CHAPPIE Is B-Movie Silliness Disguised as High-Concept Blockbuster

CHAPPIE Review:

- Please don't suck. Please don't suck. Please don't suck. That is the rallying cry and internal monologue of film geeks as a much-anticipated movie begins - especially one in which the quality of the movie is far from guaranteed going in. CHAPPIE was a movie that I really wanted to be good. Really wanted to be *great*. I still will go to bat any day of the week for District 9. That movie blew me away back in 2009, and it seemed to send a strong message that its co-writer and director, Neill Blomkamp, was a major new voice in blockbuster filmmaking - here was a guy who was here to stay. Suffice it to say, the expectations for Blomkamp's follow-up, Elysium, were sky high. And the movie was ... meh. Blomkamp's visual flair was still evident, but the story felt flat and uninspired. With that in mind, CHAPPIE had a (possibly unfair) feeling of make-or-break for Blomkamp. Would it be a return to form, or another stumble? The stakes felt even higher with the news that Blomkamp would be directing the upcoming Alien sequel. Fans (myself included) wanted reassurance that that beloved franchise was in good hands. So ... here's the thing: I'm still pretty confident that Blomkamp can and will deliver the goods when it comes to badass sci-fi visuals and hard-hitting action scenes. At the same time, Chappie *really* makes me want to see Blomkamp teamed with some great writers on Alien and whatever other projects he tackles subsequently. CHAPPIE has some really cool visuals, but overall it's the weakest film Blomkamp has done to date. It's got script problems - big ones. And the result is a movie that ends up being jaw-dropping, but in all the wrong ways.

There are a lot of things in CHAPPIE that I admire in theory. I dig the basic concept - that of a police robot destined for the scrap-heap, salvaged by his creator and implanted with an upgrade that allows him true sentience. I like the visual aesthetic of the film, and the design of Chappie. In general, I'm a big fan of Blomkamp's gritty, 80's sci-fi-inspired design sense. I even like, in theory, the concept of casting the punked-out members of South African rap-rave band Die Antwoord as principle characters. I mean, why not? The whole film has an 80's sci-fi aesthetic, and a lot of beloved 80's genre movies have memorable appearances from musicians trying their hands at acting, from Bowie in Labyrinth to Isaac Hayes in Escape From New York. In theory, it's a bold, sorta cool movie. In theory.

But in practice, in the execution, so much of CHAPPIE ends up eliciting eye-rolls rather than fist-pumps. The story has numerous beats that feel off. Sometimes the film feels like it's straight-up ripping off Robocop. Witness Hugh Jackman as Vincent Moore - a loose-cannon engineer whose war-machine robot is pretty much just the ED-209. Sometimes, the movie seems tone-def about its characters. Die Antwoord's Ninja and Yo-Landi (playing odd alternate-universe versions of themselves) essentially go from being the movie's villains to its heroes without any real narrative arc driving that turn. And sometimes, as with the film's bat$%#&-crazy ending, the plot twists feel less like the work of a visionary and more like the fevered fan-fic of an overstimulated ten year old.

The underlying problem here is that Blomkamp seems to constantly be thinking about how best to deliver big, ain't-that-cool moments while also trying to infuse his films with legit social commentary and meaning. But the two halves do not form a cohesive whole. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that, for example, I get how the movie's ending perhaps seemed cool - could have been cool - on paper. But in practice it's laughable, because there's no semblance of human emotion driving it. Stuff happens, and we - and the characters - are asked to just go with it without the slightest hint of dramatic weight or emotional resonance. It's the same reason why Ninja sort of sucks as an antihero. There's no depth to his character - nothing to make us find it in our hearts to root for him when all we know of him is that he seems like a relatively heartless tool. But he's punk and named Ninja, so I guess we're supposed to embrace him? Yo-Landi is at least a little more sympathetic - she seems to genuinely care for Chappie. But that's all there is to her. How did she end up with Ninja? Are they supposed to be a band in the movie? Why does she stay with him despite him seeming to be an abusive maniac? The characters here all feel like cardboard cut-outs. Hugh Jackman's Vincent is similarly confounding. I'm all for having a crazy, over-the-top badguy in this sort of film. But Vincent just does stuff without any discernible motivation. He wants his ED-209-esque war-bot to get approved for mass-production and deployment, and he tries to accomplish that - and quell fears that it's dangerous - by taking it on a joyride of mass-destruction? This is a movie largely devoid of recognizable human behavior. At one point, an enraged Vincent pulls a gun on his office-mate in the middle of a crowded cubicle farm -- and everyone seems pretty unfazed.

The office-mate who has the gun pulled on him is Dev Patel's Deon - who is initially set up to be the movie's main hero. But it shows how structurally broken the film is that Deon ends up disappearing for long stretches of the movie - letting the increasingly aimless Ninja and Yo-Landi take center stage. Deon is the young robotics rock star who created the line of police-bots that spawned Chappie. And a movie primarily about Deon teaching a newly-sentient Chappie about morals and humanity in order to fight off a soulless robotic force guided by Vincent could have been a fun sci-fi premise. But the movie gets so bogged down in everything else - in the Die Antwoord stuff, in endless scenes of Chappie learning to be gangsta (which often come off as just silly) - that by the third act we're not really sure *what* this movie is or what it's trying to be.

The one thing that CHAPPIE really has going for it is Chappie. The visual f/x around Chappie are honestly some of the best and most seamless motion-capture CGI I've ever seen in a film. At most points in the film, you'd be hard-pressed to say with certainty that what we're seeing is CG and not some sort of practical f/x work. Chappie looks fantastic, and a lot of that also has to do with the amazing mo-cap work done by Blomkamp regular Sharlto Copley - who voices and gives life to Chappie. Copley kills it. He not only makes Chappie feel real and alive, but he makes him likable despite a script that does him no favors, and that makes him grow from simple and child-like to omniscient super-being in a span of minutes.

CHAPPIE has some pretty solid action, but nothing in the same league as District 9. The big difference, of course, is that District 9 had a ton of emotional weight behind its big action set pieces. CHAPPIE - tone deaf as it is - more often than not fails to get the ol' adrenaline pumping. The basic building blocks of good action are there - Blomkamp knows how to stage some kick-ass asskickery. But the plot and emotional arcing of the movie is so all-over-the-map that it's often difficult to discern a.) character motivations, and b.) filmmaker intentions. Is a scene meant to be disturbing or fun? Are these characters supposed to be kewl or off-putting? And, oh ... couldn't the film have found a better use for the great Sigourney Weaver than just having her play a generic hard-ass CEO?

The more I think about CHAPPIE, the more I begrudgingly admire some of its weirdness. I mean, the fact that Blomkamp gives so much screentime to the (admittedly sort of fascinating) Yo-Landi and Ninja, the fact that Hugh Jackman's villain is a complete nutcase whose actions make no sense, the fact that the ending is so completely bugnuts insane - all of it sort of endears me to this movie. And if CHAPPIE were some weird midnight-movie oddity, then it might be easier to enjoy as just a strange B-movie in the vein of so many nutty sci-fi B-movies from the 80's-era golden age that Blomkamp clearly has an affection for. But this film clearly aspires to more than B-movie novelty. Like each of Blomkamp's movies to date, it wants to say things about society and class, and to have deeper thematic texture than your average sci-fi shoot-'em-up. And CHAPPIE - even more so than Elysium - just sort of falls apart as anything other than B-movie action. It goes to show that you can have the best f/x in the world - and the biggest of ambitions - but without a smart script and great characters, you're left with a dud. CHAPPIE, sadly, is a dud. You've got to give it credit for daring to be weird in certain ways, but you've also got to dock it points for being generic and brain-dead in too many other ways. Robocop this ain't. I've not yet given up on Blomkamp, and I remain hopeful that he can evolve into a visual stylist who helps breathe life into great scripts from other writers. But CHAPPIE is seemingly damning evidence that the guy can't do it all on his own.

My Grade: C

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST Is The Best and Biggest X-Men Film Yet

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST Review:

- The Bryan Singer-directed X-MEN films were huge in their day. Rarely had we seen beloved comic book superheroes adapted for the big screen with so much seriousness of tone and purpose. Despite some clunky moments, these movies generated an excitement for comic book-based films that had not been seen since the Tim Burton Batman days. And yet ... I don't know if those movies 100% aged well, at least in my own mind. As much as the X-Men films took their characters seriously, there was also a sort of self-hating dullness to the films that now feels dated next to the colorful, comic-book roots-embracing Avengers films. Singer's muted colors, workmanlike black leather character uniforms, and eschewing of beloved comic tropes in favor of realism (reportedly Hugh Jackman had to beg Singer to let Wolverine call someone "bub") was a mixed blessing. It was, likely, what was needed to erase the day-glo nightmare memories of Joel Schumaker's abhorrent Batman films. But the X-films also felt like a bit of a letdown to those raised on the colorful sci-fi soap-opera of the 80's and 90's cartoons and comic books.

But lo and behold, DAYS OF FUTURE PAST is Singer's most sci-fi, most over-the-top, and most epic X-Men movie by a mile. It fully embraces its plot's time-travel wackiness, and revels in comic book-style action scenes, high-concept sci-fi imagery, and a sense of anything-can-happen fun that previously eluded this franchise.

Loosely based on the classic Chris Claremont / John Bryne comic book story from the 80's, the new movie sees Wolverine sent back in time from an apocalyptic present (a grim, black-sky dystopia in which the few surviving mutants wage a hopeless war against the all-conquering robotic Sentinels), to the swingin' 70's ... in hopes of preventing disaster. As in the comics, Professor Xavier believes that if a pivotal assassination attempt planned by Mystique were to be thwarted, then it would prevent a chain of events leading to mass public anti-Mutant sentiment, and thus the creation of the Sentinels. But unlike the comics, where Kitty Pryde sends her older-self's consciousness back in time to inhabit her younger self's body, the movie version has franchise favorite Wolverine make the timestream trek. Since Wolvie doesn't age (theoretically), it makes sense that he'd be the one to go back. Plus, in the movie, it's explained that only Wolverine and his healing powers can withstand the mental toll of the process, which is, it seems, now one of Kitty's abilities (so she can phase through walls, and *also* transfer people's minds back in time - random).

But the great thing about the whole set-up is that it gives Singer and co. an excuse to have a dream-melding of his original X-cast with that of Matthew Vaughan's well-regarded X-Men: First Class prequel. That film was a breath of fresh air, bringing talented actors like Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, and Jennifer Lawrence into the fold. Once again, these three are huge spark plugs, and help to cover some of the weak spots that existed in the supporting cast of Singer's original lineup. And it's also just a lot of fanboyish fun to see the old and young versions of Professor X and Magneto in the same film. In particular, Patrick Stewart gets some great moments with McAvoy as his younger self. And let's face it, any excuse to bring back the legendary duo of Stewart and Ian McKellan is cause for much rejoicing. They quite simply rule (and as great as Fassbender is as a younger Magneto, he still can't match the sheer gravitas of McKellan in rage-mode).

Lawrence's Mystique is also a huge focus here. Rightfully so, I think, given how talented of an actress Lawrence is. And the actress does a fine job of making the character into more than just a badass in leaves-nothing-to-the-imagination blue body paint (though she is that, too). Here, Mystique is sort of the pendulum at the center of the eternal morality play being waged between Xavier and Magneto. To stand up for Mutantkind through peace and understanding, or through blunt force and aggression? The issue is forced by Peter Dinklage's Bolivar Trask, an anti-Mutant crusader and father of the Sentinel program. Future Xavier and his fellow X-Men know that Mystique's attack on Trask would lead to his Sentinels getting funding and eventually decimating the planet, Skynet-style. And so the fate of the future lies largely in Mystique's vengeful blue hands.

Singer populates the film with some of the most ingeniously shot set-pieces he's ever put to film. The biggest highlight comes thanks to the newly-introduced Quicksilver, a laid-back speedster who performs dazzling light-speed feats all while chilling to hippie rock on his slightly anachronistic headphones. Played by American Horror Story's Evan Peters, Quicksilver is one of the best new additions to the cast. And his big showpiece set piece - in which he makes quick (but seen in slo-mo) work of a room full of armed assailants - is emblematic of what makes this movie better than all other X-movies. It's fun, dazzling, funny, and fully embraces the potential of the character's powers. Singer also gets some good mileage out of Nicholas Holt's Beast, who gets to shine both in his geeky scientist guise and in his ass-kicking Mutant form.

The combination of Singer's seemingly reinvigorated direction with a surprisingly lean, mean, and effective script by Simon Kinberg makes the movie work in a way that it probably shouldn't. There's a lot going on here, but Kinberg's script ties everything together in a very digestible way that mixes plenty of solid character and emotional beats into the big sci-fi tapestry. Yes, Wolverine serves as our central character, but the movie soon morphs into a great Xavier / Magneto story that also feels like closure, of sorts, to this entire chapter of the X-Men cinematic saga. That said, the time-travel conceit allows for the kind of big, comic-bookish stuff that we really haven't seen before in the mainline X-movies. We get teams of X-Men fighting off legions of invading Sentinels in a Matrix-esque future. We get big, world-ending stakes. We get an anything-can-happen set-up in which all bets are off - with time-travel shenanigans going on, favorite characters can die at any time, maybe even on multiple occasions. And of course, the movie introduces a concept very familiar to comic book fans, but perhaps a bit of a revelation for newbies - the idea of the retcon. Basically, the time-travel hijinks give Singer and Kinberg the ability to selectively, retroactively undo a few choice developments from previous X-Men films (cough*3*cough), wiping the slate clean for future installments, but also just sort of leaving the house (or manor, in this case) in order.

DAYS OF FUTURE PAST really surprised me. Going in, I was weary of yet another X-Men movie, and weary of yet another film in which Hugh Jackman's Wolverine takes center stage. I wanted Ellen Page's Kitty Pryde to get some love, and for the franchise to move in a new direction more in line with The Avengers and other Marvel studios films. I wanted the bright colors and melodrama of the comics and cartoons. Well, this one may not have bright colors, but it did capture the bigness and craziness that made The Uncanny X-Men the biggest thing since sliced bread in the 80's and 90's. It's a fun movie, plain and simple, and has about everything you could ask for in an X-Men/First-Class passing-of-the-torch film. There are nice callbacks to the previous movies, as well as some nice stage-setting for stories yet to come. This is pretty much the ultimate Brian Singer X-Men movie, both keeping what worked about the older films but also addressing some of the issues. I'd still like to see the X-films take a different path after this one, but this is a film that elevates the franchise as a whole.

My Grade: A-

PRISONERS Is Gripping, Ultra-Intense Tale of Vengeance

PRISONERS Review:

- PRISONERS is a dark, twisty, enthralling thriller that, despite a long running time, kept me on the edge of my seat for its duration. Going in, I wasn't familiar with director Denis Villeneuve, but he makes an incredibly strong first impression - directing the film with old-school, stark simplicity and haunting, deliberate pacing. On the flip side, the movie is filled with top-notch actors, many doing some of the best work of their careers. This is Jake Gyllenhaal doing some of his best-yet acting. It's Hugh Jackman playing a force of nature, but a much different type of character than we're used to seeing from him. It's Melissa Leo ... well, I don't even want to say, except that she's good. Real good. Meanwhile, the film deals with some very interesting, thought-provoking, and complex themes. But if there's any major flaw here, it's that I'm not fully convinced that the movie's many interrelated themes, plot-threads, and overarching ideas come together in an impactful way. But even so, I can appreciate a potboiler that also gives you a lot of thematic meat to chew on.

The movie deals with the aftermath of a double-kidnapping. The two victims? Two little girls, friends who were gathered with their families for Thanksgiving dinner. The girls decide to sneak off, but their families panic when they're nowhere to be found. On one side of the coin is Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman), a gruff survivalist whose personal motto is to always be prepared for the worst. Keller reacts to the kidnapping by going into vigilante mode - distrustful of the police, and determined to solve the case on his own. His wife, Grace (Maria Bello) is absolutely torn up by the kidnapping. She spends her days in bed, on meds, a mess of tears and pain. On the other side is Franklin Birch (Terrence Howard) and his wife Nancy (Viola Davis). Franklin gets pulled into his friend's quest for vengeance, but reluctantly so. Franklin can see that Keller is losing it - his perspective and his moral compass - in his determination to find his daughter. This manifests in Keller's insistence that the truth lies with Alex Jones (Paul Dano), a mentally handicapped man whose RV was parked nearby the two couples' homes at the time of the abduction. Meanwhile, the cop tasked with solving the kidnapping is loner Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal). Loki finds himself with the unenviable task of tracking the girls and pursuing leads, all while keeping the increasingly unstable Keller in check.

Like I said, this is a fairly towering performance from Hugh Jackman. While there's still a residual hint of Wolverine-esque badassery in Keller, this is also a more grounded, blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth type of character than we typically see from the actor. When we first meet Keller, his grim, survivalist worldview is tempered by the love and stability of his family. But when that gets ripped away from him, the darker inclinations come to the forefront. And Jackman handles that transformation wonderfully, showing us a guy who is willing to compromise his own soul in exchange for saving that of his daughter. On the other end of the spectrum, this is one of those Jake Gyllenhaal roles where the actor gets to be at his quirkiest, which to me is a good thing. After all, this is the guy who first impressed by playing a total oddball in Donnie Darko. Here, his Detective Loki is sort of fascinating. He ponders things slowly, carefully, but then is prone to rage when things don't add up. But Loki makes for a great contrast with Keller. Loki is trying to weigh all the angles, juggle all the facts. Keller is single-minded and laser-focused.

Overall, the supporting cast is quite simply stacked. If anything, I think you end up wanting even more substantial parts of top-notch actors like Bello, Howard, and Davis. That said, the movie is overripe with plot, and there just isn't time to widen the focus too much to these peripheral characters.

The bigger problem might be theme. Writer Aaron Guzikowski and Villeneuve go big. They introduce questions about vengeance, faith, god, morality, and justice. They use Keller as an example of what can happen when one man's quest for vengeance overrides his own moral compass - creating a situation in which Keller nearly becomes the bad guy in his own story. They look at the cycle of violence, and how one evil act begets another. They give the kidnapping a religious connotation: the kidnappers wage a war against god, with the terrorist-like goal of destabilizing and breaking good men: of inspiring others to inadvertently join the crusade of evil by retaliating and repeating the perpetrator's sins. All of this is good stuff - and for a while, the movie captivates, as it dangles these big questions in front of us. But these big themes don't necessarily jive with the plot's twisty nature. With each new twist, we get thrown for a surprising loop, but the big themes of the film also, to a degree, are undermined. It's hard to talk too much about without spoiling things, except to say that as the credits roll, it feels like you've been left with a hodgepodge of half-finished ideas and themes that were only explored halfway.

Still, the plot alone makes for gripping drama, and the film builds suspense - and genuine mystery - in a way that's as effective as any crime thriller we've seen in a long while. Villeneuve - along with legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins - craft a gorgeous-looking film that gives its rural, every-town setting a palpable sense of dread and foreboding. The movie feels like a throwback in many ways, and I found it refreshing. The pacing, the cinematography, the way the movie takes its time and builds and builds and lets the atmosphere take hold - it definitely feels like a film not quite of this time (and maybe that's also the Euro-ness of it all) - which ironically gives it that sort of classic, timeless feel.

PRISONERS is a pretty fascinating film, and in all honesty it's a hard one to rate. There's so much to like here, and so much that feels atypical and applause-worthy for this sort of big-screen crime procedural. Rarely does a crime movie have this much on its mind. At the same time, it's slightly frustrating because Prisoners is just shy of being a classic, in that by its end, the movie sort of collapses under its own weight. There's a lot that doesn't quite add up, and what the movie is ultimately about, what it's ultimately saying, ends up feeling a bit lost and muddled. But the ride to get there - it's still well worth taking.

My Grade: B+
 

THE WOLVERINE: Finally ... The Claws Come Out

THE WOLVERINE Review:

- If I've had any one problem with the modern-day X-MEN film franchise, it's that it's always, to me, felt sort of middle-of-the-road. The team's colorful comic book origins were greyed-out (both literally and figuratively), and characters like Wolverine, at times, seemed to lose a bit of their bite. Growing up, Wolverine was always the badass berzerker - the furry ball of rage and bad-attitude whose feral nature made him a less-than-ideal team player. Echoes of the classic Wolvie have shown up in previous X-films, but the Hugh Jackman version has always felt slightly whitewashed. His was Wolverine-as-heartthrob - a gruff-but-lovable loner who felt slightly de-clawed. It's no wonder then that fans responded to the moments in the films when Logan was allowed to unleash his inner badass - his rage in the X-mansion in X-Men 2, or his brief but kickass cameo in First Class.

Sadly, the first Wolverine solo flick, Origins, was sort of a mess. Marred by a weak script and an overload of misused characters, it performed well at the box office, but fizzled with fans. Now though, THE WOLVERINE aims to take things back to basics - mining the classic Chris Claremont / Frank Miller Logan stories from the 80's, in order to present a darker, grittier, streamlined Wolverine story.

Whatever else there is to say about THE WOLVERINE, I give it credit for getting the basics right. On a macro level, this is the Wolverine solo movie that fans have always wanted. It's Wolverine in Japan, on a violent quest to protect a mysterious woman. It is a Wolverine struggling to reconcile his humanity with his animalistic, mutant side - who is grappling with the potential for a normal life vs. the instinct to be a wandering warrior - a ronin. This is a Wolverine movie that directly references the Claremont/Miller classics. It finally introduces Logan's Japanese love interest, Mariko. And it mostly adheres to the pulp-noir, stripped-down sensibilities that Miller brought to the character way back when.

And after all this time, it feels like a slightly older and more grizzled Hugh Jackman has now grown into the role of Wolverine, perhaps more so than ever before. Freed from being just a cog in a large ensemble cast, Jackman has room to breathe here, and to give some additional heft and texture to his performance that I don't think we've seen in previous outings. Jackman does a great job of conveying Logan's inner turmoil - his guilt at having killed Jean Grey in X-3, his creeping doubts about his mutant gene-enabled immortality, and his reluctance to get back into action - after retreating to a life of relative solidarity in the Canadian wilderness. Jackman also does a nice job of dialing up the gruffness. This feels like a legitimately dark and gritty version of Logan - and not the sanitized, PG-ified version from other movies. The added depth in the character is a welcome byproduct of a more mature movie, overall, than what's come before.

That said, director James Mangold seems to waiver between dark n' gritty and more standardized Hollywood blockbuster sheen. The movie *is* dark, and there are times where I was almost reminded of the aesthetics of 70's crime thrillers in the way that Mangold keeps things, mostly, grounded and street-level. At the same time, it doesn't feel like he quite pushes things far enough. The movie never quite jumps off the cliff, keeping at least one foot in the familiar waters of the Marvel movie house-style. Mangold also tends to break up the gritty mood with various scenes that burst forth with more standard-issue Hollywood blockbuster trappings. Some of the movie's more colorful villains, for example - like the poisonous Viper or the robo-assassin Silver Samurai, seem present more to up the film's f/x quota as opposed to any real necessity story-wise.

Mangold does do a nice job with the film's action scenes - giving us a level of brutality that we haven't yet seen in any X-flick. In particular, there is a riveting battle atop a moving bullet train that, I have to say, is one of the best action scenes in any Summer blockbuster this year. It's over-the-top, sure, but it's also thrilling, visceral, and nail-biting. It does sort of reinforce the movie's conflicted nature - trying to be both a stripped-down character piece and also a big-time blockbuster. But I also can't deny that it's an awesome sequence.

The Wolverine does, however, suffer from a problem that is becoming increasingly notable in blockbuster films - plots that are unnecessarily convoluted. I said earlier that THE WOLVERINE really nails it on a macro level - taking a commendable back-to-basics approach. But on a micro level, the details of the plot, the various characters, and their motivations - it amounts to a rather labyrinthine web that moviegoers are going to be hard-pressed to make sense of.

The main plotline involves Logan being summoned to Japan by an old friend named Yashida. During World War II, Logan saved Yashida from the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki by getting him into a bunker in the nick of time. From that point on, Yashida became fascinated with Logan's mutant abilities. Now, elderly and dying - and the billionaire head of a large Japanese corporation - Yashida summons Logan to make him an offer. Yashida wants to drain Logan's mutant abilities, giving him the opportunity to live a normal, mortal life. In exchange, Yashida will gain Wolverine's healing abilities and be able to recover from his ailments - essentially unlocking a fountain of youth. Meanwhile, there is the matter of who will inherit Yashida Industries should its founder die. A war is brewing between Yashida's scheming son - who has ties to the Yakuza - and his beloved granddaughter, Mariko. Yashida sees the kind-hearted Mariko as the natural inheritor of his empire, but her father, Shingen, is not happy about being passed over.

Logan finds himself caught in the middle of these various power struggles, and over the course of the movie, he's pitted against a long line of adversaries. How all of the movie's various villains relate or don't relate to each other is sort of a tangled web - and it's often unclear who, exactly, is after Logan, and why. And yet, the film builds towards a pretty obvious endgame that comes off as a bit cartoonish given what's come before. Point being: when the movie focuses on being a simple tale of Logan-as-ronin, on-the-run, seeking answers, and grappling with his emerging feelings for Mariko - it really works. But that dynamic is undermined repeatedly, especially in the film's final act, by all the various plot convolutions and excessive characters - few of whom really leave an impression.

The one supporting character who is the clear show-stealer is Rila Fukushima's Yukio. Yukio - Yashida's adoptive daughter, and Mariko's friend and protector, is quite simply a badass. Fukushima's unique and striking look makes Yukio instantly compelling, but it's her uneasy alliance with Logan that takes the character to the next level. Yukio gives the film a great female hero who can go toe to toe with even Wolverine.

Mariko, on the other hand, is a little more of a mixed bag. Tao Okamoto is good in the role, but an extra scene or two between her and Jackman might have helped prevent their relationship from feeling just a bit boilerplate. The character also falls a little too much into the standard damsel-in-distress tropes. Part of the film's theme is Logan-as-protector ... so it mostly fits. But Mariko could have used a bit more fleshing out, so as not to feel so one-note. Overall though, Okamoto does some strong work, and there is a sort of interesting dynamic between Mariko and Logan - with Mariko having grown up hearing legends of the mythical Wolverine. Plus, in Mariko, Logan sees the kind of nice girl who he could maybe settle down and drink sake with - so there's that. She represents the quiet life that he could likely never have.

It should also be noted that Famke Janssen pops up throughout the film as Jean Grey, haunting Logan's unconscious mind, appearing to him in dreams. I enjoyed Janssen's inclusion in the film, although I can see how this may eventually be referred to half-jokingly as "that movie where Wolverine wakes up over and over." Suffice it to say, the Logan-wakes-up-disoriented-and-confused moment is used a couple times too many in the movie.

Ultimately, I think the *idea* of THE WOLVERINE is a bit more compelling than the execution. The movie hits a lot of the right broad strokes, but on a scene-by-scene level, it's up-and-down. The first act is the movie's strongest - when the movie really seems to have this Frank Miller-esque grittiness and moodiness. Later, it gets bogged down by too much plot and too many villains, and things begin to collapse under all of the accumulated weight. Luckily, there's a fun, geek-out-worthy post-credits teaser to make sure things end on a high note - setting the stage, just a bit, for the next X-film: Days of Future Past. Even if THE WOLVERINE doesn't hit a home run, it's still nice to know that we got this well-intentioned, reasonably badass Wolverine solo movie before Days of Future Past unleashes a full-on X-epic.

My Grade: B

RISE OF THE GUARDIANS Is A Fun, Imaginative Adventure

RISE OF THE GUARDIANS Review:

- Imagine a pseudo-superhero team comprised of such make-believe children's icons as Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny (!), The Tooth Fairy, and The Sandman. Imagine that Santa is a badass brusier with "Naughty" and "Nice" tattooed on either arm, and that The Easter Bunny is an Aussie dude-with-a-'tude who wields a boomerang as a weapon. Those geeky enough to smile at this premise will get a kick out of RISE OF THE GUARDIANS, a new Dreamworks animated film that imagines childhood fantasy figures as earthly protectors who must guard the world's children from the likes of evil baddies like The Bogeyman. The thing is - even though the film might outwardly appear to make these beloved icons edgy or gritty, the movie is actually very sweet and whimsical. The visual style is actually very storybook-esque, rendered in gorgeously-animated CGI that looks amazing in 3D. So don't be fooled by the slightly comic bookish character designs - RISE OF THE GUARDIANS does have plenty of action and adventure, but at the end of the day it's a relatively simple, kid-friendly tale about belief and imagination.

The film's protagonist is Jack Frost - a supernatural entity who wields the power of ice, wind, and cold. The movie's mythology establishes that the world is filled with these super-powered wonders - each made into what they are by the mysterious Man in the Moon. These beings are invisible to the average person, but can be seen by kids if enough children believe in them. Jack Frost, sadly, is totally invisible - despite the fact that he loves nothing more than helping and having fun with kids (unbeknownst to the kids, him being invisible and all). He starts snowball fights, crafts cool ice-patterns ... he even causes Snow Days. But Jack's life takes on a new purpose when he is recruited to join The Guardians - an elite assemblage of mythical beings, dedicated to protecting the world's children from any threat of evil. As it turns out, Santa, The Easter Bunny, The Tooth Fairy, etc. need Jack to help do battle with the Bogeyman, aka Pitch Black. Pitch's scheme is to gain power by making kids believe in *him*. He'll do that by interrupting Easter, thwarting the Tooth Fairy and her army of sprites' nightly visits to kids, turning the Sandman's dreams into nightmares, etc. In Jack, Pitch sees a sort of kindred spirit - a fellow "invisible" who kids laugh off as imaginary.

When GUARDIANS gets overly talky and expository, it can drag a bit. And some of the dialogue is a bit overly-emo - the kind of stuff you might see in a Super Nintendo-era Japanese role playing game. But when the film relies on imagery to tell its story, it can be flat-out eye-melting. Some of the fantasy worlds shown here - Santa's workshop, the Tooth Fairy's fairy kingdom ... are rendered with the utmost detail and imagination and sense of wonder. Guillermo del Toro is listed as a producer on the film, and you can see his creative influence in how well-realized the various fantasy-lands are. Even when we only glimpse them briefly, they feel fully-formed and alive. The character design is a little garish in some cases (Santa, the Easter Bunny), but I actually really liked the look of the film overall - Jack, The Tooth Fairy, and the Sandman are all really cool-looking, as is Pitch. And there are lots of fun touches that make the characters feel unique - the choice to have the Sandman be mute, expressing his thoughts with sand-constructs, is pretty interesting and fun.

But Santa is still a highlight of the film, because Alec Baldwin voices him in such a fun manner - giving him a boisterous, Russian-accented voice that really sells the character and makes him likable. Same goes for Hugh Jackman as the Easter Bunny - he wins you over by selling the character 100%. Isla Fischer is chirpy and sweet as the fast-talking Tooth Fairy - and again, she makes what could have been a lame/cheesy character feel likable and interesting. As Pitch, Jude Law amps up the sinister-factor and does some classic badguy voicework. Finally, Chris Pine is very good as Jack Frost. I was actually surprised that it was Pine voicing him, as Jack is a far cry from the tough, confident characters that the actor is known for. While Jack has a lot of the movie's most cringe-worthy "oh woe is me, what is my meaning in life?" dialogue, Pine makes sure that Jack ultimately comes off as more empathetic than whiny.

Again, the visuals in the movie are often pretty awesome. Soaring flying scenes, spectacular fantasy landscapes, kinetic battle scenes, and artistic, evocative imagery make this one of the prettiest animated films I've seen in some time. There is a level of detail in the animation that's pretty remarkable, and I also found the action to be incredibly well-choreographed ... resulting in some fairly epic confrontations between good and evil.

I guess I will mention though ... that these sorts of movies always make me wonder, just a bit, about the message they are sending to kids. A major theme of the movie is that the kids' belief in the Guardians is what gives them power, with Pitch's evil plan revolving around discrediting the Guardians so that the kids no longer believe. Now, I am all for kids having imagination and wonder in their lives. But I always get prickly when a movie preaches that *all* kids should, of course, believe Christian symbols like Santa and The Easter Bunny - and for them to not believe represents a worrisome loss of childhood innocence. Anyways, it's just a pet peeve when movies present Christianity as a universal mono-religion when we all know it isn't (and tellingly, the scenes that show Santa hopping around the globe show him specifically in countries like England - we never see the Guardians in, say, India).

All that aside, I really liked RISE OF THE GUARDIANS. It's a fun, visually-breathtaking film that takes mixes child-like whimsy with a slight comic-bookish edge to craft a really cool, imaginative story. I was super-impressed by the amount of world-building and care that clearly went into this one, and found myself surprised at how won over I was by the characters. This is a film that is up there with some of the best animated films of 2012.

My Grade: B+