ANT-MAN Delivers Solid Marvel-Style Action

 ANT-MAN Review:

- Marvel has very smartly shaken up their go-to formula over the last few years. Guardians of the Galaxy went full on comic-book-cosmic-weird, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier paid homage to 70's-era paranoid political thrillers. But ANT-MAN is a return to the tried-and-true, "How To Make Movies The Marvel Way" template. It's not a bad thing - the movie is light, fun, funny, and breezily entertaining. But it also feels fairly slight and forgettable. There's not enough unique or memorable enough about Ant-Man for it to leave much of a lasting impression. Indeed, the most interesting thing about the film may be the future storyline possibilities it teases. First though, we must get through the obligatory origin story. As far as obligatory origin stories go though, you could do a lot worse.

ANT-MAN gets a lot of mileage out of its titular hero being played by the great Paul Rudd. Rudd is pretty much the perfect Marvel superhero lead - a versatile actor who happens to have impeccable comedic timing - and, as expected, he makes Ant-Man/Scott Lang into a likable and easy-to-root-for protagonist. Rudd's natural likability helps sell Lang as a noble ex-con, whose driving motivation is to spend time, post-divorce, with his daughter and find a way to course-correct his life. Lang is given that opportunity by Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) - the original Ant-Man. Pym and his daughter realize that their scientific work is being jeopardized by the sinister Darren Cross - Pym's protege, who is out to uncover and replicate Pym's secret size-control tech, with the goal of weaponizing it and making big bucks by selling it to the highest bidders. Pym needs professional thief Lang to break into his own corporate HQ and sabotage Cross' dangerous device. Lang agrees, and recruits his crew for one last big heist, after which Lang hopes to finally - with Pym's help - go straight and put himself on a new and better path.

But what Lang least expects is that part of the job involves donning Pym's old Ant-Man suit and mastering the art of strategic shrinking. The suit and the power comes with it means that Lang's journey isn't just about pulling off one last heist, but also about becoming a bonafide superhero in the process. What's fun about Lang is that he is a unique character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe - a crook-turned-hero who, even after he gets the Ant-Man suit, is basically just a regular dude. Not a scientific genius or a multimillionaire - just a guy who happened into an extraordinary set of circumstances. And again, Rudd pulls it all of to a T and makes Scott Lang feel like both a unique addition to the MCU, and like a character who fits right in to the tapestry of this world.

In fact, a lot of the most fun moments of Ant-Man are those that tie the film in to the larger MCU, even filling in some timeline gaps that had yet to really be explored in prior entries. I got a huge kick, for example, out of seeing a 60's-era Agent Carter (the now-iconic, to me, Haley Atwell)  interact with Howard Stark and a de-aged Michael Douglas (thank to some truly mindblowing special f/x wizardry) at S.H.I.E.L.D.. There's also a really entertaining throwdown between Lang and Anthony Mackie's Falcon, that felt like the kind of misunderstanding-leads-to-fisticuffs fight that have long been a staple of Marvel Comics.

Rudd shines, but the whole cast of the film is very, very strong. Douglas is clearly having a lot of fun playing Hank Pym, and his presence brings some veteran gravitas to the table. Corey Stoll, also starring on FX's The Strain, is clearly in his element as smarmy scientist-turned-supervillain Cross, aka Yellowjacket. I'm a fan of Stoll (could have been a fun Lex Luthor ...), and he chews scenery here with aplomb. The only downside to his character is that, in my view, he's too much of the typical Marvel-movie villain - going from a guy who's just sort of a jerk to a murdering, costume-wearing, sociopath supervillain without much explanation.

But the two surprise stand-outs of ANT-MAN are Michael Pena and Evangeline Lily. Pena is always great, but I say he's a surprise because I didn't even realize he was in the movie going in. But as Lang's right-hand-man, Pena kills it. He plays a would-be gangsta, bumbling thief - and he's absolutely hilarious, elevating this potentially marginal role into one of the film's most memorable turns. Similarly, while I'm a fan of Lily's, I wasn't sure what to expect from her in this film, playing Hank Pym's daughter Hope. As it turns out, Lily is incredibly badass in the movie. Not only does she run the show at Pym's company, but it's actually Hope who teaches Lang how to kick ass and take names. If nothing else, the movie leaves you wanting more of Hope, and hoping (pun intended) that she'll have an even larger and more hands-on role to play in future Marvel movies.

To that end, where ANT-MAN fumbles a bit is that it plays things, overall, pretty safe - even as it seems to want to be way crazier than it is. Perhaps that's the leftover DNA of the film as originally conceived by mad-genius writer/director Edgar Wright. What was exciting about Wright's involvement was the notion that a Marvel movie would break from the mold and go crazier and weirder than we'd yet seen. But every time this version of the film hints at a left-turn, it ends up staying the course. Hope is the perfect example. Intended or not, Lily's Hope is a show-stealer, and the movie leaves us crossing our fingers that Hope will get her turn at bat to be a proactive, ass-kicking superhero in her own right. But the film proves too by-the-numbers to throw us that curveball, and leaves Hope mostly on the sidelines - to play the all-too-prevalent part of undeveloped love interest - despite all signs pointing to her total untapped potential as a Wasp-y companion to Lang's Ant-Man. Sure, it could happen in future films, but why delay the gratification? Break the mold, I say, and go a little crazy. Another tease happens when Lang goes so microscopic that he enters the sub-atomic, quantum realm. For a moment, I thought the movie might go full, Guardians-level insane on us. But it quickly pulls back, as if to say: "sorry, but you're not yet ready for that jelly just yet."

Director Peyton Reed is not bad. He gives us some really fun sequences of a shrunken Ant-Man in a giant-sized world, and his ability to nail comedic sequences is on-point. But overall, there is a workmanlike quality to Reed's direction that delivers action in a fun but very straightforward manner. A lot of scenes, I think, could have benefited from a loopier, trippier aesthetic.

The timing of ANT-MAN's release feels opportunistic. After the bloat of Avengers: Age of Ultron, there is indeed something refreshing about the next Marvel movie being a much smaller-scale, more straightforward, light-on-its-feet, back-to-basics superhero story. ANT-MAN is eminently likable - it's fun, has a great cast, and it gives us a hero in Scott Lang who is clearly going to be a great addition to the MCU (and really, who isn't excited to see Rudd's Ant-Man meet Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, and the rest?). The downside is that ANT-MAN lacks the major "wow" moments that would have really put it over the top, or the unique aesthetic that would have, in the long-run, made it truly distinct from the glut of other Marvel origin movies. As is stands, ANT-MAN is very watchable, very solid - but not quite the next Marvel classic.

My Grade: B+

THEY CAME TOGETHER Is A Wet, Hot, Hilarious Comedy Classic

 THEY CAME TOGETHER Review:

- Funny is funny, and good lord, THEY CAME TOGETHER is flippin' funny. Sure, comedy might be subjective, but for me, the comedic stylings of David Wain, Michael Showalter, and the rest of the crew from 90's comedy troupe The State hit the sweet spot. And if that sort of comedy floats your boat, then it's time to rejoice, for They Came Together is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Back in the day, The State was one of my holy pillars of comedy, alongside things like The Simpsons, Ren & Stimpy, Conan O'Brien, Weird Al, and the films of Mel Brooks. The State helped mold my taste in humor, and helped fuel my love for out-there, absurdist comedy. The group then went on to have perhaps its greatest moment with the David Wain-directed, Wain and Showalter-written cult classic Wet Hot American Summer. Wet Hot is always hard to talk about, because people always want to assign *reasons* why great comedies work as well as they do. Wet Hot isn't a classic because it's a pitch-perfect parody, or because of any sort of message it has or anything like that. Nope, the movie is just funny as hell, and completely encapsulates and exemplifies everything that makes The State's brand of absurdist humor so hilarious. The writing is so smart and sharp - and the lines delivered so well by the talented actors - that the movie will be quoted and referenced from now until forever. Since Wet Hot, a bunch of members of The State collaborated on the movie The Ten, and Wain, Showalter, and Michael Ian Black starred in the short-lived Comedy Central series Stella (and then the latter two re-teamed for the equally short-lived Michael and Michael Have Issues). Wain has also gone on to direct two very funny, but slightly more mainstream-friendly films in Role Models and Wanderlust, in addition to his web series - Wainy Days - which he also starred in. Showalter released a pretty-good indie comedy called The Baxter. And Wain and others have been involved in the fantastic Adult Swim series Children's Hospital, which is very much in line with the style of humor that made The State such an influential sketch comedy show.

There's your short history lesson. But the context is important so that I can make the following point: THEY CAME TOGETHER is the best movie anyone from The State's been involved with since Wet Hot American Summer, and if you're a fan of The State, Stella, or Wet Hot, you seriously need to drop whatever thing you're doing at this very moment and go watch this film.

Here's the thing: THEY CAME TOGETHER is a much more overt parody movie than Wet Hot. It's a satire of romantic comedies, in particular the sort of formulaic, cutesy, schmaltzy moves that just kept coming down the Hollywood assembly line in the 90's and early 00's. There's less of 'em now (thank god), but the tropes are now so embedded in our collective pop-cultural consciousness that we all know the conventions inside and out. So yes, on one level, there will be people who enjoy the film primarily because of how sharply and cleverly it skews rom-coms. Not just in a broad sense, but on a micro-level. Wain and Showalter love micro-analyzing all the weird little nuances that we sort of accept as being part of a given genre. The stock characters, the way people talk, the plot devices that show up over and over again until they become, essentially, self-parodying cliches. They take what's already absurd about the genre and then crank up the absurdity to eleven. At the same time, as someone who's not really a fan of 90's-style rom-coms, and who would not normally be all that intrigued by a straight-up genre parody, I can vouch that THEY CAME TOGETHER is not a simple genre parody. Like Wet Hot, this is, more than anything, a movie that exists so that Wain and Showalter can have a forum for their weird wordplay jokes, wacky sight gags, and calculatedly hilarious randomness. So please, hold the phone, all you critics who talk about this film like it's the rom-com version of Scary Movie. No. Not even close. Yes, the premise of the film is based on genre-parody, and many jokes and characters are in direct reference to rom-com convention. But that, my friends, is only part of what the movie is all about.

In any case, let's back up for a minute and talk about the film's plot and structure. The movie opens on a dinner between two couples. One - Joel (Paul Rudd) and Molly (Amy Poehler) - tells the other couple (played by Bill Hader and Ellie Kemper), the tale of how they met and fell in love. This serves as the movie's framing device, and on multiple occasions we cut back to the two couples for various interjections and digressions. The first four names I mentioned already give you a solid idea of just how fantastic the cast is. For one thing, Rudd and Poehler - both alumni of Wet Hot - are perfect in their respective roles. They both totally get the tone that Wain and Showalter are going for. Rudd in particular has become a master of doing the sort of mock-sincere comedic acting that this sort of movie calls for. And Poehler is similarly excellent. Meanwhile, their characters' backstory is a great little extended riff on typical rom-com types. Rudd's Joel works for a giant, soulless candy conglomerate looking to shut down its mom-and-pop competition. Poehler's Molly owns a small little candy shop where all profits inexplicably get donated to charity. So of course, they hate each other at first, even if it's all too clear that they're fated to fall for one another ... eventually.

There are so many great moments in this film - I was pretty much laughing constantly for the duration. Some of the funniest stuff in the movie comes from the interaction between Rudd and New Girl's Max Greenfield, as his freeloading little brother. Their melodramatic conversations are instant classics. Rudd also has great scenes with his group of supportive buddies, who he meets for basketball games that mix hilariously awful basketball playing with the espousing of various nuggets of wisdom and life lessons. Ken Marino is (as always) a standout as Rudd's brash, mulleted b-ball buddy. But Jack McBrayer and Keenan Thompson are no slouches. Michael Ian Black is also a scene-stealer as Rudd's asshole work rival. Nobody does smug d-bag like Black, and he cranks up the douchery to new levels here, to hilarious effect. Actually, the candy conglomerate where Rudd works is filled with funny folks. Micaela Watkins and Jason Mantzoukas pop up as co-workers, and then, Christopher Meloni ... Dude. How is a guy whose stock-and-trade is playing stern hardasses also this freaking funny? Meloni became a cult comedy icon in Wet Hot, and he's breathlessly funny here as Rudd's grandiose boss. I can't even talk about the character without spoiling a bunch of great jokes. Suffice it to say, the guy just owns it once again. Who else? Ed Helms is funny as a sad-sack suitor of Molly's, Zandy Hartig is excellent as Molly's glum sister, and Wain himself makes a great cameo that is too weird to even explain in writing. Speaking of cameos, the movie is jam-packed with them. I don't want to spoil anything, because some of the actors who pop up are just so wonderfully random and unexpected. I'll just say: there's a random "making-of-the-film" segment, *within* the film (shades of Children's Hospital) which features some great appearances. And then, towards the end of the movie, a very respected actor makes a totally insane appearance that is just weird, random, and awesome.

For the rom-com fans (or rom-com haters), there are tons of references - both broad and specific - to various films in the genre. Everyone from Woody Allen to Nora Ephron gets skewered, and I've already seen articles on Vulture and other websites that list out all the little nods to various genre staples. A lot of the parody isn't even specific to rom-coms though. Like I said, Wain and Showalter love to microanalyze the weird ways that characters talk and act in movies in general. And anyone who's followed their work will see the kinds of trademark jokes that have popped up in things like Stella and Wet Hot reappear. So yes, you can bet that there will be at least one random make-out sesh where one character dramatically whispers to the other something like "what are we doing ...?", and at least one diatribe that includes an absurdly long list of rhetorical questions. There will be random gross-out gags and at least one big, romantic profession of love that falls hilariously flat. In short, all the sorts of jokes that these guys deliver so well are here, and man, as a devotee of The State and all that came after, I couldn't be happier.

There's just a great feeling that comes with seeing the best in the biz do what they do best. I grew up on The State's humor, and because we only rarely get new material from the State/Stella crew working in tandem, THEY CAME TOGETHER couldn't be more welcome or more needed. In a world dominated by Apatowian improv-comedy, dramedy that is less about laughs and more about social satire, etc., it's infinitely reassuring to know that Wain and co. are (almost singlehandedly) carrying the torch for this sort of balls-to-the-wall, anything-goes humor. This is no mere nostalgia act though. The laughs I got from this movie were genuine, and they were big. As many great comedies as we've already seen this year, the laughs produced by They Came Together were the only laughs I had that were of the truly uncontrollable, deep-belly-laugh variety. This is the comedy that made me want to urge every friend I have to go see it so that we can immediately start quoting and referencing it. This is the comedy where friends who *did* see it are already incorporating its best quotes into everyday conversation. This is the stuff of comedy legend, people. I don't know if this is quite in the same hallowed league as Wet Hot. It doesn't provide quite the same concentrated burst of nonstop comedy perfection. But it's close. Very close. And I can only hope that Wain and Showalter keep making these movies and doing their thing. Because this is my comedy sweet spot, and nobody does it better.

My Grade: A

ANCHORMAN 2 Is I'm Ron Bergundy?

ANCHORMAN 2 Review:

- I remember being skeptical going into the first Anchorman. Up until then, I was only mildly a fan of Will Ferrell, and hadn't loved the sorts of cheap-laugh fratboy antics he'd become known for in movies like Old School. But Anchorman - which teamed Ferrell with SNL writer Adam McKay - brought Ferrell back to the style of comedy that had resulted in his funniest moments on Saturday Night Live: big, weird, crazy, out-there. Anchorman was so funny because it dared to ditch frat humor for absurdist humor - lampooning 70's-era alpha-male bravado while also not being afraid to throw in randomness like talking dogs and ultra-violent gang fights between rival teams of newsmen. Anchorman won me over, and it opened up the door for further hilarious Ferrell-McKay collaborations like Talladega Nights and Step Brothers. Suddenly, Anchorman - a movie that felt like Ferrell and McKay were getting away with something - became the template for more, increasingly absurdist comedies. I suspect that the success of Anchorman also opened up the door for guys like Seth Rogen and Adam Goldberg, David Wain, and others to do more over-the-top comedies at big studios, like This Is The End and Role Models. Sort of awesome, in my opinion. But funny in that Anchorman 2, a movie that its studio didn't even want to fund for many years, ended up becoming one of the most hyped and hotly-anticipated comedy sequels of all time. Weird, random humor becoming the norm? I'm okay with that.

So how is ANCHORMAN 2? It's funny - really funny. And it goes even bigger and broader than Part 1, with numerous bits that are very random and oddball and out there. The crack team of comic actors from Part 1 - Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, David Koechner, and Christina Applegate - are all back, and in fine form. And when you've got such a talented line-up of comedians, it's hard to go wrong. Carell, as loony weatherman Brick, gets a lot of big moments in this one, including a hilariously insane romance with an equally loony Kristin Wiig. Other notables joining the cast include Meagan Goode as Ron Bergundy's tough-customer new boss, and James Marsden as a slick rival reporter.

Interestingly, just as the first Anchorman tried to tell a story that was sort of socially relevant to its period setting (where Applegate's Veronica Corningstone caused upheaval at the local news station by being its first female anchor), so too does the sequel try to place Ron Bergundy and co. in the context of history. This time, it's 1980, and 24 hour cable news emerges as a competitor to the networks. After getting fired by his boss at the network - passed over for a promotion in favor of Veronica - a distraught Ron gets a second chance, when he's offered a shot at being a cable news anchor. Ron gets his old team back together, and they beat the odds and rack up ratings by inventing the sorts of schlock-tactic "news" coverage (car chases, for one) that is commonplace today.

Where ANCHORMAN 2 hurts itself is by trying to do too much at once. I feel like Ferrell and McKay are trying to have their cake and eat it too, by indulging in both a lot of media satire and social commentary-comedy, yet still taking extended side-trips into the wacky and absurd. We go from scenes that take not-so-subtle jabs at today's 24-hour news cycle, to scenes where Ron Burgundy nurses a wounded baby shark back to health and sings a song about it. There's interoffice rivalry with James Marsden's character, and romantic rivalry, with Veronica taking up with a new man (an on-point Greg Kinnear) following a falling-out with Ron, and Ron taking up with his new boss, Linda. The result is a long and at times rambling comedy that tries to do a LOT, without necessarily having a single through-line to tie it all together. By the time the movie ends, you start to wonder what the movie was actually *about* to begin with.

And that's not to say that it had to be about anything. But McKay and Ferrell, as mentioned, squeeze in a ton of plot. Not content to *just* be a riff on the modern era of news, this film packs everything and the kitchen sink into its two hour runtime. This means that when scenes don't elicit big laughs, they tend to really bomb, because they're often disconnected from the rest of the story. One example: when the movie plays the race card and has Ron attend an awkward dinner with Linda's African-American family, the jokes are more cringe-worthy than laugh-worthy. And the fact that the scene mostly bombs, combined with how tangential it is to the main plot, makes you wonder why it didn't get chopped in the editing room.

That said, when the jokes work, they often work big. From Carell and Wiig's oddball pairing, to a gang-fight scene that rivals the first movie's for sheer audacity and shock-value (and in terms of applause-worthy cameos), the movie gets more than enough belly laughs to make it a worthwhile watch. I'm a fan of the random stuff, so I didn't mind the film indulging in it. Honestly, I think Ferrell and McKay are funnier when they're going broad than when they try to do satire. And to that end, I have mixed feelings about, but ultimately support, the extended sequence in which Ron Bergundy goes blind, and becomes a lighthouse-dwelling hermit. On one hand, it comes so late in the movie that part of you thinks "really? they're doing this *now*?". And yet, the funniest moments of the whole film, I think, come as Ron struggles to adjust to being blind in the most hilariously misguided fashion imaginable. The whole thing comes off as an extended SNL sketch randomly thown into the middle of an Anchorman movie. And yet, it's hilarious, so it's hard to find fault. I guess you sort of wish Ferrell and McKay could just ditch narrative altogether and do a longform sketch film or something. As is, Anchorman 2 zips back and forth between its various plotlines and numerous divergent bits of randomness. So yes, there's a lot of funny packed in, but there's also a feeling that the movie is a bit overstuffed.

If you dug the first Anchorman, as I did, you can't go wrong in checking out its sequel. It's a funny flick, and I was laughing pretty consistently throughout. If there's to be a third though, I think that it'd wise to go back and re-tool the formula before things go too off the rails. I love seeing movies where it feels like people are getting away with something, but sometimes, more does not always equal better. One equation that does still very much hold up, however, is that Ferrell + McKay = funny. I'm glad that they are out there making weird $#%& like Anchorman.

My Grade: B+

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER: A Beautiful Teenage Wasteland

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER Review:

- I only had a mild familiarity with the source material on which THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER is based, but I had a feeling I might be in good hands with this one, given that the film is actually written and directed by Steven Chbosky, the author of the original book. It's rare that we see this happen, but what we get here is something pretty cool - a film that feels both literary and cinematic - a work that uses music, imagery, and nonlinearity to encapsulate Chbosky's themes into a moving and evocative experience. This movie portrays the heightened reality of being a teenager to perfection. And while the melodrama can feel cheesy at first, eventually, the movie won me over by taking me back to the way things seem and feel during those awkward and formative high school years. What's more, a great cast brings this story to life in a way that makes this movie feel real and lived-in.

PERKS centers around Charlie (Logan Lerman), entering high school as a delayed freshman after having been "sick" and away from school for a while. We slowly learn more about some of the tragedies that have befallen Charlie, that have kept him out of school and sort of isolated and alone. We also learn that he's got some mental health issues that he's been trying his best to put behind him. But his social isolation has left him pretty depressed, and made him very nervous for his first day of high school. Luckily, Charlie quickly falls in with a group of outcasts and misfits, and for the first time has a group to which he belongs. Of course, each member of the group is dealing with their own issue. Patrick (a fantastic Ezra Miller) has been keeping the fact that he's gay a secret from all but a few of his friends. His step-sister, Sam (Emma Watson, also fantastic), has a troubled past - drinking too much and sleeping with too many guys - but now wants to get her life in order and get into a good college. Of course, for Charlie, it's love at first sight. But even as Sam keeps falling into the arms of not-so-nice guys, her friend Mary Elizabeth (Mae Whitman) - a tortured intellectual - develops a crush on Charlie. Charlie also begins forming a friendship with his English teacher, Mr. Anderson (Paul Rudd), who mentors Charlie and turns him on to the books and authors that will shape his worldview.

There's a lot of humor in Perks, a lot of hilariously awkward coming-of-age moments. And the cast handles it all beautifully. But all of the quirk and slice-of-life hijinks are given a weighty undertone because of the serious issues that Charlie is grappling with. For any of us, high school is a time of heightened emotion and experience, and Charlie's mental instability is sort of an even more heightened version of what we all go through. But Chbosky balances all the teen angst with a real feel for the little moments that can be transcendent, memorable, funny, and weird. I think of Charlie and his friends attending a live performance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, of Mary Elizabeth's ultra-awkward seduction of Charlie, of a recurring joke that all the characters keep making mixtapes for each other ... as moments in the film that are at once funny and poignant.

The cast in this one is just fantastic as well. Lerman does a nice job of expressing bottled-up emotion, making it all the more hard-hitting when he does let loose. Watson is stellar - whereas you could say that Harry Potter's Hermione was sort of the whip-smart girl-next-door, Sam is the other end of the spectrum - the proto manic-pixie-dream-girl who is essentially a walking high-school crush for the outsiders and outcasts set. If the movie has a breakout performance though, it may well be Ezra Miller as Patrick. He does a brilliant job of slowly but surely peeling away the layers of the character. At first, he's the class-clown - an eccentric goof-off. But as time goes by we see the torment this guy goes through, and how his friends aren't so much an audience as they are a support-system. There are all sorts of other great little performances in the film - Rudd is spot-on, Whitman is fantastic, Dylan McDermot is strong as Charlie's dad, Nina Dobrev has some nice scenes and his sister, and there's a great little role for Tom Savini as the put-upon shop teacher who's often the butt of Patrick's pranks. But there's barely a moment of falseness in the film - certainly not on the part of the actors. These guys nail it.

Chbosky uses a lot of cinematic tools to make a world he once wrote about in prose become fully realized on film. One of the biggest things is music. The soundtrack overflows with music that will stick with you, especially given how big of a role music plays in the lives of the characters, and in the story as a whole. The Smiths, Bowie, The Beatles, 90's one-hit-wonders like Cracker ... all evoke one one hand the era the movie takes place in (hello, 90's), but also the semi-timeless sort of songs that makeup the soundtrack of teenagedom. The movie takes on an MTV music video feel, in some ways, but in a good way. It wanders, it goes quiet, gets loud, jumps in time, and creates a tapestry of moments that shape Charlie's young adulthood.

If I have any complaint, it's that a major reveal at the end of the film - about Charlie's past - felt a bit off to me. And this revelation sends the movie into a final-act spiral that feels rushed. Without spoiling anything, the movie seems to keep building towards being a semi-triumphant story for Charlie. Sure, he had a pretty terrible childhood up to now, but now he's found friends, found confidence, loved and lost, lived life. That, I thought, was the note that the movie would go out on, and it would have worked for me. But at a fast clip, we instead get a new low for Charlie, followed by a coda that is sort of a band-aid to make sure we go home at least semi-happy. I think the message is that life is messy, and that there's no pat happy endings. I just thought the movie didn't go out on quite the high note it could have.

Still, THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER is one of the nice cinematic surprises of 2012. A quintessential coming-of-age movie, it will take you back, and evoke those same feelings of life-as-great-drama that every teenager feels. Sometimes in adulthood, it's valuable to remember a time when you were less numb and more vulnerable - and this is a film that washes over you and takes you back to that teenaged wasteland.

My Grade: A-