CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR

(Joe & Anthony Russo, 2016)

Considering all of the moving parts, characters in motion, plotlines and subplots, action sequences, back story, expository conversations, locations and ideas in Captain America: Civil War, the movie is a relative model of economy and forward momentum.
In some ways it is an incredibly dense mess: much of it would make no sense to anyone who doesn't already know the Marvel Universe or these characters, and its structure is broken backed; four huge action scenes break up the 140 minute run-time, but the movie seriously drops down to first gear in that first hour as pieces are moved around the board, agendas established, themes nursed to life.
Once it gets going its popcorn pleasures are manifold, and the details are purest geek pleasure.
It has twin plots which entwine from early on. In the first, following the opening battle between the Avengers and mercenaries led by CrossBones (Frank Grillo) leads to civilian casualties, the Governments of the world conspire to introduce the Sokovia Accords, registering and controlling enhanced activity. Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr, who seems more this character than himself at this point), shocked by the results of his actions and possibly grieving the end of his relationship with an unseen Pepper Potts, supports the deal and tries to sell it to the Avengers, who are split. Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), bruised by following orders that he disagreed with in his last film and his experiences with powerful men in WW2, refuses.
At the same time, Zemo (Daniel Brühl, sinister in a way I never suspected he was capable of) is busy incriminating Cap's old friend Bucky/the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) for the attack on a Viennese conference established to ratify the accords.
That attack effects the life of King of reclusive African country Wakanda, T'Challa/Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman, excellent), and suddenly it is a race to find the Winter Soldier. That in turn leads to a battle between the forces amassed behind Stark and Rogers, which include the likes of Avengers members Vision (Paul Bettany, doing well with his few big moments), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), but also newcomers Ant Man (Paul Rudd, stealing every scene he's in) and Spider-Man (Tom Holland). Meanwhile Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) do their best in different ways to stop Rogers from getting himself killed.
Miraculously, the movie gives each of these characters at least one big moment without ever losing focus on the friendship between Rogers and Bucky or the conflict between Rogers and Stark. The big airport super-hero free-for-all involves more or less every character and uses them beautifully. In fact, one of the real pleasures of this movie is its action sequences. Using John Wick directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch as a second unit team here really pays off in some incredibly brutal, imaginative action scenes. The airport fight allows everybody to use their specific powers to best effect, but there are smaller moments that have just as much impact - Rogers and Bucky fighting a German SWAT team in a stairwell and trying not to kill any of them is notable, as are any of the fights involving Black Panther.
This is also the first film to get Spider-Man perfectly right: introduced as a a geeky teenager in a small Queens apartment, Holland captures the character's motormouthed humour but also his moral certainty, and his scene with Stark in his bedroom is a definite highlight. He also shines in the action scene, both for his ceaseless chatter and for the way the movie captures his superhuman athleticism and amateur technique.
But that scene comes with the final act just beginning, and it ultimately reduces the action to just Stark, Rogers and Bucky, in an intense climactic battle. And it works because these are characters the audience has come to know and care about, and the Russos have shaped this narrative enough that their conflict is made personal and painful.
And underlying all this is a level of geek-pleasing detail which is frankly awesome. From Wakanda's Vibranium (which is what Black Panther's suit is made from) to William Hurt returning as General Thunderbolt Ross, to the references to Hulk and Thor and Loki, to the spark between Vision and Scarlet Witch, Ant Man's (and Spider-Mans) starstruck response to Captain America, the moments involving Peggy Carter and her niece Sharon (Emily Van Camp), which culminate in a kiss with Rogers and a brilliant bros-giving-respect look from Falcon and Bucky, whose own relationship is similarly deftly observed, to Spider-Man irritating everybody he fights through his constant talking, and Martin Freeman as a smarmy Everett K Ross, together with the Howard Stark references and the Vision's theory that the heroes power has invited challenge, the texture of ideas and details here is so thick and rich that it becomes its own sort of text.
Captain America: Civil War is all the best of Marvels films, and some of the worst too. Which means its a superior piece of blockbusterdom, and then some.

PUSH

(Paul McGuigan, 2009)

Notable elements of Push:
- A likeable performance from Chris Evans as telekinetic Nick Gant, wasting his powers as a hustler in Hong Kong after the opening flashback reveals his tragic back-story (similarly telekinetic father killed by Government goons the Division). Evans is effortlessly sympathetic and amusing when he needs to be, and he makes a frustrating character that much more tolerable.
- Hong Kong itself, all buzzing energy in the streets and markets, nimbly captured by McGuigan's camera.
- The world of this film is like a mini Marvel or DC universe, but here it tries to establish that universe and its rules within the boundaries of a single two hour film, making it overstuffed and hard to follow.
- There are some imaginative treatments of super-powers and their potential uses; Cliff Curtis uses his power of suggestion to live a continual party lifestyle, for instance, rather than trying to save or conquer the world.
- The final set-piece is set in the skeleton of a half-completed skyscraper (cliche), involves two telekinetics throwing power-assisted punches at one another while Chinese gangsters die in their dozens around them, and still manages to be tremendously dull.
- An under-developed, unconvincing, half-arsed romance between Evans and Belle, which takes attention away from the far more interesting friendship between Evans and Dakota Fanning's clairvoyant.
- McGuigan directs with a good feel for place and tone and an efficient handle on action scenes.
-Djimon Hounsou has entirely the wrong sort of presence for the role of Big Bad in a film like this, and that severely weakens the balance here.

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

(Joss Whedon, 2015)

This is a film which is so dense and crammed - with gags, one-liners, action sequences, characters, easter eggs, plot twists and cgi - that it is curiously exhausting. It feels like watching an entire season of a tv series in one sitting. But crucially, it's a really entertaining, fun tv series, made by a writer-director who understands and loves the genre he's working in.
Setting the Avengers up against a villain partly created by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr, as comfortable and funny in this role as ever) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo, still finding new depths in this character), Whedon manages the tricky job of balancing storylines and arcs for each of his principals while also keeping an epic, propulsive guiding narrative in ceaseless motion.
That involves Ultron (nicely voiced by James Spader), an artificial intelligence with multiple bodies whose ultimate goal is the usual destruction of the world. He enlists twins Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), who give the Avengers a bit of trouble with their respective "he's fast, she's weird" abilities before eventually switching sides to fight against Ultron.
Whedon loves and understands these characters, which is why this film is always better during their conversations and exchanges than it is during the many cgi-heavy action scenes studded throughout the two-and-a-half-hour running time.
Perhaps most interesting is the relationship between Banner and Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow. She talks him down out of his Hulk state, and reveals an unexpected vulnerability to his dorky integrity, which terrifies him, so afraid of hurting anyone around him. Their tentative romance is the emotional core of the film, and gives the ending much of its sting. Jeremy Renner is given much more to do this time around, revealing a solid, warm, normal home life with a wife and children, while also acting as the human glue bonding the "Gods" around him together. Evans and Hemsworth as Captain American and Thor do more of what they have done with aplomb across three films each at this point, their highlights mainly coming in their banter with Stark as Whedon ensures much of the focus is on the trinity at the heart of any decent Avengers story. There is a little set-up done for the next big film involving the characters, as the idealogical differences between Cap and Iron Man are emphasised, the battle lines subtly drawn.
That is the strangest thing about the Marvel films: because they are all part of one big ongoing narrative, it sometimes feels like nothing can ever really matter. We know another film is just around the corner, another villain, another threat, another epic battle. This is written in the DNA of the comics, but they are structured around it, whereas the architecture of a motion picture is different and built to supply a certain amount of third act catharsis or satisfaction that the Marvel films by necessity are unable to deliver.
Another problem is action. For an action genre, super-hero films generally don't handle action all that well. It is the achilles heel even of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy (which do splendid spectacle but fudge combat consistently until the third film), and has been uncertain in most of the Marvel films so far. Captain America: The Winter Soldier perhaps fares best here, but Avengers: Age of Ultron struggles. Whether it is down to Whedon's limitations as a director - unlikely, given that the fight scenes in Serenity are pretty good - or, more likely the overuse of cgi and accompanying spectacular camera movements to track it, many of the big action sequences here are visually incoherent and chaotically choreographed.
Luckily: there are ancillary pleasures and many of them.
Whedon has always had a gift for one-liners and Avengers: Age of Ultron is stuffed with them, from the others chiding Captain America for his dislike of bad language, to Thor and Vision discussing the perfect balance of Mjolnir. Of the newcomers, Bettany is most arresting as Vision, ably handling some great gags and action beats, while Olsen and Johnson act as crucial new blood to the mix.
The details here are crucial and brilliant: from the Irish accent (Voiced by Kerry Condon) of F.R.I.D.A.Y to Stark's asides during his battle with Hulk to Ulysses Klaw (Andy Serkis) being involved in supplying Vibranium from Wakanda, to Stark and Thor bragging about their girlfriends and War Machine's (Don Cheadle) angst that his story does not impress the Avengers they all play well and give the story and the world more texture and life.
The cast is filed out with some unexpected class in tiny roles: Linda Cardellini, Julie Delpy, Idris Elba, Anthony Mackie and Hayley Atwell all pop up alongside Serkis and Cheadle, again making this world feel populous and lived-in.
For all its flaws, as summer blockbusters go, this is a sumptuous piece of purest entertainment; funny, exciting and consistently impressive.

WHAT'S YOUR NUMBER?

(Mark Mylod, 2011)

Despite the reliable efforts on Anna Faris and Chris Evans in the lead roles, What's Your Number? remains frustratingly second-rate throughout. The concept - based upon a lifestyle book - centres on the number of men the average American woman must sleep with before she finds her future husband. The average is 10, so when Elly (Faris) realises she has twice that to her name, she flips out and determines to track down all of her exes, so that she can marry one of them and not pass the 20 mark.
She enlists the help of her slacker neighbour Colin (Evans) in her quest and he sends her across Boston to rendezvous with various men, played by a nicely random selection of character actors including Martin Freeman, Andy Samberg and Anthony Mackie.
Inevitably, Elly and Colin fall for one another but don't realise it until the last five minutes of the film.
This is a romcom lacking in much com. Faris is a great comic actress, blessed with perfect timing and a good sense of physical comedy, and Evans has effortless charm. They have chemistry too, but there are virtually no laughs here. Scenes play out and the mechanics of comedy are visible, but not much works. Its too safe and obvious, too calculated and cold.
Mylod directs it like any one of a dozen directors might have - without much energy or anything visually distinctive. It's just there, wasting its cast, looking pretty.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

(Anthony & Joe Russo, 2014)

Marvel's confidence is startling; now that the universe they work in has been established, risks can be taken. So here we have a massive conspiracy action-thriller set mainly in the corridors of power in Washington DC. Only the hero who discovers the conspiracy happens to be Captain America (Chris Evans), and the organisation behind it is Hydra, the surviving Nazi dark science and occult division introduced in the first Captain America film. The Russo brothers reveal a genuine gift for action here; this film is stuffed with extended, brutal action sequences, most of which are nicely choreographed and thrillingly shot. We are shown Captain America as a sort of super-Bourne, an unstoppable fighting machine who cuts through most opponents with absolute ease. That only makes his clashes with the Winter Soldier - a mysterious Soviet assassin - more exciting and important to the story. Here our hero is facing an equal, introducing a crucial note of vulnerability to his character.
The plot finds him discovering that there is something rotten at the heart of SHIELD, the spy organisation at the heart of the Marvel Universe,  run by Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson). When there is an attempt on Fury's life, Cap and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) find themselves on the run from SHIELD, needing the help of a new friend, Sam (Anthony Mackie), better known as "Falcon,"as they race to stop the simultaneous launch of three immense, heavily armed helicarriers into the skies above America.
Alongside the blistering, relentlessly growing action scenes, Marvel casts its films impeccably, and the addition of the likes of Robert Redford and Frank Grillo in crucial roles just helps make this film play that much more satisfyingly. While there may be a couple of scenes of men in suits arguing in offices too many - indeed, the whole thing is about a half an hour too long - even those sequences contain their fair share of wit. The scene where Arnim Zola explains how Hydra has shaped the 20th Century until people are so willing to accept a surveillance state is darkly hilarious, as are many of the references to all the pop culture Cap missed while he was frozen.
But it is the principals who carry this. Evans nails Cap again, capturing his uncertainty about the modern world and his confidence in his own moral barometer, but also revealing a quiet sense of humour, and a melancholic sense of loss. Johansson's Widow is an altogether more complex creation, and the dynamic between the two characters is fascinating and nicely played by the actors.

SNOWPIERCER

(Bong Joon-Ho, 2013)

This is the kind of action filmmaking that reminds you of just how good action filmmaking can be. Set onboard an immense high-tech train circling the planet after a man-made ice age kills all life on earth, Bong's adaptation of the French comic le Transperceneige is a darkly satirical epic, filled with ideas, beautiful spectacle, and awesome action scenes.
The train is an obviously allegorical creation. Travelling the world for seventeen years, it houses the wealthy in the front while the poor masses live in cramped misery at the back. They eat jellylike protein bars and bow down before the guns of the guards, and live with tales of failed revolts in the past. Curtis (Chris Evans) has different ideas. Supported by Edgar (Jamie Bell) and advised by Gilliam (John Hurt),  he plots to storm the gates separating the tail of the train from the crucial middle sections, where he will release Namgoong Mimsu (Song Kang-ho) who designed the gates. After that the plan is to work their way through the many carriages until they can take the engine and overthrow the mysterious Wilford (Ed Harris). Standing in their way are dozens of armed and ruthless guards, led by Mason (Tilda Swinton).
Bong films this story using lots of tight closeups of grim, shadowed faces, and manages to communicate just how claustrophobic life on the train might be without it ever feeling overly confined. In fact, the action sequences - beautifully shot and brutally visceral - are expansive and even lyrical at times. There is an understanding of just what works in genre cinema on display here; in the dynamics of the conflicts, in the reversals and surprises in each action scene, in the cutting and compositional choices. The cast play characters who reveal themselves in short bursts of dialogue. Evans is growing as a lead and convinces absolutely here, and the mix of acting styles represented by his clash with Swinton and Song does a good job of expressing the mix of lifestyles aboard the train.
The issues it touches upon - global warming, sustainability, the class system, even civic responsibility - are implicit in the narrative, but despite a running time over two hours it never feels overlong. Instead it throws new ideas at the screen in more or less every scene, particularly once Evans and his dwindling band reach the forward sections of the train and the excess of the lifestyles of Wilford's followers is revealed.
In common with much Korean cinema, there is wild tonal variation here, with shifts from humour to melodrama to ultraviolence occurring within seconds, but it always works, partly because the setting is so consistently textured and the characters so emotionally grounded.
In its ambition and its confidence it is admirable. In the execution of its action scenes, it is exhilarating.

THE LOSERS

(Sylvain White, 2010)

The Losers was released in the same year as The A-Team and The Expendables, all three of them action movies with big doses of comedy about combat units composed of larger-than-life macho personalities either betrayed or on missions or both. And while it doesn't quite have the gloriously unhinged sense of fun of Joe Carnahan's The A-Team, The Losers is a more enjoyable movie than Stallone's The Expendables. It doesn't take itself remotely seriously - not even as seriously as the comic series upon which it's based, which is a decent pastiche - and it's absolutely stuffed with dumb action movie cliches. Director Sylvain White's roots as a music video director are obvious in the hyper-kinetic ADD editing, and often quirky angles and a few laughable money-shots, but its frequently beautiful for all that, has a few really funny sequences, and a strong cast for this sort of material.
The Losers of the title all have silly macho names (so much so that Zoe Saldana's Aisha laughs when they're introduced to her and says "Really?") like Clay, Roque, Pooch, Cougar and Jensen. They have a single personality trait each - Jensen (Chris Evans) is the jokey motormouth computer whizz, Cougar (Óscar Jaenada) is the cool, deadly, near-mute cowboy hat-wearing sniper, Pooch (Columbus Short) is the down-to-earth one (he has a pregnant wife) and pilot and driver, Clay (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is the leader with a weakness for women, and Roque (Idris Elba) is the second-in-command, with a weakness for arguing with Clay. They banter and bicker in the usual cliched fashion throughout, but a lot of that is amusing, and it sets up a nice dynamic with the pyromaniac action scenes.
The plot sees this group abandoned and stuck in Latin America after a moral decision in the middle of an operation leaves them considered as enemies by their own Government. Jason Patric's villain is behind all this, of course, and he gives them something to focus on. Patric plays this character as a straight-up comic figure; theatrical, sarcastic, enjoying his own nastiness. He may be the best thing in the film.
It is nicely atmospheric in parts - location shooting certainly helps - and is entirely predictable every step of the way, but is made no less likeable for that.

THE AVENGERS

(Joss Whedon, 2012)

I've long wondered how they could possibly make an Avengers movie work. How to contain all those big, mythic icons? How to give each character enough room and time to do them justice? How could any blockbuster possibly be Epic enough, huge enough to replicate the storylines the Avengers characters feature in in their Marvel comics adventures? And beyond that, how to stop it looking just a little bit silly when Thor, Captain America, the Hulk and Iron Man are all onscreen at the same time?
Joss Whedon has found answers to all those questions, and in doing so, he's fashioned one of the best summer blockbusters of the last few years, a massive spectacle shot through with wit, lots of action and the fun that should be present in any good Super-Hero film.
Part of the miracle of The Avengers is that it exists at all. Marvel Studios' ambitious long-range planning - using the Iron Man films, Thor, the Incredible Hulk and Captain America as prequels, each containing elements that linked in to the overall tapestry of the Marvel Universe - looked like folly from a distance, but it pays off handsomely here, as fans of those films will find deeper resonances in this one, with character arcs maintaining consistency with each of the stories of these heroes.
The plot involves Loki (Tom Hiddleston), vengeful brother of Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and his plan to use the Tesseract (last seen in Captain America) an ancient energy source, to bring an Alien Army to Earth in order to take over the planet. Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) Director of Super Intelligence-Espionage organisation SHIELD, reactivates an old plan to gather together various super-powered "freaks" to form a Strike Force in defence. Only these heroes are a volatile mixture; from the tension between man-out-of-time Captain America (Chris Evans) and flippant playboy Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) to the very existence of Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and Thor's links with Loki, they are, as Hulks human form Banner puts it, "A time bomb".
A film this big, with so many important characters and plot elements to line-up, needs a strong hand orchestrating it, and Whedon proves to be just that. He keeps the exposition short and snappy, sprinkles the first hour with solid action beats which also function as character development - the first meeting between Thor, Captain America and Iron Man establishes their differing approaches nicely - and gives everybody something to do. Nobody is lost in this ensemble. Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye and Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow may be the only two Avengers without powers, but they each get big scenes and moments to shine.
Hiddleston has a great time as Loki, playing him as a ripe old pantomime villain, fond of the sound of his own voice, in love with his own arrogance and so blinded by a vividly-suggested hatred he will stop at nothing to get what he thinks he wants. His explosions of brattish temper are nicely played.
Evans, Hemsworth and Downey Jr all have confident handles on their characters, giving their scenes - especially together - a pleasingly natural spark. Downey Jr gets most of the gags, and delivers them with aplomb, while Evans' Captain America is all about principal and old-fashioned heroism. He has one action beat at the climax which is beautifully done, giving some sense of what his character is meant to mean. Hemsworth's scenes play a little like scenes from Thor, but he communicates his character's bemused affection for humans and his horror at his brothers actions. Ruffalo is the only newcomer, and his Banner is subtly wary of everything, especially himself, but also dryly funny and fearful of nothing.
Team dynamics has long been a Whedon specialty, present in his work for tv on Buffy and Firefly, and that means that the scenes of all these characters standing around together, bickering and wise-cracking are justnas entertaining as the big action sequences. This may be the funniest action film vie seen in a while, with some beautifully timed one-liners to alleviate the mounting tension as the colossal finale looms.
And it is colossal; the final half hour or so shows alien army invading and their fight with the Avengers in the streets and skies and on the rooftops of Manhattan. This is everything a little boy or girl reading super-hero comics wants from a super-hero film. It is Epic, absolutely immense in scale and yet filled with character detail and brilliantly satisfying action beats. Super-hero films often struggle with endings, many devolving into vague, incoherent lightshows, others resorting to simple, brutal fisticuffs. Whedon seems to understand this, and his approach - treating this like a War film - really works. Seamus McGarvey's cinematography is key here; visceral and immersive, it ensures that this story is grittily human throughout, no matter how fantastic its treatment of gods and monsters may be. The sense of peril and involvement makes it more rousing than the climax of any other Marvel movie, and it contains so many rich geekbait moments it's dizzying. This is the Hulk done right, cutting loose in some awesome scenes of destruction while all the other heroes do too. The mix of tremendous spectacle and comedy - those gags never stop - is exhilarating.
There are weaknesses here; it is too long, the first hour slightly disjointed, the soundtrack is utterly forgettable, the cosmic stuff rings badly against the rest, and its all patently ludicrous. And yet, against all odds, it works. It really works.

CAPTAIN AMERICA

(Joe Johnston, 2011)

Like Superman, Captain America is a character much-derided by those (lets call them casual Super-hero fans) who favour edgier, seemingly more complex modern Super-heroes such as Batman, Spider-Man and Wolverine. That is somewhat understandable. On the surface, he seems an overly-literal, simple-minded creation. Visually he is a walking flag, resplendent in red White and blue, his costume encompassing both stars and stripes, together with little (eagle?) wings on the mask. His creation as a propaganda tool during the Second World War now makes him seem dated and irrelevant. His characterisation can be - in the wrong creative hands - reductive and silly, restricting him to the role of the big strong boy scout. Then there is the shield...
Well, Johnston's fun blockbuster addresses most of these issues and displays a fine understanding of just what makes the character of Captain America so compelling. Nicely grounded with a vivid grasp of a certain sort of zippily pop-cultural view of the Second World War which is perfectly suited to the character, the film spends its first act establishing its characters and making Chris Evans' Steve Rogers a truly likeable and sympathetic underdog. With the classical simplicity which is very much a hallmark of Marvels best characters, also present whenever nerdy Peter Parker cuts loose as the wiseass god of skyscrapers Spider-Man or when weedy, repressed Bruce Banner gives into his rage and levels buildings as the Hulk, Rogers' transformation into the "Super Soldier" Captain is made tremendously satisfying by how realistic, convincingly mounted and well-acted his sickly asthmatic beginnings are.
Indeed, Captain America gets its textures right throughout, stealing liberally from Raiders of the Lost Ark and sprinkling in some nice retro-futurist designs for its Hydra villains Nazis-with-black-magic World. There is also some wit in the details; the sequence where Rogers is used as a propaganda tool for selling War Bonds may just be the films best passage and actually provides an explanation for the ridiculous symbolism of that costume.
The cast give good accounts of themselves: Evans is convincing and winning throughout and effortlessly handles the action scenes, Tommy Lee-Jones is as good as ever in a one-note part, Hayley Atwell makes her vague cypher of an idealised strong 1940s Woman relatable and even affecting, and Hugo Weaving manages to make the Red Skull both disturbing and hilarious with what seems an outright Werner Herzog impersonation. The action scenes are competent if never inspired, but the patient pacing of the love story and Rogers' growth as a hero give it a surprising emotional charge by the slightly underwhelming, somewhat rote, underexplained climax. The coda, then, seems bizarre and even an attempt to shortchange the audience in advance of next years massive all-star The Avengers, which will feature this hero alongside Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk and Hawkeye.
It is also more than a little overlong, but its visual richness and the ease of the storytelling mean that Captain America mostly works as a fun summer blockbuster in its own right.