Movie Reviews

Avengers hits theaters hard

By: Danny Hovanessian

With over $1 billion in box office receipts worldwide, “The Avengers” sets out to amaze audiences with the aggregation of now-popular superheroes—Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson), Captain America (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), and Thor (Chris Hemsworth), along with numerous “lesser” superheroes, such as Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner)—all working together to stop Loki (Tom Heddleston) from ruling the world through the use of the Tesseract, a hyperactive energy source that can potentially destroy the world.

The movie has attracted audiences due to its good-looking actors and action shots. A majority of the actors give wonderful performances, most notably Downey Jr., who truly brings Iron Man to life, excellently delivering the movie’s many knee-slapping jokes. Johansson also does a remarkable job as the sly, cunning assassin Black Widow. Ruffalo and Evans give adequate performances, but nothing extraordinary.

Thankfully, “The Avengers” is well aware of its sub-par story and focuses on what it’s good at: exceptional directorial work, intense and beautiful CGI-infused action scenes, and the development and comedic banter between the superheroes. This saves the movie from being another bland action flick and provides the audience with a delightful experience.

Even if you haven’t seen any of the superheroes’ prior movies, the film does an excellent job of filling you in, as the first half of the movie focuses on introducing the heroes, familiarizing the audience with their distinct personalities and “special” abilities, then launching them into the all-new conflict with Loki of Asgard attempting to take over the world.

Once the introduction is hurled out of the way, the movie’s pacing skyrockets and takes the conflict head-on through marvelously crafted fight sequences with amazing CGI that is superbly mixed with live action footage and makes for convincing scenes.

What makes the movie enjoyable is that it succeeds at pleasing many audiences. Fans of the comics and earlier films will drool at the idea of the movie, and those who jumped into the center of the on-going conflict can enjoy the action and quirky dialogue without feeling hopelessly lost.

Though the movie may have many aspects that make it appealing and definitely worth watching, I still yearn for the release of a superhero movie with a respectable storyline. Though some may argue and say “it’s supposed to be like that,” it’s because we’ve accepted that as “the norm.” “The Avengers” doesn’t try to do anything too original, and it’s fine with that.

The plot is noticeably clichéd. The story itself consists of little more than the typical “alien power source used by evil man to take over the world.” Loki serves as a forgettable villain, with no unique motive and no semblance of development, as he is evil for the simple and gratifying joy of being evil. It’s a weak story that doesn’t amount to much and prevents the movie from truly being fantastic.

Even with that significant flaw, “The Avengers” manages to entertain a wide variety of audiences. It’s nothing mind-blowing or particularly memorable, but the in-your-face comedy and the awesomely frantic action makes “The Avengers” an immensely enjoyable movie that’s worth watching in the sea of abysmal releases.

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Steering clear of the woods

By: Danny Hovhanesian

Since 2010, B-movie horror films have been plopped in front of our faces, seemingly more frequent in release than the amount of cheap scares they implement in their movies. Failing to be anything original, they play it safe, and audiences eat up the mediocrity. “Cabin in the Woods” seemed like the light at the end of this torturous tunnel with its original concept, but it falls completely flat.
“Cabin in the Woods” has a unique plot device. Of course, the main characters are in a frightening abandoned area filled with psychotic killers, but there’s a twist: the innocent souls within the cabin are being monitored by technicians held in some sort of facility. The plot succeeds in making you wonder why or how these technicians are willing to set up the deaths of young adults through the entire 95-minute film, and even adds in some dashes of tongue-in-cheek humor to create a somewhat unique experience.
Unfortunately, that is the only positive aspect I can point out from “Cabin in the Woods.” It tries to be original. For that, I applaud it, but the key to success lies in the execution, which is where it ultimately fails.
The biggest flaw is with the main characters; red-headed beauty Dana (Kristen Connolly), jock boyfriend Curt (Chris Hemsworth), overly-flirty girlfriend Jules (Anna Hutchinson), absent-minded Marty (Fran Kranz), and scholarly Holden (Jesse Williams) all serve as stereotypical idiotically brave young adults. Kranz in particular achieved in making me cringe with every delivery of every line and served as a poor impersonator of the lovable Shaggy from “Scooby Doo.” The rest of the main cast was irritating in terms of their sheer unrealistic behavior.
Despite being warned by the typical clinically-insane man who lives in a place in the middle of nowhere and witnessing eerily creepy objects (along with coincidentally finding an unsettling excerpt from a diary), they decide to stay in the cabin. When they finally get a clue, it’s too late, and all of them are punished for their ridiculous ignorance.
The plot in and of itself is reminiscent of swiss cheese, filled with gigantic holes that pulled me out of the experience. I was waiting for a brilliant plot twist to make it all better, but the finale felt like an unoriginal cop-out.
For horror fanatics, there isn’t much to enjoy. As someone who doesn’t enjoy voluntarily scaring himself, I didn’t jump out of my seat nor did I even flinch; there isn’t much of a “scare factor.” For everyone else, there are little bits of humor not even worth mentioning.
“Cabin in the Woods” could have been something brilliant, but the irritating main cast and the horrible plot ruined the experience.

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“Hunger Games” is starving in direction

By: Sophie Mirzaian

Whether you’ve read the books or seen the advertisements for the new film, you know “The Hunger Games.” The movie, which was released last Friday, made $65.3 million on its opening day alone, ranking as the fifth most profitable Friday opening of all time and the first for a non-sequel, according to the Huffington Post.

For those who have recently shut themselves out of the world, “The Hunger Games” involves a country called Panem that is divided into 12 districts. Every year, one male and one female from each district between the ages 12 to 18 are chosen to participate in the Hunger Games, a “pageant” where the participants fight to the death.

When Katniss Everdeen’s (Jennifer Lawrence) sister, Primrose, of District 12 is chosen at random, Katniss refuses to allow her to compete, knowing that she will be killed and volunteers to participate instead. The male chosen is Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), who has had a crush on Katniss for years.

But despite the hype, I did not expect much from the movie. Nothing in the research I had done seemed impressive, except that the author of the series, Suzanne Collins, had assisted in writing the actual screenplay. That reminded me of Stanley Kubrick’s version of “Lolita” where Vladimir Nabokov assisted in writing the screenplay, although the “Hunger Games”’ director, a man I’d never heard of before this film named Gary Ross, is nowhere near as wonderful a director as Kubrick. In fact, I believe Ross is what nearly destroyed a potentially exciting and enthralling film.

The movie begins with twenty minutes of wretched camera movements, the annoyance of which absolutely cannot be overlooked. I thought I was imagining things when the camera seemed to be moving too rapidly until people sitting next to me began complaining about it.

Why the director chose to do that is unexplainable as it has no purpose other than perhaps serving as a symbol for the chaos in District 12, but even that doesn’t compensate for how aggravating it was attempting to focus on something in the shots and having the images only fly by. The only place where this makes sense stylistically is during the action scenes, but it being both in scenes with normal dialogue and those with action makes it entirely confusing.

The sometimes obvious attempts at symbolism were unclear about what they tried to portray. The emphasized minuscule mannerisms of Katniss make you think rather than feel. When she hesitates to shoot the deer in the beginning of the film, viewers are supposed to think of her as a considerate person and appreciative of nature, and although I recognized that, I cannot say I earnestly felt that trait in her. Everything Katniss did seemed to pile together to form her artificial character.

The acting is not terrible, but neither is particularly impressive. Each actor has lapses of quality: Hutcherson borders on creepy, whereas Lawrence and good friend Liam Hemsworth’s (Gale) robotic exchanges with one another leave you feeling awkward. There seems to be no chemistry between any of them besides some (on my part) misinterpreted romantic tension. It is never clear whether Katniss and Gale are interested in each other or whether the attraction felt by Katniss towards Peeta is real or a show.

Besides perhaps the intensity of the emotions, the basic events of the film follow the novel closely. Surely the people who have read the novel will appreciate the beloved series having been adapted into film. The movie is worth seeing to either familiarize yourself with the extremely popular series if you haven’t read the books or to see the book you spent so much time reading in movie form if you have.

So, happy Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favor.

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Wittgenstein (1993)

By: Sophie Mirzaian

There are many movies about great lives, but not quite as many about great intellectual lives. Ludwig Wittgenstein lived both with a passion and an intensity so great that with every stroke of logical genius he came close to madness; and so close to suicide with every realization about the true worth of a life well lived.

He was a philosopher—for many, the greatest of the past few centuries—but he thought that philosophy was a symptom of a disease caused by misunderstanding language. He once thought he solved all philosophical problems for good, but he also thought that even then all the truly important problems were left untouched: the meaning of life, the nature of goodness and beauty, God, and all that makes life worth living would forever be beyond the reaches of logic and language, beyond the limits of sense, deep into the domains of silence and nonsense.

Of course, this is only a rough and shallow sketch of an intellectual life of incredible complexity, and it would be ridiculous to pretend that one can really do justice to such a life in a short review. Maybe a short movie that pretended that would be as laughable, but Derek Jarman’s “Wittgenstein” attempts to do just that. And it not only pretends to tell the story of a man who lived a fascinating and heartbreaking life—that would be already a daunting task—but also the story of what that man thought, and how those thoughts profoundly changed the history of ideas in such a way that, after him, philosophy was never the same again and no serious philosopher was able to philosophize without taking into account the problems Wittgenstein saw, even if he never solved them or even thought were solvable.

This, I suppose, doesn’t sound like a movie one would enjoy watching—for many, I’m afraid, not even a book one would dare to open—but it, despite some flaws, the movie works admirably on many levels. First, it could be watched as the story of Ludwig Wittgenstein, the man, whose miserable and erratic life paints a vivid portrait of passion and romanticism in the search of meaning and virtue, no matter how many disappointments and no matter how many episodes of a profound loathing and despising that expresses itself not only towards the people around him, but perhaps most cruelly towards Wittgenstein himself. Secondly, it could be watched as the story of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ideas. Here we have an understandably brief but mostly accurate portrayal of his most important philosophical insights from his first phase, when he wrote and published the “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus,” to his later and quite different philosophy as he expressed it in his “Philosophical Investigations.”

One of the movie’s flaws is that its ambitions are too big for such a short movie: at 70 minutes one cannot help but feel there are seriously under-explained passages of both his personal life and his intellectual life. Those that are not already familiar with Wittgenstein’s biography and work might feel lost and confused, especially considering the abstract and austerely play-like style of the film. Not only does the movie have formal shortcomings, but it also has content “problems.” They should have presented the ideas in a more understandable fashion, asthe ideas themselves are an important barrier for perhaps the vast majority of movie viewers. It demands not only familiarity with the life of Ludwig Wittgenstein, but also familiarity and, above all, enough interest, patience and intelligence to be able to understand it, because the movie, very much like Wittgenstein, would rather be obscure than deceptively clear.

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Forging a new beginning

By: Sophie Mirzaian

“Realistic” people have this idea that nothing will ever truly work out. Usually, they also make sure nothing ever does. Feeling disconnected, pressured, and alone transforms people into things they wish they weren’t. They strive to be in control of something, and if that one thing is their own unhappiness, then so be it.

In the movie “Beginners,” Oliver Fields (Ewan McGregor) is one of those people. He exists, but that’s about it. His 75-year-old father, Hal (Christopher Plummer), admitted to being gay when Oliver’s mother died. During the last few years of his life, Hal chose to embrace his sexuality and lived his life more fully than Oliver ever lived or could imagine living his own.

After his father’s death, Oliver meets a beautiful woman, Anna (Melanie Laurent), with whom he has a lot in common. As an actress, she travels from place to place without making human connections. They both finally found people they can relate to, and they discover both love and themselves through each other.

Director Mike Mills does a tremendous job with this poignant, original, and smart love story. The film seems to mostly be a reflection of himself and his life.

The performances are touching and effective. McGregor is perfect for the role of Oliver; he is candid, vulnerable, and genuine, and the emotions expressed seem completely authentic. Laurent and Plummer are the same, and the cast has surprisingly believable connections with each other.

Mills takes you on a subtle and beautiful adventure filled with the happy and the sad, the tears and the laughs, the disappointments and the once-in-a-million moments that allow you to breathe a sigh of relief because things actually worked out. The film is terribly effective because, really, that’s what love is; that’s what life is.

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Downey’s Holmes is more Iron Man than Sleuth

Photo Credit: warnerbros.com

By: Sophie Mirzaian

“First, crack eggs. Now, scramble.” Robert Downey Jr. making breakfast? Not quite. Sherlock Holmes fighting a Cossack assassin? Oh yes.

The newest Holmes film—if you can even call it that—“Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” was released last Friday. It features Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and his sidekick, Dr. Watson (Jude Law) combating Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris), who himself is equipped with money, power, and, although not to the extent of Holmes, ingenuity.

Despite the recurring characters, however, this seemed like a rip-off of a true Sherlock Holmes movie. To assume it will resemble one is the easiest way to set yourself up for disappointment, and comparing this film to the classic Holmes films and stories would raise obvious criticism about the superabundant humor and action.

Downey, although charming, is not a very Holmes-like actor. Not only is Downey an American with a bad British accent, but he has a reputation as a fun and good-humored man. In this role, he feels more like Tony Stark from “Iron Man” and less like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes.

When comparing Guy Ritchie’s sequel to his first Holmes film from 2009, I do have some positive comments to share. It is far more entertaining than the previous one. There are more unique slow-motion action sequences we only saw once in the beginning of the first film. Europe is beautifully portrayed with most scenes having that characteristic bluish tint. The costumes do not seem like 1890s garb, but at least they are visually appealing.

The movie is ultimately more about Holmes and Watson and less about the villain. I am fine with that because, in the film, Moriarty is not that interesting of a character—just a standard power-hungry man, despite the fact that the filmmakers meant to portray him as an intelligent and crafty professor. They could have done a better job of giving Moriarty more character.

True Holmes stories should be based upon puzzle-solving, logic, and the deductive method of solving crime. Unfortunately, there is no puzzle left for you to solve. “Holmes” reconstructs scenes within a matter of seconds and leaves even less room for your own cogitation than was left in the first movie, which did not have much to begin with.

It may seem like a bad thing that there is so much more action and so much less mystery, but I felt the 2009 film had an awkward distribution between the two. There was little humor, little action, and little mystery. It did not feel as though it belonged to any specific genre. At least this film can be clearly identified as an action one.

Downey does an impeccable job of lightening the mood of the movie, which is very much prevalent in the movie. The writers have also equipped him with an army of jokes, which prevents viewers from seeing the movie in a serious light at any one point during the entire film. A silly drawing or dialogue can be confusing when introduced during a suspenseful scene. Even when people are nearly dying, you can’t help but laugh at the funny facial expressions the characters make.

There are anachronisms, some unnoticeable and some that raise suspicions. Dr. Watson must have been more brilliant than we are led to believe, for the technique of using chest compressions for rescuing the dying was not invented until many years later. Also, the guns so-often used were obviously too advanced for 1890.

To consider this movie anything close to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories would be a mistake, but as an action film, “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” stands out as entertaining, funny, and thrilling.

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Dixie steals your Hart

By: Daphne Ong

What’s more entertaining than watching a fish out of water trying to fit in? A New York surgeon who moves to Alabama to inherit a private practice.

The medical drama “Hart of Dixie” premiered last month on the CW, centering around Dr. Zoe Hart (Rachel Bilson), who has desired to become a cardio-thoracic surgeon like her absent father since she was a child.

When she is rejected from an internship, she travels to Bluebell, Alabama, where a stranger, Dr. Harley Wilkes, who has been offering her a job for four years, owns the small practice.

Upon arriving to Bluebell, however, Hart learns that Wilkes already passed away and mysteriously left half of the practice to her. But there is a catch. The contract of the business partnership states that she must collect 30 percent of the revenue or else she has to give up her half to Wilkes’ partner, Dr. Brick Breeland, who makes her feel unwelcome from the start.

In addition to the cultural shock Hart encounters in the small southern town, she must also replace her New Yorker customs with southern hospitality to try to win the trust of the patients and keep her half of the practice.

“Hart of Dixie” is a refreshing break from the usual CW shows such as “Gossip Girl,” “Vampire Diaries,” and “One Tree Hill.” Although it does not have shocking surprises like secret twin sisters or sexy vampires, it is still worth watching.

The fresh cast, the amazing soundtrack, and the witty, yet heartwarming script add to the unique dynamic of this show. In fact, the series already has a strong fan-base because of Bilson and producer Josh Schwartz, who have previously worked together on “The O.C.” (a.k.a. the best teen drama of our generation).

Although there has only been three episodes, I see a lot of promise from the writers and assurance that they will incorporate things that are new to viewers. So far, between the secret birth delivery, the annual Founders’ Day Parade, and the love quadrilateral between Hart, the town’s golden boy, Breeland’s daughter, and the mayor, this show has my approval.

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Taking a ghostly adventure

By: Edward Nadurata

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“Your Highness” reaches new lows

By: Daniel Massey

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