.

The challenge of these Marvel films as a whole has been to not lose sight of the importance of building individual entries that can represent one independent vision, as well as serve as one piece of a bigger puzzle. That’s a tough balancing act, but fortunately “Civil War” does it tremendously well and reignites excitement in the series.

Could it stand to shed some fat? Of course, but is there enough fun and entertainment to be worth the investment? Absolutely. Audiences, assemble!

★★★½ (out of 4)

‘The Avengers: Age of Ultron’ & ‘Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck”

Marvel’s on a roll, and building quite an impressive cinematic universe. Problem is, with Joss Whedon’s lumbering, occasionally remarkable follow-up to “The Avengers,” this universe with all of its heroes, villains and middlemen, appears to have outgrown the scope of even a two-and-a-half hour movie. “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” feels like a 13 hour season of television crammed into a 2.5 hour slot, and that is perhaps the most damaging quality of the movie — it all feels both rushed and endless.

“Age of Ultron” opens with a bang, as Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) are simultaneously taking down bad guys and trying to infiltrate a Russian compound to retrieve the stolen scepter of Loki (played in previous Marvel movies by  Tom Hiddleston). It’s a fun sequence, very show-offy, but to the point and reminiscent of a James Bond opener in the way it jumps right into the action.

The Avengers succeed in retrieving the scepter, which Tony “Iron Man” Stark discovers contains the key to a new form of artificial intelligence that could protect the world from all future extraterrestrial attacks. With Bruce “the Hulk” Banner’s assistance, he jump starts the Ultron program, which leads to the accidental creation of one of the Avengers’ most formidable foes, Ultron (voiced by James Spader), a giant artificially intelligent robot which mayhem and madness on his mind.

Now look: There is a lot of fun to be had here in the “Age of Ultron.” Highlights include the gang taking turns trying to pick up Thor’s hammer (and the solid pay off when, later in the movie, one particular individual does so without effort or thought), the Hulk vs. Iron Man, the short appearances of Don Cheadle as Stark’s buddy Rhodey, a.k.a. War Machine, and the two new super-powered characters, Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), who play a big part in Ultron’s plan to take down the world.

But after James Gunn’s surprisingly excellent  and enduring “Guardians of the Galaxy,” what might be the best of the Marvel movies next to John Favreau’s “Iron Man,” and the grave and grounded “Daredevil” series on Netflix, “Age of Ultron” feels out of touch and tired. For all of its sound, fury and quips, it never really leaves an impression, nor does it cohere as well as it would had it been produced as a series or mini-series. There comes a point where it’s just too much to carry, too complicated to juggle around, and too dull to even care about. Whedon has bitten off more than he can chew, which is a shame because he’s delivered in his work so often in the past (we’ll forgive “Alien Resurrection”). It’s just not in the cards this time around, and despite a strong cast and some fantastic sequences that really do bring the comics to life, “Age of Ultron” can’t pull it together for long enough at a time to make the mark.

★★1/2 (out of four)

Brett Morgan’s documentary, “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck,” is an incredible visual  and aural experience that throws us head first into the mind of the Nirvana front man, and avoids almost all of the conventions we have seen before in bio-documentaries. I hesitate to even call this a bio-doc, as it is less interested in telling the standard “life and times” story of its subject, then it is in exploring who Kurt Cobain was from the inside-out. It’s an intense, unbalanced ride through Cobain’s music, art handwritten journals, and audio, much of which has never been released until now.

That’s because this is the first authorized documentary made about Cobain. It features interviews with his surviving family, his ex-wife and fellow rock-star Courtney Love, and was produced by his daughter with Love, Frances Cobain.

“Montage of Heck” goes through the entire arc of Cobain’s childhood, teenage years, his success with Nirvana, and his death. It’s a tragic 27-year lifespan that cannot be digested easily, even in a documentary film. Through some of the coolest, most visceral editing I’ve ever seen, Morgan and his co-editor Joe Beshenkovsky manage to communicate and capture a visually incredible representation of Cobain’s anxieties, dreams and nightmares. With this film, they allow us to experience, at least partially, the pain, genius, and conflict that this guy felt over the course of his life by animating his art, and by animating audio recordings of his voice into complete scenes.

Variations on his music, including stringed arrangements and original recordings, combined with the visual poetry that his art, brought to life by Morgan’s editing, make “Montage of Heck” a documentary experience unlike any other. This documentary had an impact on me, as someone who started listening to Nirvana at a young age — I absorbed it through something like osmosis from my brother’s speakers at first, and then listened to their “MTV: Unplugged” album for the first time on my own, and that was that. There’s some kind of power in his songs that continues to speak to people long after his death, and that power comes through clearly here.

★★★1/2 (out of four)

‘The Avengers’

What better way to kick-start the summer blockbuster season than with Joss Whedon’s “The Avengers,” a thrilling, funny and relentlessly entertaining superhero conglomeration, featuring six of Marvel’s best, four of which previously starred in their own, separate movies leading up to this.

Those four are The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo this time around), Thor”(Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), and in this time around, they are banded together to save the world after Thor’s brother, the demigod super villain Loki (Tom Hiddleston) steals the Tesseract a powerful cube that acts as a powerful energy source and creates interstellar portals between worlds and dimensions.

Loki steals the­­ cube from S.H.I.E.L.D., a top-secret military organization run by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), a character also seen in the previous Marvel movies as a lead up to “The Avengers.” To help recover the cube, Fury gathers the team of superheroes, which also includes Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), an expert manipulator, and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), an expert archer.

The very idea of cramming all of these superheroes into one picture is an ambitious one, and I feared the dynamics and pacing of this film would suffer under the weight of too much heroism and too little story.

Fortunately, writer/director Whedon, whose “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and ”Firefly” have become cult classics, and whose other film out this year, “Cabin in the Woods,” is a new staple of the horror genre, is a master storyteller who handles “The Avengers” with startling balance and steady pace. Even with so many exciting action sequences, on which Michael Bay really should take notes, the movie never really sags or becomes bogged down by excess.

From one scene to the next, Whedon keeps the story zipping along, while giving each of the Avengers due development and screen time. Watching Iron Man interact with Captain America, Hulk interact with Thor, and all the other combinations is a lot of fun, as rivalries form, bridges are built and together the heroes learn the importance of working together when trying to reach a common goal — This may sound old fashioned, but to quote Captain America, “With all that’s happening…people might just need a little old fashioned.”

While “The Avengers” is a one of the better superhero movies that have been made, it lacks the depth of some of the best recent entries in the genre, such as Sam Raimi’s “Spiderman 2,” Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” and Jon Favreau’s “Iron Man.” The bar for the genre is set high these days, but with “The Avengers,” Whedon at least manages to steer comfortably clear of mediocrity. Plus, he and Ruffalo have finally managed to get the Hulk right — Hulk smash!

★★★ (out of 4)