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‘Black Widow’ Review

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You know what they say, better late than never!

“Black Widow” is the long-awaited (and oft-delayed) solo film for the titular superhero played by Scarlett Johansson, and follows a mission that ends up reuniting her with her family (Florence Pugh, David Harbour, and Rachel Weisz). O-T Fagbenle, William Hurt, and Ray Winstone also star while Cate Shortland directs.

For years fans were asking for a Black Widow solo film, but it took the success of 2017’s “Wonder Woman” and the explosion in MCU popularity to finally have the project greenlit. It marks the final starring role for Scarlett Johansson as the character, who like Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans is leaving the franchise after a decade of wearing tights, and is a fittingly smaller-scale Marvel movie that does everything it needs to while still offering some fun new surprises.

Scarlett Johansson has been one of the best parts of the Marvel Universe since her debut as Black Widow (aka Natasha Romanoff) in 2010’s “Iron Man 2,” and it’s nice to finally get to see her run the show instead of being a sidekick or part of an ensemble. Here we get a little more intimate look at her as a person instead of an Avenger, with little moments like her quietly driving along while listening to the pop song “Cheap Thrills” by Sia. She continues to be a badass when it counts, but part of what has made Natasha one of the MCU’s most loved characters is her personality, and Johansson keeps that dry wit and warmth.

The star, however, is Florence Pugh, whose star power only continues to grow after having a 1994 Jim Carrey-type year in 2019, coming onto the (mainstream) scene with “Fighting with My Family,” “Midsommar,” and then “Little Women,” the last of which landed her an Academy Award nomination. Here Pugh plays Yelena Belova, Natasha’s younger sister, herself a member of the same assassin-training course, and steals the show. Pugh carries all the emotional scenes of the film, trying to come to terms with the fact her youth was a charade and her life has not been her own, but also has some laugh-out-loud moments (“this would be a cool way to die” she says to herself as an avalanche is approaching). Pugh is set to appear in the Disney+ show “Hawkeye” and will surely be one of the main focuses of the MCU moving forward and I couldn’t be more excited.

Overall, the action in the film is some of the best that we’ve seen in the MCU. Outside maybe the “Captain America” films (namely “Winter Soldier”), this is the most brutal hand-to-hand combat we’ve gotten. You hear bones crunch and the impact of knives slashing, and it really is one of the most enjoyable Marvel films action-wise that we’ve gotten in a long while. The special effects can be a bit wonky (there are several explosions that look right out of a PlayStation 3 cutscene), but they never take you out of the film.

The writing is hit and miss, with the banter between Natasha and Yelena being the amusing Marvel quipping but the dialogue-driven scenes between multiple characters being a tad bit slow. The MCU has also always had a problem with its bad guys and this may be the weakest example yet, with Taskmaster looking cool and being a physical threat, but the motivations and development of the villain organization being a bit lacking.

“Black Widow” is one of the better MCU solo outings, and just like how “Luca” is “lesser” Pixar doesn’t mean the lower-stakes make it bad. This is a very good Marvel film that does everything it needs to do and offers some closure to the Black Widow character while showing the impact she made on the future of the franchise. Johansson and Pugh are great and the fight scenes are incredibly entertaining, and it is just nice to see a feature-length Marvel movie for the first time in two years; it’s almost a microcosm for us all finally getting back to normal.

Critics Rating: 7/10

‘Rough Night’ is One Rough Comedy

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Rough_NightThis movie will quickly be forgotten by most people, but it has skyrocketed Zoë Kravitz to the top of my bae list…

 

“Rough Night” follows a group of college friends who reunite 10 years later for a bachelorette party, only to have things go wrong when they accidently kill a stripper. Scarlett Johansson, Zoë Kravitz, Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell and Ilana Glazer star as Lucia Aniello directs.

 

I was slightly intrigued by this film. The trailers weren’t anything great (my theater was dead silent when it played before “The Mummy”) but the premise seemed amusing, if not familiar, and the cast was appealing. And while the film isn’t as rough an outing as it could have been, the actors can only do so much to save it from being overly scattershot.

 

I’ll start with the cast as most of them are entertaining. It’s always fun to see Scarlett Johansson in a lighter role (after her blah turns in “Lucy” and “Ghost in the Shell”) and she is by far the biggest name on the poster here. Zoë Kravitz seems to be having the most fun and I really enjoyed her presence and chemistry with Ilana Glazer, and Paul W. Downs (who co-produced and co-wrote the film with Aniello, his real life girlfriend) has a few funny scenes as Johansson’s fiancé, too. However Gazer, Bell and McKinnon are all varying degrees of mixed bags, often going one note and either not taking a joke far enough or letting it go on for too long, and McKinnon has become a caricature of herself, here sporting an Australian accent.

 

And that is one of the film’s biggest problems, is as both a writer and director Aniello doesn’t seem to know how to deliver a punchline. Characters’ voice inflections or the amount of time a pause lasts just seem off, and it feels that there were a lot of missed opportunities for some great material and punchlines.

 

The film goes by at a nice enough pace, even if it feels a little longer than its 101 minute runtime, and there are a few twists near the end that I did find enjoyable; this is far from a bad film.

 

Normally I am pretty liberal with grading comedies. If I laugh then I tend to give a film a passing grade; after all, that’s the point of a comedy. And while I chuckled here or there and had one laugh-out-loud moment, I never really was finding things funny, and it goes back to the almost annoying feeling of there being jokes seemingly left on the table.

 

“Rough Night” is a watchable enough summer flick but it isn’t too funny and at the end of the day that’s what you judge a comedy off of. The cast is dedicated and attractive and there are moments of amusement throughout, but it all just feels like an undercooked idea that could have been a great black comedy, but settles for being a meh “Hangover” wannabe.

 

Critics Rating: 4/10

Sony Pictures

Sony Pictures

‘Avengers’ Sequel Delivers in Big Way

Avengers_Age_of_UltronA few weeks ago Hollywood gave us “Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2,” a sequel no one asked for. Now we have “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” a sequel most everyone has been asking for since the moment they walked out of the theater after seeing the first Avengers in 2012.

All your favorite superheroes are back in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” including Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and many more. This time around, the group must stop an artificial intelligence being known as Ultron (played by James Spader) from destroying mankind. Joss Whedon returns as writer/director.

Being the sequel to a global phenomenon like “The Avengers,” not to mention following arguably three of the better Marvel movies (and the worst in “Thor 2”), “Ultron” had a huge shoes to fill. And for the most part, it follows up its predecessors with great success.

Right off the bat, the best thing about “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is the dialogue, and the interactions it creates for its characters. There is plenty of heart and soul in this sequel, but also honestly, as of May, this is the funniest film of 2015. Utilizing Robert Downey Jr.’s amazing charm and wit, the film gives him and the other Avengers hilarious one-liners and banter, but at the same time never feels like it is sacrificing its dignity for the sake of a joke.

The film is also filled with some of the most fun and ingenious action shots I may have ever seen in. I won’t ruin any of them, but Whedon really played around with moving the camera, and it resulted in some pretty amazing shots. The variety of action scenes vary, and each one brings a different flavor to the film. The opening sequence of “Ultron” is the most fun I’ve had at the movies in a long time.

“Ultron’s” biggest asset may also be its biggest flaw, and that is in the writing. While the dialogue is fantastic, the plot itself is a bit messier. Characters receive life-threatening injuries simply to have the scene abruptly end and they are never heard of again. Did they live? Did they die? Did they find Jimmy Hoffa? Who knows. Ultron also doesn’t seem to know what exactly his master plan is, continuously switching how he wants to achieve his goal. And then there is this “rare chemical” that seems to have a half dozen different uses, depending on what the plot needs from it (come on, “Avengers,” leave that lazy writing for “Thor 2”).

The finale is also a bit overlong, eventually becoming faceless villain henchmen being lined up like cattle for slaughter (same situation as “Iron Man 3” and the first “Avengers,” so if you were fine with it there then this isn’t going to irk you).

There really isn’t too much wrong with “Avengers: Age of Ultron” from a summer blockbuster perspective. It’s a lot of colorful fun, and if that’s all you want, then you’re going to love every minute of it. If you were hoping for a mind-blowing epic that redefined the superhero genre, then it won’t meet those expectations, however it’s entertaining as anything, never feels like its 2+ hour runtime, and you get 11 superheroes for the price of one ticket. How many times can you say that?

Critics Rating: 8/10

Variety

Variety

‘Lucy’ All Dumb, No Fun

Lucy_(2014_film)_poster            Oh, boy.

Well, here goes nothing. In “Lucy”, Scarlett Johansson stars as the title character who begins to access more and more of her brain after accidently being injected with an experimental drug. Morgan Freeman costars as Luc Besson writes and directs.

The trailer for this film made it look like the film was going to be very, very bad; awkward dialogue paired with that awful Besson “humor” where random violence is supposed to be funny (because it’s a riot and totally hashtag relatable when someone shoots a cab driver for not speaking English in Taiwan, right?). Well rest easy because “Lucy” isn’t as bad as the commercials made it out to be; it’s worse.

I don’t think I have ever seen a movie try to be so smart, and then end up being so dumb. For the whole film, “Lucy” tries to ask questions while giving the impression that it has all the answers. It then pulls the rug out from under the audience in a messy (and moronic) climax. Seriously, by the time the film was wrapping up its painfully long 88 minute run time, I didn’t know what was going on. And you know you you’ve lost a filmgoer’s interest when I was questioning why a character still had a flip phone in the year 2014 instead of pondering what had just happened during the climax.

The film’s main interest point (at least in its own pretentious mind) is “oh boy, what’s going to happen when Lucy reaches 100% access of her brain?!” Only thing is, you don’t care. The more intelligent Lucy gets, the more dumb the movie gets. By the time Lucy has accessed 30% of her brain (instead of the normal person’s 10%) she can already throw other human beings with her mind. So do I really care to wait and find out what is going to happen when she reaches 70%? Spoiler: No, I don’t.

If this was a sitcom, it would be called “I Hate Lucy” (OK that was a lob down the middle). I just didn’t like much of anything in this movie. Besson does know how to shoot an action sequence, as demonstrated by the final 15 minutes being the only enjoyable part of “The Family”, and once again his climatic action scene is the highlight of the film. It’s fun enough when the guns are going off, but the fight isn’t enough to distract you from a plot that has become unintentionally hilarious.

“Lucy” is too moronic to be a smart sci-fi and too boring to constitute as dumb fun. The film doesn’t know what it wants to be, nor what message it wants to send. Really all I got out of it is “drugs are bad, m’kay?”. Johansson is an emotionless robot for most of the film, and nothing in the film is engaging. The film maintains that human beings use 10% of their brain; this film would be lucky if the people who made it exhumed anything over two.

Critics Rating: 3/10

‘Chef’ is Colorful and Tasty Fun

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Chef_2014There are about a half dozen food puns I could use while reviewing Jon Favreau’s new movie, “Chef”. I could say that the film is “one tasty treat”. I could tell you that you’ll have “a sweet time”. Or I could go the route of saying the cast “perfectly complement one another”. But I won’t subjugate you to any of those awful puns, and will just tell you that “Chef” is an infectiously fun and colorful movie that you should not see on an empty stomach.

Favreau writes, directs and stars as Carl, the head chef in a Los Angeles restaurant who quits after a food critic gives a harsh review of his meal. Carl then sets out to start a food truck with one of his former cooks (John Leguizamo) and son. Sofia Vergara and Scarlett Johansson co-star.

“Chef” knows what it is and doesn’t try to be anything else. Its sole purpose is to create a fun movie with good-looking food and catchy music, with major cities like New Orleans and Miami as backdrops. Favreau, known for directing the first two Iron Man films, has a nice touch in the chair here, and delivers a solid, at times heartwarming, performance. The chemistry between him and his son, played by Emjay Anthony, is outstanding and adds a family element to the film. It is hard to find kid actors who don’t quickly get irritating, and even harder to find talented young actors, but Anthony holds his own in every scene with Favreau, and even adds a few laughs along the way.

There are about a dozen big-name actors in “Chef” and I’m not going to spoil them all, but each one adds their own flavor (pun intended) to their scene (if you watched the trailer you know who’s in it, so I suggest you skip that if possible).

I had dinner 15 minutes before this movie and I thanked God I did because there isn’t a scene in this film that doesn’t feature some kind of mouth-watering entrée or succulent dessert. From lava cakes to pasta to Cubanos sandwiches, if I had been hungry while watching it would have been more torturous than an Adam Sandler movie marathon.

There are points in “Chef” that drag a little, and by the end it does feel like it succumbed to clichés, but overall, “Chef” is an entertaining, and at times very funny, film. It features a great cast, a toe-tapping soundtrack and delicious looking food. You should see it while it’s hot! (You didn’t really think I wouldn’t end this review any other way besides a food pun, did you?)

Critics Rating: 7/10

‘Captain America’ Sequel Fun and Thrilling

Captain_America_The_Winter_Soldier            It’s official: summer has come early this year. The snow hasn’t completely melted and spring is not even two weeks underway yet thanks to “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”, the summer movie season has begun and we can all feel a little bit warmer (which is ironic, seeing as the film has the word ‘winter’ in the title…).

Once again starring Chris Evans as the man in red, white and blue spandex, this sequel follows Captain America trying to adjust to the present day. When a new enemy known only as the Winter Soldier poses a threat to the world, the Cap teams up with Black Widow (Scarlett Johanson) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) to save the day. Brothers Anthony and Joe Russo direct.

The first “Captain America” film was alright, although it was certainly the weakest entry of the initial Marvel Avenger films. And after the fun “Iron Man 3” and the disappointing (and forced) “Thor 2”, it really was anyone’s guess as to how this “America” sequel would be. What we end up getting is an immensely entertaining popcorn flick that is the best Avenger movie since the original “Iron Man”.

There are just so many things that “Winter Soldier” does right. First things first, the action is well-shot. The film uses wide-shots instead of the close-ups that hinder many PG-13 action films, making the action clear and comprehensible. The Russo brothers seemed to be an interesting choice to direct a big budget superhero film as they’re known for directing TV  comedies like “Arrested Development” and “Community”, but the two have a steady hand with the gunplay sequences, and keep things moving at a solid pace when the guns aren’t going off.

When the film isn’t being an entertaining action film, it is a very well-done political thriller. There are numerous whodunit moments, and it keeps you guessing for a while. Much like Captain America you are not sure who to trust or who may be behind the plot. Film legend Robert Redford steps in to play the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D, and he brilliantly blends taking the role seriously while at the same time knowing he is in a comic book movie, so he hams it up just a tad. It is a solid performance that gives the film some real credibility.

The one thing I can think to knock “Winter Soldier” for is that it does feel a bit overlong; let’s just say it won’t be taking home the Oscar for best editing. That doesn’t mean the film is ever boring, it just feels like it could have been about 15 minutes shorter. But hey, as Samuel L. Jackson says in the movie, we don’t live in a perfect world.

I loved most every minute of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”. It is made for comic book fans and casual moviegoers alike. Do you love gun battles? Good, see this movie! Do you enjoy superhero fist fights? Good, see this movie! Are you a fan of intense political thrillers? Good, see this movie (I can’t help but think of that DiCaprio “Wolf of Wall Street” speech as I just reread that).

Critics Rating: 9/10