Infinity War a big, bold Avengers installment

Thanos (Josh Brolin) in a scene from Avengers: Infinity War. Image courtesy Disney.

Avengers: Infinity War makes it clear from the start exactly what the eponymous superhero group faces. The movie kicks off showing the brilliant power its villain Thanos (Josh Brolin) possesses, while hinting at just how zealous he is about it. Stakes matter in a movie as big and bold as Infinity War; viewers need to respect what the nearly two-dozen heroes have to battle against to make the necessary bloat worthwhile. The heroes in this movie aren't simply fighting the concept of amazing destruction, but a being legitimately powerful enough to make that happen. What they face is important, and the movie never lets up on how much they have to accomplish to win.

Infinity War is both the movie one would expect from Marvel's years of buildup and something largely unexpected. It's as big as it should be, littered with heroes ranging from franchise staples to new additions in the last decade or so of movies. Viewers get barbs lobbed between Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Star-Lord (Chris Pratt). Thor (Chris Hemsworth) chills with Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel). Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Vision (Paul Bettany), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), Captain America (Chris Evans), Mantis (Pom Klementieff) Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Bucky (Sebastian Stan), and Drax (Dave Bautista) take on aliens and other malevolent beings. Spider-man (Tom Holland) is around being all doe-eyed and awkward. Almost everyone of note from a decade of movies is here, and Infinity War spends a lot of time ensuring they all get a few moments to shine. The result is an immense run time, although directors Anthony and Joe Russo keep the drag to a minimum, making for a pretty smooth 150-minute movie. 

 

Pretty much every aesthetic selling point is handled well in this movie. The action sequences are well coordinated and range from small melees to epic battles against alien beings. The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s trademark jokes work more often than not, in large part because the addition of so many otherwise unconnected characters adds a new dynamic to the banter. On the most basic level, Infinity War is the movie people who have followed this franchise would want; the good stuff is there, and it's done rather well. And yet there's still a lot of unexpected bits to Infinity War. With the high stakes established so early, the tone of the movie is not as bright as the banter makes it appear. The jokes aren't as jovial or friendly as they usually are in Marvel films; in this case, the humor is rooted in fear and stress, a reaction to the situation the heroes face. The tone is less hopeful than before, more desperate and worrisome.

A lot of that has to do with how writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely plan their narrative. The film’s focus at first glance is stopping Thanos, the actual protagonist is Thanos himself. It's his quest to collect the Infinity Stones that drives the movie, his journey toward what he believes to be a better universe. The heart of Infinity War lies not amongst the collection of heroes, but with its villain. Brolin's Thanos is not a simple monster bent on destruction for the sake of destruction, or evil just because the film requires him to be the villain for the heroes to fight. The methods to his goal of creating balance in a chaotic universe are horrifying, but there remains an iota of logic to what he wants to accomplish. In his mind, he’s performing a selfless act, and its his fervor as much as the abundance of power he seeks that makes him so dominant. Fanaticism is incredibly dangerous, especially for an infinitely powerful being capable of sacrificing everything for what he deems to be a necessary cause.

 

Making a superhero movie based on the villain is an interesting, albeit counterintuitive choice. What it does though is give Infinity War a sense of urgency it didn’t have before, selling Thanos’ power and conviction to his cause. It makes for a fairly dark superhero movie, adding enough shade to a sunny franchise to keep the audience guessing at what comes next. There’s still reasons for optimism in the Marvel Universe, but they are far more difficult to find than ever been before.

Review: Four and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 150 minutes

Genre: Action

Ask Away
Target audience: People who have watched MCU movies for the last 10 years, as well as anyone else into comic book movies.

Take the whole family?: The tone gets pretty heavy, and families who prefer to limit their children's exposure to violence should keep the kids home. Generally though this isn't too problematic.

Theater or Netflix?: Totally worth a trip to the cinema.

What happens next?: That is an enormous question. Looking at the upcoming slate of films – Ant-Man gets his sequel in a few months, followed by a Captain Marvel movie – gives a little idea of how things will play out. But given how this movie goes, there's a whole lot of room for interpretation for the next installment. Although that is half the fun of these movies; trying to figure out what happens next.

Watch this as well?: Just pick just about anything from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and you'll be in pretty good shape. D.C. has Wonder Woman, but that’s about it.

I Feel Pretty filled with hate

Amy Schumer in I Feel Pretty. Image courtesy STXfilms.

The grand final moment of the perfectly boring I Feel Pretty is a rousing presentation from Amy Schumer's receptionist Renee about how real beauty is not found in a magazine. This is the selling point of the movie, the coda for self acceptance and inspiring women to be themselves. The movie sells this concept very, very hard in an attempt to distract the audience from the many minutes it spent undercutting that message. Woman should be empowered and proud to be whoever they are, except when they’re shamed for an attempt at a cheap laugh.

Admittedly, I Feel Pretty has a clever enough gimmick going for it. Making a body-swap movie in which no actual body swap occurs – Schumer's character gets bonked in the head and imagines herself as new, theoretically more attractive woman – has a lot of potential behind it. It's rife with opportunities for genre parody, societal snipes, or to simply mock some of the conventions of romantic comedies. With an actress like Schumer involved, along with ringers like Aidy Bryant and Busy Philipps in the mix, I Feel Pretty has the pieces needed to be a razor-sharp comedy. The problem though is the movie simply isn't that funny. The jokes are perfunctory, mean-spirited, and lazy, never rising to being as clever as its premise supposes. Schumer is trapped in this rather strange role in which the jokes are either about her or around her, rarely coming from Schumer herself. Instead, a high-voiced Michelle Williams, token love interest Rory Scovel, and a few additional random characters do much of the heavy comedic lifting. Writers/directors Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein – probably better known for the problematic Drew Barrymore vehicle Never Been Kissed – don't seem to have a lot of faith Schumer to carry I Feel Pretty, which is odd given Schumer's background in comedy and general subversive attitude.

Or, perhaps, they simply don't like her very much, because I Feel Pretty is often relentlessly mean toward Schumer's Renee. The fundamental problem the movie has is its abundance of disgust for Renee as a character, frequently portraying her as fat and homely because it’s easier to get laughs with minimal effort. Even when Renee bonks her head and imagines herself to be slim and gorgeous, I Feel Pretty zeroes in on the idea of Renee, and Schumer by extension, still not actually being conventionally beautiful. Some of the reason is based on the premise alone. The absence of a transformation and the movie's decision not to show what Renee thinks she looks like means the actions taking place are rooted in how the character actually looks. So little comments from Renee about being able to eat whatever she wants and maintaining her figure are not played out as an act of confidence, but one of delusion directed toward the character. The joke isn't about Renee, it's at her expense.

A movie about empowerment fails when it doesn't empower its main character. I Feel Pretty instead makes Renee out to be mostly awful. As her delusion deepens and she lives the life of a beautiful person, her behavior becomes just awful. Her newfound confidence is treated not as an important step toward her self improvement, but as a weapon toward her new persona’s downfall. The reason she begins to act as awful as she does is because she thinks she's beautiful, which is a really weird point to make in a movie that, again, is designed to celebrate its characters. There's no real reason Renee needs to become a shallow petty person; I Feel Pretty makes an assumption that conventional beauty results in inner ugliness.

Except for Emily Ratajkowski's Mallory, who pops in and out of I Feel Pretty to provide perspective about the traditionally beautiful. Her character seems like a decent enough person, supportive of Renee when they interact and crippled with thoughts of self-doubt and disappointment. But I Feel Pretty ends with her not getting a modelling gig, with Renee actively ripping the opportunity away because of Mallory’s appearance. It's a really, really unnecessary move that, again, undercuts that empowerment the movie wants to sell. In I Feel Pretty, any semblance of physical beauty is a failing, even if the person is beautiful on the inside.

Review: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 110 minutes

Genre: Comedy

Ask Away
Target audience: Fans of Amy Schumer and lovers of high-concept romantic comedies.

Take the whole family?: There's a decent amount of innuendo, but even without that this wouldn't be overly interesting to kids anyway.

Theater or Netflix?: You can wait.

Does the plot make sense?: It sure doesn't. Schumer's character main aspiration is to become a receptionist. The movie jokes about it a lot, yet still finds a way for her to quickly become a VP for reasons, all the while maintaining her single-room, New York City apartment in a position where she makes less money than before. Unfortunately, the movie isn't interesting enough to gloss over these peccadillos.

Watch this instead?: I'm still a fan of Trainwreck. Schumer and Bill Hader play off each other marvelously, and the movie gets a lot of mileage from, of all people, John Cena and LeBron James.