BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE Tries So Hard to Be an Event That It Forgets to Be a Movie

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE Review:

- Batman vs. Superman. For decades, this has been a conflict, a contrast, that has captivated the imagination of comic book fans. It's light vs. dark, fear vs. hope. Gotham vs. Metropolis. An ordinary man with an extraordinarily nightmarish childhood vs. a superpowered alien who grew up with a Rockwellian, idyllic upbringing. A rich city playboy vs. a country boy journalist. Vigilante vs. Hero. And yet ... two men who are, ultimately, two sides of the same coin. Two men who believe in truth and justice. Two men who live by a moral code. Two men who never give up. Two men who fight the same battle. There is rich thematic territory to explore in pitting Batman vs. Superman. And over the years, many a comic book and animated adventure has mined that iconic relationship in order to produce memorable stories.

But BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE ... well, it has almost zero interest in any of those things. From watching this movie, from listening to interviews with director Zach Snyder - what's clear is that the bedrock upon which this movie was created is the fight between Batman and Superman in Frank Miller's seminal 1986 graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns. Snyder is an acolyte of Miller's work - he adapted 300, after all - and he seems to be a fan of that period of comics deconstruction (he also adapted that *other* big superhero deconstruction of the mid-80's, Watchmen). But increasingly, it feels like Snyder's affection for Miller and Moore is mostly just surface level. He likes the "kewl-factor" of those comics, but doesn't seem to get the context, the themes, or the subtext. As a pre-teen, I devoured those books. The shock factor of seeing R-rated interpretations of iconic superheroes blew my mind. But even then, I recognized what Moore and Miller were going for. They were subverting decades of superhero mythology - deconstructing aspects of superheroes that readers took for granted and placing them in the context of the politics of the 1980's. In The Dark Knight Returns, the "American Way" that Superman had long stood for had become corrupt and fascist, and Superman became a mere tool of that nightmare-America's government. Batman - now a grizzled, zero-%$&%'s-giving anarchist - comes out of retirement to fight the system. Ultimately, Batman and Superman throw down. And it's a fight for the ages. We actively root for Batman to win - it's his story, after all. And we smile and grin as the wily vigilante pulls out every trick in the book to humble the god-like Kal-El. But in BATMAN V SUPERMAN, Snyder takes that iconic battle and replicates it devoid of context. There's no real clash of ideologies here. There's no real thematic contrast between our heroes or what they represent. This Batman wants to hunt and kill Superman because he deems him (however misguidedly) responsible for the destruction and the resulting casualties that took place in Man of Steel. He views Superman as too much of a potential threat to let live. But even as he grits his teeth and decides to slay Superman, this Batman mows down people left and right while careening in the Batmobile through the streets of Gotham. This Batman brandishes a gun throughout what seems like half of the time he's onscreen in costume. This Batman kills (or as Snyder deemed it in an interview, he "manslaughters."). So where then, is the contrast?

In BATMAN V SUPERMAN, Gotham is indistinguishable from Metropolis. Both could essentially just be called Snyderville - perpetually dark, gloomy, and grey - lacking in any real personality or distinguishing characteristics. The movie is set 18 months after the events of Man of Steel - and we are told that - aside from some vocal pundits and protesters - people generally seem to have come around to the idea of Superman. I mean, there's a giant statue of him in Metropolis. But we are never really shown a Superman who is a man of the people. Most of the people we actually see in this movie - save for Lois Lane - seem to actively hate him. And Superman's personality seems to reflect that. Rather than serve as an optimistic contrast to Bruce Wayne's glumness, this film's Clark Kent can go toe to toe with Bruce when it comes to brooding. Snyder and his writers seem to actively not want to show a Superman being Superman. Aside from one moment of (misguided?) heroism in the film's final act, this Superman at times feels more like the fascist version from The Dark Knight Returns. Not for any real thematic reason - just because that's the version, I guess, that Snyder thinks is cool. Or at least, most palatable to his particular sensibilities.

It's funny, because in a world where multiple versions of DC Comics characters litter the pop-cultural landscape, the flaws of these movies often highlight the strengths of the other versions of the characters that are out there. When Superman Returns came out, its retread version of Lex Luthor - yet another spin on the sleazy used-car-salesman of the Donner films - made Smallville's tortured businessman version of Lex seem definitive in comparison. By the same token, BATMAN V SUPERMAN's dour Man of Steel makes the still-finding-its-groove Supergirl TV show seem to sparkle in comparison. Whatever flaws it may have, Supergirl overflows with palpable affection for its lead character and what she (and in turn, her iconic cousin) represent. There's no questioning that the show has an abundance of superheroic heart.

And where then is the beating heart of BATMAN V SUPERMAN ...? It's very, very hard to find. In retrospect, the relative lack of anything that could pass for real human emotion in this film makes Snyder's first DC movie, Man of Steel, start to look even better in comparison. I liked Man of Steel a lot. I graded it highly. It had fantastic action, a strong cast, and a pretty solidly-conveyed thematic through-line. It was Clark Kent's journey towards embracing the Superman identity after being confronted with his Kryptonian past. Simple, easy - and the foundation of a pretty damn good piece of sci-fi superhero pulp. But where Man of Steel took Clark on a pretty understandable character arc and plot trajectory, BATMAN V SUPERMAN jumps around with wild abandon - playing very fast and loose with things like character motivations, plot, and theme.

You can almost see the various hands reaching through the screen trying to mold this movie into something that fits their vision. You can imagine Snyder essentially working backwards from the big Batman/Superman smackdown, setting up a loosely-related collage of scenes meant to add some kind of mythic gravity to the heroes' first encounter. You can see screenwriter Chris Terrio (Argo) - brought in late in the game to polish things up - trying to somehow turn Snyder's comic book pulp into high-minded political-thriller allegory. And you can see the DC and Warner Bros brain-trust giddily - but awkwardly - shoehorning in all sorts of setup for future DC movie installments. This is "Dawn of Justice" - and so we get little glimpses of the rest of the DC pantheon, almost entirely unrelated to the actual plot of this movie - meant to prime us for what is to come in the years ahead.

The result is a movie that, for much of its running time, feels like an unwieldy mess. The first hour or so of the film is edited together so strangely - it almost feels like no one could agree how the movie should open, and so we're just left with no real opening. I won't spoil anything, but I'll just say that the movie begins with a truncated flashback to Batman's iconic origin story, followed by an extended revisit of the end of Man of Steel from Bruce Wayne's perspective, quickly followed by an extended scene of Lois Lane in Africa ... and then a bunch of other stuff before we ever see either Batman or Superman in costume. It's sort of shocking how all-over-the-place the movie is right out of the gate, and how long it takes to find any sort of real footing.

But what quickly becomes apparent is how thin most of the characters' motivations are in the movie. I talked a bit about the relative incoherence of Batman's decision to try to kill Superman (with a kryptonite spear, no less). But that incoherence extends to the entire fight between Superman and Batman. Look, comic book fans have long grown used to the trope of two heroes coming to blows without exactly having great reason to go at it. But here, it just feels like two action figures have been moved into place. In theory, Lex Luther is supposed to be the Machiavellian master manipulator of the confrontation. But Jesse Eisenberg's Lex never really makes any sense in this movie. His Lex is a jittery, half-insane madman on a perpetual sugar high. And what, exactly, he's trying to do and why is pretty vague - frustratingly so.

The thing is, BATMAN V SUPERMAN constantly fumbles the ball both on a macro and micro level. There are big picture issues - like how the big Batman/Superman fight begins on a nonsensical note and ends on an eye-rolling silly and sudden one. But there are *tons* of smaller issues that elicit WTF moments throughout the film. After Batman and Superman have called a truce, Lois Lane disposes of Batman's kryptonite spear by ... throwing it in a random abandoned building's flooded basement. Then, finding that casually-tossed-aside Ultimate Weapon becomes a major plot point in the movie's final act. "Hey, remember that all-powerful super-weapon that you tossed in a random building - now, if we don't find it, the world ends!" Is that really what this movie boils down to? Similarly, you know how I mentioned the film's odd, occasional inclination to become some sort of political thriller? Those moments pretty much all fall flat, and they add up to a whole lot of nothing. For example, the movie introduces the idea that Lex Luthor's anti-Superman plot is actually backed by the US government - but then never really resolves that notion or wraps it up in any meaningful way. There's also a pretty baffling sort-of dream sequence where Superman has a vision of his dead father, that seems to exist just because they wanted to squeeze Kevin Costner in here. It's a real head-scratcher as to why this scene happens when it does, and what it is exactly.

But hey, this is BATMAN V SUPERMAN - none of this stuff really matters if the movie gives us big moments of heroism that reinforce why these characters are icons - right? Well, for some reason the film continually undermines itself in this regard. There's a mind-blowingly strange sequence, for example, where Batman chases down criminals to a much-discussed secret boat (yep) that may be carrying a clandestine shipment of kryptonite. As Batman catches up with the boat, he's intercepted by Superman (this is the first time they meet), and Batman does his whole "do you bleed?" line. Superman quickly flies away, Batman stands around muttering, and then, well, that's it. What about those nefarious criminals and their kryptonite-carrying boat? Who cares! In this movie, Batman and Superman would rather trade lame taunts than fight crime, apparently. There's another moment in the movie that seems poised to be pretty great. Superman is called to testify before a Senate Committee to defend himself and his role in the destruction he caused in Man of Steel (the movie is very hung up on the ending of Man of Steel - I mean, sure, some critics didn't like it, but let's move on). But Superman is clearly going to give some great speech here, right? Some movie-defining Big Moment where Superman says earnestly that, my god, he may be an alien by birth, but he was raised to be an American - and really, he's just here to help. Or something. But in a moment that seems to literally embody the movie being pulled apart at the seams by the various parties involved in its conception, that potential Big Moment is interrupted by a giant explosion, and we're back to more brooding and people hating on Superman. And to make matters worse, the explosion is another part of Lex's weird master plan that never quite makes sense - unless you just go with the idea that he's actually insane - basically The Joker - and that nothing he does makes sense and is just intended to cause chaos (but is that really Lex Luthor?).

Eisenberg goes for it with his Lex. I can't really fault him for going big and over-the-top, because that's essentially what the script demands of him. But it does sort of irk me that this is now yet another big-screen Luthor who does not at all resemble the best and most iconic versions from the comics and animated series. The irony, of course, is that the DC Comics version of Lex that was a villain to Superman but a semi-respected businessman to the public - a guy who once ran for and won the DC Universe presidency - feels shockingly plausible and relevant today in the age of Trump. But worry not, there's no real sense of the zeitgeist being reflected in this movie (the movie's sensibility is much more rooted in the Frank Miller 80's and X-TREME 90's). More importantly, there's no real sense here that this is a Lex Luthor who could plausibly be Superman's greatest enemy. He's a Lex who is so brazenly a criminal that there's no endgame for him here except to end up dead or in jail. Lex has one really good moment in this movie where he threatens Lois and forces Superman to act to save her. It's a classic villain scene. Lex vs. Superman. It's too bad that we don't get more of that - or that we don't get a true clash of philosophies between Lex and Clark. What makes Lex a great villain in other mediums is that he's convinced that Superman is actually an existential affront to humanity. Here, Lex does a lot of semi-incoherent babbling - but there are no real shades of grey to him. He's just criminally insane. He's a Batman villain more so than a Superman one - a guy who should probably be locked up in Arkham Asylum. But ultimately, Lex is pretty marginalized in this movie. He's more background noise than anything else, and it's never exactly clear to what extent a.) it's his influence that's directly influencing Batman's decisions here, and b.) to what extent Lex himself is being manipulated by outside forces.

So yeah, there are a lot of "outside forces" in this movie. If you've read up on any of the pre-release hype pieces or if you're a big DC Comics fan, then it's pretty clear as to who the Big Bad is that BATMAN V SUPERMAN hamfistedly alludes to throughout its running time. But to what end? It's a pretty big game-changer if we're to believe that Batman and/or Lex are being expressly controlled and manipulated throughout the film by this other villain. But we never really know for sure. What we do know is that Batman has a few hallucinatory, seemingly prophetic dreams throughout the film - dreams that seem completely random and tangential to the plot, except to slightly reinforce Bruce's paranoia about Superman being dangerous. But is Bruce being in some way mind-controlled? Is Lex? Unclear. So what these sequences amount to is one crazy, Zach Snyder-at-his-Snyderiest actionfest, in which a machine gun toting Batman shoots his way through a horde of alien invaders like he's suddenly found himself in a sci-fi version of The Raid. Oh, and in the dream, Superman is evil. Presumably it's all portents of things to come in Justice League. But it also feels like Snyder got a little too caught up in the presumed kewlness of OMG YOU GUYS IT'S BATMAN BEING LIKE THE PUNISHER, BUT WITH ALIENS. BUT JUST KIDDING IT'S ALL A DREAM. OR IS IT? Suffice it to say, too much of this movie feels like a corporate-mandated ad for Justice League and the other DCU movies. I mean, Marvel has perfected the post-credits "wait, there's one more thing!" tease. But when your entire movie feels like a tease, well, that's not so good. This is especially true in the sort-of-lame previews of other Justice Leaguers like The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg. We see hints of them in action via ... computer files stolen from Lex Luthor. Seeing Wonder Woman point and click on computer files is not exactly the most dramatic way to introduce us to The Flash or Aquaman. And it's not helped by the fact that both of the aforementioned characters are super bro'd-out looking - like what would happen if Image Comics re-imagined the characters circa 1997. It's all pretty underwhelming.

So what works in the movie? There are moments. There are definitely moments. In all honesty, there are some really good things about the whole Batman side of the movie that could bode well for a future Affleck-centric Bat-film. For one thing, Affleck is pretty darn good as both Bruce Wayne and Batman. My biggest fear about Affleck - that he was just too genial and bro-next-door seeming to be the Bat - was mostly erased here. Voice modulation and the best-looking live action Bat-suit ever help make him look and sound like, well, Batman. And as Bruce Wayne, Affleck feels sort of like the more old-school playboy-adventurer guy from 70's and 80's comics, and I dig that. Best of all, the new version of Alfred - played to droll perfection by Jeremy Irons - is great. Irons and Affleck have a fantastic chemistry, and probably my favorite, most geek-out-worthy moments in the movie are some of their exchanges. Batman also gets to really be Batman here in a way he never was in the Nolan movies. He's a detective. He does cool martial arts and fights like he does in the Arkham videogames. He grapples from building to building. He can move his neck. All the surface-level Batman stuff, Snyder gets pretty much right. It sounds simple - but so many Batman movies have sucked so hard in that regard that seeing a Batman who really moves and looks like Batman is a big sigh of relief. Of course, my enthusiasm for this Batman was somewhat dampened by him being written to be an emotionally unstable crazy person, who one minute decides to kill Superman and the next decides they're BFF's - whose main weapon seems to be guns (dude - no!), and who kills (sorry, "manslaughters") on a whim. But the point is, the ingredients are there for a pretty good Batman movie to come out of this - *provided* we get some better writing for the character.

I'll mention the score here, too. I love Hans Zimmer's themes from Man of Steel, and everytime they get play here I feel like the material becomes slightly elevated. Zimmer's Superman theme just brings an instant sense of gravitas to the table. I think the score here is overall pretty strong and adds a lot.

I also think the last hour of the movie really picks up the pace and starts to find more of a groove - and it delivers some fairly epic superhero brawls. Once we get Batman, Superman, and Gal Godot's Wonder Woman all in action together, taking on Doomsday, the movie devolves into sheer comic book spectacle - and this is where Snyder feels most at home. Though the Doomsday brawl has some really stupid and nonsensical beats to it, it's undeniably fun and has the look of some sort of Alex Ross painting brought to life. Even just seeing Wonder Woman in action and being awesome is cool, in and of itself. This was a *long* time coming, so it's no surprise that Wonder Woman's big entrance is a huge audience applause moment - it's a collective realization of "it's about damn time!" Wonder Woman doesn't do much other than fight and look cool in this film, but she's kickass enough to leave you anticipating what a WW movie might be like with Gal Gadot in the lead.

The thing is, there are these isolated moments of coolness in the movie. Although this film makes me question his storytelling a bit, I will still defend Snyder as a guy who can do really great, mythic, stylized imagery. And certain shots in the film are really powerful and really cool. But they are cool in a very out-of-context way - these aren't moments that ultimately add up to anything, or that feel dramatically earned. In our packed theater, people applauded when Batman kicked ass, when Wonder Woman debuted, when Doomsday hulked-out and began his rampage. But it felt like applauding things that we already had a pre-attachment to - applause from mere recognition. When I reflected back and thought about what the sum total of those scenes was, I kept coming up empty. Everything that was satisfying in the moment was satisfying only on a purely surface level. There was no substance here. When the movie tries to have substance - when Holly Hunter's senator talks about her stance on Superman, when Lex rambles about pop-philosophy stuff about gods and man, when Batman pontificates about whether he's a hero or criminal  - it all feels random, largely meaningless, and, often, mildly pretentious. At the same time, there just isn't a story here that works as a cohesive whole. What we get feels like a greatest-hits mash-up of stories like The Dark Knight Returns, The Death of Superman, Injustice, and a few others - except without the original works' emotional or thematic resonance.

What you're left with is a feeling of apathy towards whatever comes next. With Man of Steel, the tone worked okay given that it was an origin story -  I interpreted that film's greyscale darkness as depicting a pre-Superman world. It was a journey towards the light. But the darkness - both visually and tonally - of BATMAN V SUPERMAN is so relentless that it left me thinking: "Really? *This* is what the new DC cinematic universe is going to be like?" The weird thing is that the storylines and characters that this movie hints at for Justice League are some of the most out-there and cosmic in DC's library. On the Marvel side, we've seen movies like Guardians of the Galaxy full-on embrace the cosmic loopiness that Jack Kirby brought to the company's cannon. Will DC/Warner dare to do the same? Or will be forced to endure "extreme," pseudo-edgy versions of Jack Kirby's New Gods? It's hard to imagine how it will all work. But I do worry about a world in which all of DC's cinematic characters have an inherent sameness. I mean, if Batman and Superman - two polar opposites - can be made into mirror-image grim-dark avengers, then what hope does the rest of the DC Universe have?

Ultimately, BATMAN V SUPERMAN feels like a movie that desperately wants to be important. Not in terms of theme - but in terms of being an unmissable flag-planting for DC/WB - a stake in the ground laying all the cards on the table for what is to come in DC's answer to the Marvel movie empire. Many cards are laid out - no question there. A flag has definitely been planted, for good or ill. But what they forgot to do was make a good movie - and as a card-carrying, life-long DC fanboy, well - that's a damn shame.

My Grade: C

AMERICAN ULTRA Does Entertainingly Hyperactive Acid-Trip Action/Comedy

AMERICAN ULTRA Review:

- We've seen the basic set-up to American Ultra done before - a thoroughly-average guy finds out that he was secretly meant to be a kick-ass superspy - chaos and comedy ensue. But ULTRA has enough that's unique about it - including a legitimately involving central romance - that it stands out from the pack. Director Nima Nourizadeh (Project X) gives the movie a frenetic pace that reminded me of similarly in-your-face action films like Kick-Ass. And writer Max Landis gives the film lots of personality, crafting a zippy script full of smart, quippy dialogue and plenty of twists and turns. AMERICAN ULTRA is the sort of new-school, genre-bending, over-the-top action/comedy hybrid that many mainstream critics are prone to dismiss. But if you're down with its insanity and stoned-out humor, there's a lot to like about this one.

Jesse Eisenberg plays Mike - a stoner who lives in a small town and seems stuck in a rut. He works at a dingy convenience store. He draws a comic book but can't bring himself to do anything with it or show his work to anyone. And he can't bring himself to leave. The one good thing he has going is his girlfriend, Phoebe (Kristen Stewart). Phoebe is hyper-tolerant of Mike's quirks and neuroses, and seems to compliment him in all the best ways. While she seems to be a similar brand of stoner-slacker as compared to Mike, Phoebe also seems to have a little more ambition, a little more vision, a little more fire inside her. She is, basically, what Mike needs. But tellingly, in an early scene, Mike wonders if he is in fact holding her back.

What Mike doesn't realize is that a lot of his existential issues have literal reasons for being. He can't leave his small town because the government doesn't want to. He is holding Phoebe back, because ... well, I won't spoil it. But what does soon become clear is that Mike's entire existence is one big lie. He isn't just some guy. He's a tossed-away government experiment - a would-be super-spy who is programmed to be an unstoppable combatant. When the program he was a part of was shut down, Mike's programming was "turned off," and his memories erased. Because of the mercy of his government handler, Victoria (Connie Britton), he was spared from the scrap heap and allowed to live a relatively quiet life, unaware of his true nature. But now, a new hotshot CIA official (played with great smarminess by Topher Grace) is out to exterminate remnants of the old program, and he has his sights set on Mike. Mike - and by extension Phoebe - now find themselves caught in a high-level power struggle. Only Mike's re-activated super-spy skills stand between them and a hail of government-issue bullets.

As you can probably start to sense, the cast here is fantastic. I'd forgotten going in how great Eisenberg and Stewart were together in the underrated Adventureland. Quickly though, I was reminded that the two have a great chemistry. The banter between them is funny and fast, but there's also a legit emotional core to their relationship that's actually affecting. Both actors tend to take their knocks from fans and the press, but both are perfectly suited for these parts. They are backed up by a strong turn from the always-great Britton, who manages to bring some gravitas to the movie's largely light-on-its feet tone.

That said, a lot of the real fun comes from the movie's rogues gallery of villains. Topher Grace is just wonderfully hate-able here, the kind of villain whose ass you can't wait to see get handed to him. Also great is, unsurprisingly, Walton Goggins. Fans of Justified saw Goggins embody one of the all-time great TV villains in Boyd Crowder. Here, he plays an even more unhinged character - the Joker-esque assassin known as Laugher. Since I've always thought Goggins would make a great Joker, it's a treat to see him play a true wild card. But what's even better is that the movie reveals a somewhat tragic backstory for Laugher that makes him more than just a kewl antagonist. Additionally, lots of welcome faces show up as part of the supporting cast. Tony Hale as Britton's conflicted colleague. John Leguizamo as Mike's wildcard dealer. Bill Pullman (!) as a government heavy. It's a very loaded cast - and seeing all these great actors bounce off of one another is a lot of fun.

The characters are given some really snappy dialogue thanks to Landis' script. There's no lack of energy in the film, and the fast-moving plot and always-crackling dialogue is a big part of that. Nourizadeh's direction, like I said, is of the Matthew Vaughan school of frenetic action and comic-book-style pacing. And that suits the over-the-top violence and physics-defying action scenes just fine.

If I have any complaint about AMERICAN ULTRA, it's only that it feels, at times, less like a complete film and more like a really solid TV pilot. The story takes us to a point where it feels like things are still just ramping up for our main characters. And in a world where a sequel may not be likely, there is a slight feeling of incompleteness. The real novelty of this story might have been in future chapters, as the relationship between Mike and Phoebe becomes more fully-explored. As is, what makes the movie most stand-out are the moments that spotlight the unique relationship between its two unlikely heroes. The finding-out-you're-secretly-a-spy stuff has been done. But putting all of that in the context of a stoner love story has not. I really like the way that the film provides sci-fi logic to explain the common feelings of going-nowhere, no-future angst that accompany the average quarterlife crisis. But it also sort of feels like Chapter 1 of that exploration - the origin story, sans the first real mission. The TV show Chuck covered some similar ground. But where Chuck had the trappings of a well-meaning, heart-filled sitcom, AMERICAN ULTRA is its acid-dropping, burn-out, grindhouse cousin. If that sounds like your cup of team (it definitely is mine), then give some love to this film - a much-needed original action film in a cinematic landscape overcrowded with rehashed concepts and cash-ins.

My Grade: B+

NOW YOU SEE ME Is Anything But Magical

NOW YOU SEE ME Review:

- I had a good feeling about NOW YOU SEE ME. It felt like one of those under-the-radar summer sleepers that might steal some thunder from some of the more high-profile releases. Sure, it didn't have superheroes or Vin Diesel, but it had reliable vets (and Dark Knight cast members) like Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine, exciting newcomers like Jesse Eisenberg and Melanie Laurent, The Hulk (aka Mark Ruffalo), and hey, it was about magic to boot. I know they say magic is box-office poison (as Steve Carell and Jim Carey can attest), but hey, who doesn't love a good movie about magicians - especially when said magicians use their magic to solve and/or perpetrate crimes? Apparently, many people had the same hunch about this movie I did, because it was in fact a sleeper hit at the box office, making many more millions than originally projected.

That's all well and good, but there's one major problem: the movie itself is a mess. I went in with high hopes, and came out frustrated and annoyed at all the squandered potential. Like I said, the movie's got magic, an all-star cast, and hey, I even count myself a fan of director Louis Leterrier (loved the first Transporter, thought The Incredible Hulk was underrated, and thought Clash of the Titans had some great visuals marred by a flat script). So what happened? First and foremost, I blame a lot of the movie's faults on a weak and totally nonsensical script.

The movie's plot hints at something very ambitious, but none of it adds up to anything. The basic story is this: four magicians, each with a different magical specialty, are brought together by a mysterious, unseen benefactor, and convinced to join forces as a sort of all-star magic act known as The Four Horsemen (a poor choice of name - not only because the group is supposed to be inspiring, but hey, it's a name that's sort of been used once or twice already, ya' know?). The Horsemen are, on the surface, an assemblage of high-profile magicians who perform together. But their act - which includes magical stunts like robbing banks from afar - is not just for show. In fact, they are *actually* robbing banks and stealing money, though their magical methods make it hard for the police to pin any crimes on them. Meanwhile, the Horsemen's crimes have a Robin Hood-esque populist slant - stealing from the rich, giving to the poor, etc. - and they become heroes to the 99%, even as they officially become outlaws.

The magicians are the best thing about the movie. For one, it's fun to see how each one has a different, superhero-esque talent. Jesse Eisenberg's J. Daniel Atlas is a street magician with bad attitude to spare. Isla Fischer's Henley is a stage performer specializing in daring escapes, with a major flair for theatrics. Woody Harrelson's Merrit is a shifty hypnotist, not above using his craft to make a quick buck. And Dave Franco is a drifter who specializes in sleight of hand. All four of these actors do a nice job, and it's fun to see them interact - Eisenberg and Fischer as the bickering ex-partners, Harrelson as the shady uncle of the group, and Franco as the punk kid who is more talented than he knows.

But for some reason, the movie severely limits their screen time. Instead, the should-be main characters of the film are given the short shrift in favor of those pursuing them - Ruffalo's Vegas cop Rhodes, and Laurent's Interpol agent Alma Dray. A huge chunk of the movie centers on their investigation, and its easily the most bland and boring part of the movie. Their scenes have a dulling sense of repetition, not helped by an elder-statesman magician played by Morgan Freeman who acts as their adviser on all things magic. While it's always nice to see Freeman, his role here amounts to a lot of smarter-than-thou lecturing, a lot of scolding Ruffalo for not understanding magic, magicians, etc. It gets old, especially when we'd rather be spending time with the Horsemen.

As for Ruffalo, I hate to say it, but he seems to be phoning this one in a bit. He's all passive-aggressive smiles and clenched jaws, constantly acting like the worst cop ever. Meaning, because he's written as a character who hates magic, has no time for childish things, etc., that is made to carry over into his investigation of a criminal case. But instead of just sitting down and talking to Freeman and getting info on his suspects, it's just him constantly whining about hating magic. To add one more layer to the character's annoying-factor, he has the most forced romantic tension with Laurent's Alma ever. The characters seem to basically dislike each other throughout the entire movie, except, you know, when they're actually in love and stuff. Because they are two cops working a case at odds with each other (Laurent is all into magic), so, of course, they must secretly be in love.

And since we spend so little time with the Horsemen, we really have little clue into what the hell they're doing. Like I said, there seems to be a Robin Hood-meets-Banksy element to their crimes - populism meets performance art - but why exactly they're doing what they're doing, or what their end game is, we don't quite know. The movie uses the fact that they're acting out the wishes of their hidden benefactor as an excuse to keep things vague. But the payoff the mystery is so weak that it doesn't do anything to absolve the movie's copious story and character issues. I'll just say that the absurdity reaches its peak in the final act, as the Horsemen prepare to pull off their final heist, all while eluding Ruffalo and a battalion of cops. The entire sequence is so vague and murky. What are the Horsemen trying to pull off? Why? Why are huge crowds gathered to see them perform a grand trick that essentially amounts to a big light show? It's the epitomy of anticlimax. There is a lot of ambiguous talk about the Horsemen wanting to "bring magic back into the world" and whatnot, but what that means in the context of the movie, I have no idea.

But here's the thing: the movie compounds its problems by centering itself around the central mystery of the benefactor's identity - all so it can close out with a huge twist ending. No spoilers here - just a warning that, to me at least, it's one of the lamest and cheapest twist endings I've seen in a movie in a while - the kind that basically INVALIDATES THE ENTIRE MOVIE IN RETROSPECT. Given the big ending reveal, so much of what happened in the rest of the movie no longer makes sense that it hurts my head to think about it. Worse, the explanation of the twist is so silly and unworthy ... just prepare your hand, because you will be face-palming yourself upon hearing it.

One other thing I'll say about the movie - it's about stage magicians, and it does try to respect the craft of magic and illusion. Some of the more interesting parts of the movie are when we go behind-the-scenes of the various illusions we see performed. But, the movie also has a supernatural element to it that is pretty absurd. Full disclosure: I am a total sucker for stories about stage magic vs. "real" magic and the intersection of the two. But since 95% of this movie is trying to be a semi-grounded heist movie that explains the reality behind its illusions, the 5% of it that deals with "real", legit, mystical magic feels totally out-of-left-field and groan-worthy.

As for Leterrier, he gives the movie some kinetic flair, but predictably, he excels with the scenes that are *supposed* to feel big and epic and crazy, but seems a bit lost with the smaller-scale stuff. I think Leterrier's penchant for big, epic action actually hurts the movie in some ways, because a lot of the movie is shot as if we were watching The Avengers, when in fact nothing all that amazing is happening on screen. Like, that final trick of the Horsemen - it's shot with sweeping cameras, plunging angles, a huge sense of scale - all for a scene in which nothing all that huge is happening. There's definitely a bit of a disconnect. The one sequence where everything comes together like magic (yep, I went there), is an awesomely-staged fight scene between Ruffalo and Franco, in which Franco counters his opponent's size advantage with a furious flurry of magic-based offense, including Gambit-style card-throwing and evasive, now-you-see-me, now-you-don't illusions. It's the one sequence in the movie that seems to perfectly pair Leterrier's talents with the material.

On the other hand, the entire movie is, undoubtedly, elevated by its cast. There are scenes that are just plain fun to watch, because you get to see Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine snipe at each other in a battle of the awesome old dudes, or because Dave Franco and Jesse Eisenberg get to tag-team as a pair of underestimate-'em-at-your-own-peril underdogs, or because Woody Harrelson is so fun and funny trying to blatantly hit on a not-having-it Isla Fischer. The cast makes the movie watchable and breezily entertaining even when it probably shouldn't be.

However, the great cast, combined with the movie's fun subject matter and glimpses of potential, make its failure to hit a home run that much more frustrating. Even when certain scenes work well, the overall structure of the movie - hinging on a big twist, focusing on the cops rather than the magicians - is so broken that a few cool scenes can't salvage it. It adds up to a movie that tries hard to feel smart and clever, but ends up feeling sort of dumb. It might make you wish you had just re-watched The Prestige.

My Grade: C

TO ROME WITH LOVE: Woody Allen's Euro-Odyssey Continues

TO ROME WITH LOVE Review:

- Even if I don't love all of his work, I'll always be interested to see a new Woody Allen film. Woody's movies are so distinctly ... Woody ... that it's fun to just get inside the guy's head for a little bit and see what's on his mind these days. His movies, to me, are always fascinating to watch even when they don't 100% click - because there, on-screen, you're seeing the gears of his brain turning, seeing him work out his ever-expanding neuroses for all to see. Now, I tend to think that the chasm between the "great" Woody Allen films and the "dud" Woody Allen films is not necessarilly that great. It's why I tend to be surprised when, by turns, critics and fans hail something like Midnight in Paris as a crowning achievement, while writing off something like Anything Else as a bomb. Most of Woody's films have their moments. Most have some pointed observations, some interesting philisophical themes. But most also have implausibilities, anachronisms, awkwardness - characters that seem to exist only in a weird Woodyland where people on the street stop and discuss poetry and philosophy in casual conversation. Especially as Woody's gotten older, there's increasingly a huge disconnect between his percieved worldview and how things actually are. He usually writes characters and stories that are supposed to be grounded in reality (unlike, say, a Wes Anderson who is clearly writing from a left-of-center perspective). But again, Woody's reality sometimes feels like that of a guy who needs to get out more and live in the actual real world. And yet ... like I said, there's something to be said for a guy who is this singular of a voice. Sometimes, it's nice to imagine living in Woody's world, where nerds win the hearts of brilliant beauties, where knowledge of literature and the arts is used as romantic currency, where everyone is is smart, worldly, and well-off enough to spend their time dealing with the existential rather than the real.

Which brings me to TO ROME WITH LOVE. In many ways, I enjoyed it about as much as Midnight In Paris. For one thing, the setting is spectacular - if nothing else, the film serves as a great little travelogue. Allen still has a great eye for location, and he has an uncanny ability to film a given city and make it look both authentic and exotic and otherworldly. Allen's also got a talent for capturing the personalities of his cast members, and the cast of this film is truly top-notch. Alec Baldwin, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig, Ellen Page, Penelope Cruz, Roberto Benigni, Alison Pill, Judy Davis, and Fabio Armiliato (a real-life opera singer who's hilarious playing one here) - all are great in the film. Even Woody himself gets in on the action, playing Alison Pill's father in a very amusing role - his first on-camera part in several years.

The film's story is actually four stories. Four interweaving but wholly separate stories that each tell a comedic tale set in Rome. In one story, Eisenberg plays an architecture student studying in Rome and living with his girlfriend, played by Gerwig. Her friend - a lovable but clearly crazy aspiring actress (Page) comes to visit for a few weeks, and immediately, Eisenberg is tempted by her freewheeling ways. The twist/joke here is that, one day, Eisenberg runs into an older, well-known architect played by Baldwin. the two strike up a conversation and become friendly, and Baldwin begins following his young apprentice around, giving him advice and providing a running commentary on the younger man's romantic dillemnas. Is Baldwin actually an older version of Eisenberg, magically transported back to the past to lend a hand to his younger self at a moment when he's about to - potentially - make a life-changing mistake? The movie plays coy, but it's the kind of magical-realism-infused device that Woody loves. In the second story, an ordinary man in Rome (Benigni) wakes up one day to find - suddenly and inexplicably - that he is the most famous man in Rome. He's a star, a tabloid sensation, a celebrity. But why? This, also, is Woody having fun with magical-realism. In the third bit, a young couple travels to Rome together - while happy on the surface, each longs for something a bit more adventurous from life. When they separate for the day, each finds temptation - the guy from a gorgeous prostitute (Cruz) who mistakes him for her client, the gal from a famous actor who takes a liking to her. In the final story, Woody and his wife (Davis) travel to Rome to visit their daighter and her new fiance. When they meet the fiance's family, Woody has a "eureka!" moment when he hears his in-law-to-be singing in the shower (Armiliato). It so happens that Woody's character is a retired opera director, and he sees this man - who's never sang professionally - as his ticket back to the bigtime. Only problem is, the dude can only sing well while in the shower. And so, yeah, shenanigans ensue from there.

All four stories are pretty amusing, though the one that worked for me the most was probably the Benigni segment, as it was a rare instance where Woody seems to strike at some spot-on social satire, with regards to our current Reality TV/TMZ culture. Benigni plays the whole thing brilliantly, and is very funny. This is also the segment of the movie where Woody's script is just in full-on farce mode, and it works well. It's nice to see him do something so blatantly silly and comedic. Of course, the opera-singer story is also very funny at times, but it's also much more dragged-out feeling as it's sort of a one-note joke. That said, I'll say again that Armiliato is hilarious, and also, Allen gets in a few choice quips - some vintage Woody sprinkled in there. The young couple storyline is okay, but meanders and feels a bit miscast. The actor who seduces the young woman is supposed to be a suave George Clooney type, but doesn't really pull it off. Cruz is good though, and looks stunning. The Eisenberg/Gerwig/Page/Baldwin storyline is the one with the most potential, but also the one that felt the most off to me. You've got two of the most perfect possible Woody surrogates in Eisenberg and Page, but the dialogue they're given feels like Woody at his worst - pretentious and stilted. I mean come on Woody, stop having your characters use the term "make love" in every other sentance. And why is Jesse Eisenberg dressed like an 80-year-old man? I know, some of these things are surface details, but still ... there's just a lot that felt *off* about this segment in particular. It's a feeling you get a lot when seeing Woody trying to do slice-of-life stuff these days. Maybe the segment could have worked better if it was the subject of an entire film - certainly, there's enough potential here to make a whole movie around this group of characters. But the anthology aspect of the movie - while helping the simpler, sillier segments of the movie - harms this more serious, more thematically ambitious portion.

If there's one overarching theme of the movie, I suppose it'd be that of people not being content with what they have, then coming to realize that, perhaps, things aren't quite as bad as they'd seemed. "It could always be worse." But that theme only very loosely ties things together. And the Rome setting gives the film visual continuity, but not necessarilly narrative continuity. The upside is that To Rome With Love is easy and breezy - it's pretty much enjoyable from start to finish, even if you end up wincing at some of the dialogue and characterization choices. Some critics may look for the broader critical analysis in all this ... is this "good Woody" or "bad Woody?" Is this the end of Woody's recent "streak," or a sign that his European film tour is losing steam? Is this a letdown after Midnight in Paris, or a solid companion piece. The answer is all and none. This is a "lite" movie from Allen, sure, but it's also a quintisenntially Woody Allen movie, with a lot of the strengths and flaws that you so often find in his work. But the man is now a novelty, because there are so few singular voices making movies. Especially in the summertime, when so many movies are processed, synthetic, product - it's fun and refreshing to see what now amounts to the cinematic equivalent of your neurotic comedian uncle sitting you down and telling you a couple of funny stories.

My Grade: B