FILM REVIEW OF ''CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR" (2016)

Walt Disney Studios should have changed the title from “Captain America: Civil War” (** OUT OF ****) to “Captain America: Stalemate” since none of the heroic combatants die.  Co-directors Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, who helmed “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” have the two rival divisions, led by Captain America and Iron Man, knocking the shenanigans out of each other in this contrived, drawn-out, 147 minute epic.  Nevertheless, the worst thing that happens is War Machine loses control of his Iron Man style armored suit and makes an emergency crash landing in an open field.  Although he suffers spinal damage, Lieutenant James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) is back up and walking around with some difficulty before fadeout.  Mind you, “Captain America: Civil War” amounts to a letdown when nobody puts anybody away permanently.  Ultimately, the two fractions emerge evenly matched.  Nobody like S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Phil Coulson is around to die and make a dramatic impact like in “Marvel’s “The Avengers” (2012).  At least the recent DC Comics movie “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” pretended to destroy one of the two title characters.  Of course, anybody with a grain of sense knows the adversary that perished in “Batman v Superman” isn’t dead.  Furthermore, the DC Comics extravaganza staged a funeral, and the characters engaged in a period of mourning. 

Although the premise that Captain America and Iron Man would clash is certainly provocative, the movie pulls its punches because the superheroes emerge with little more than either bruises to themselves or scratches on their respective armor.  Despite several competently orchestrated physical confrontations, “Captain America: Civil War” rarely generates a modicum of suspense.  Basically, the Russo brothers stage one spectacular smackdown at an evacuated airport, resolve the mystery behind the demise of Tony Stark’s parents, and introduce a new costume-clad crusader to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  The Black Panther makes his debut, but he seems rather tame compared with the other Marvel champs.  At one point, “Captain America: Civil War” seems more concerned with rebooting the “Spider-Man” film franchise than doing something with its protagonists that its PG-13 rating would condone.  Sadly enough, the characters that stand out here aren’t the title characters.  Essentially, Spider-Man and Ant Man make a greater impression than any of the other Marvel titans, and Black Panther looks like Mardi Gras was his destination until he paused to participate.

Approximately five characters die on-screen in “Captain America: Civil War,” but are super heroic. United at the outset, our heroes descend upon Lagos and tangle with former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Brock Rumlow, (Frank Grillo of “The Purge: Anarchy”) a.k.a. Crossbones and his thugs.  These dastards want to hijack a deadly biological weapon.  Crossbones tries to kill Captain America with an explosion that obliterates his own life.  Miraculously, the telekinetic Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen of “Godzilla”) contains the blast and shifts it elsewhere to detonate.  Tragically, the blast demolishes a nearby building, killing many unseen, innocent bystanders.  The collateral damage fallout from this incident gives the Avengers some bad publicity.  Afflicted with a guilty conscience about the death of an African-American lad in Lagos, Tony Stark advocates the Sokovia Accords that the United Nations have drawn up.  Basically, the Sokovia Accords establishes a panel to oversee the Avengers.  Apparently, the indestructible Avengers may be responsible for killing more people than their own adversaries owing to the collateral damage that they have wrought during their escapades.  Captain America (Chris Evans of “The Fantastic Four”) abhors the Accords, and he refuses to ink the pact.  The death of Agent Peggy Carter solidifies his negative attitude toward the Sokovia Accords.  Longtime Avengers adversary U.S. Secretary of State Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross (William Hurt of “Dark City”) now enjoys a position with more prestige than power over them.  Ross, you may recall, hated the Hulk because the big green machine was in love with his daughter. 

Matters grow even more critical.  Steve Rogers’ World War II pal Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”) is suspected of a igniting a deadly blast in Vienna where the Accords were being signed.  Surveillance cameras show that Bucky was in town when the incident occurred.  The blast kills King T'Chaka of Wakanda (John Kani of “The Wild Geese”), and his acrobatic son T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman of “42”) dons a black bulletproof suit, a mask with cat ears, and gloves with retractable claws and embarks as The Black Panther to avenge his father’s death.  One of the many problems with “Captain America: Civil War” is that it bristles with far too many characters who do far too little to each other.  Mind you, T’Challa will soon have his own stand alone movie, but he looks shoehorned into this film with nothing memorable to do.  Worst, the chief villain is a bland family-guy-turned-vigilante, Helmut Zemo (Daniel Brühl of “Rush”), who is a rather dreary adversary compared with previous Marvel villains.

Anybody familiar with the Marvel Comics graphic novel will tell you “Captain America” scenarists Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely have taken liberties with the source material.  In the Mark Millar graphic novel, lesser costume clad warriors destroyed an elementary school while a reality-TV crew photographed their endeavors.  This wholesale destruction prompted the President of the United States to enact the Superhero Registration Act to make superheroes more accountable for their actions.  Furthermore, the law required these costume-clad crusaders to divulge their true identities.  Now, these heroes face the prospect of serving as Federal employees or facing arrest.  Iron Man supports the act. “Becoming public employees makes perfect sense,” he proclaims, “if it helps people sleep a little easier.”  Captain America opposes it, “Super heroes need to stay above that stuff or Washington starts telling us who the super-villains are.”  Later, Iron Man tricks Captain America and his Secret Avengers into responding to a petrochemical plant fire where hundreds people could perish. Ultimately, Captain America surrenders after Iron Man batters him into submission.

 

Altogether, “Captain America: Civil War” isn’t half as good as the previous two “Avengers” movies.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2" (2014)

Although it surpasses its predecessor, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” (*** OUT OF ****) suffers from too many villains.  Meantime, audiences should prepare themselves for more narrative tweaking on the part of “(500) Days of Summer” director Marc Webb, “Star Trek” writers Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci, and “Fringe” scribe Jeff Pinkner to the classic Marvel Comics characters created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko back in August 1962.  Initially, “Evil Dead” director Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” trilogy coupled Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker with Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane Watson, while the Andrew Garfield reboot pairs Peter with Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy.  Technically, in the comics, Gwen was Peter Parker’s first love.  Clearly, Webb’s reboot shows more fidelity to the comics than the original Raimi trilogy.  Peter and Gwen were dating before our hero met Mary Jane.  Comparably, Superman has two comic book love interests: Lois Lane and Lana Lang.  Mind you, Lois has dominated the movies.  This time around the tweaking involves a villain that Tobey Maguire tangled with in his first web-crawling chronicle.  Of course, people don’t watch “Spider-man” movies, or any superhero saga, to agonize over the fate of the invincible entity.  We show up for the latest outlandish villain, their origin story, the inevitable showdown with Spider-Man, and pyrotechnical constellation of special effects. 

Imitating the Warner Brothers’ Batman franchise, Webb and company pit Spidey against three villains to keep him busy throughout this occasionally tedious two hour and twenty minute plus pandemonium.  Judged by this criterion, “Amazing Spider-Man 2” trumps its one-adversary predecessor with a triple threat treat.  Happily, Jamie Fox’s glowering Electro, Dane DeHaan’s bizarre Green Goblin, and Paul Giamatti’s obstreperous Rhino are far livelier than Rhys Ifans’ dreary Lizard.  Electro puts up the fiercest fight.  Green Goblin doesn’t match Electro in terms of actual combat, but he contributes to the worst thing that happens in the third act.  Indeed, the allure then is not just for the adversaries but also for the hero’s closest friends.  Apart from Sally Fields’ indestructible Aunt May, Gwen Stacy is the only other hold-over from the 2012 original.  Webb and his writers add a wrinkle that raises the romance above its usual peripheral subplot status.  Everything that Spider-Man does has consequences for Gwen.  Naturally, a superhero spends his life negotiating an obstacle course, and the love interest complicates matters.  Spider-Man worries about Gwen not so much because he loves her.  We’re reminded Spider-Man swore an oath to her gruff father, the late Captain Stacy, that he would stay out of her life.  Every time he turns around, Spider-Man sees the specter of Captain Stacy frowning at him and this haunts him. 

“The Amazing Spider-Man 2” opens about the same time as its predecessor, with a juvenile Peter in his parents’ house.  All we know from the original is that Richard Parker (Campbell Scott of “Dying Young”) and his wife deposited Peter at the house of his Uncle Ben and Aunt May.  In the sequel, we see what else happened after they left Peter and boarded a private jet to Switzerland.  This scene reminded me of the opening scene aboard a plane in the James Bond movie “Moonraker.”  Anyway, as far as we know, the Parkers perished in a plane crash, but anything—you know—can happen in a cinematic superhero franchise.  The action resumes with Spider-Man arriving in the nick of time to pick up his diploma at his high school graduation after thwarting a fanatical Russian criminal, Aleksei Sytsevich (Paul Giamatti of “Rock of Ages”), from stealing plutonium vials during a runaway chase through Times Square.  This exhilarating demolition derby with Aleksei careening through downtown Manhatten traffic in a tow-truck hauling an armored car gets everything on off on the right foot.  During this mayhem, Spider-Man saves Max Dillon (Jamie Foxx of “Django Unchained”) from being struck by Sytsevich.  Afterward, we are introduced to one of Peter’s closest friends, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan of “Lawless”), who haven’t seen Peter for a decade.  Comparatively, DeHaan doesn’t eclipse James Franco from the Maguire trilogy.  Oscorp executive Donald Menken (Colm Feore of “Pearl Harbor”) ushers Harry to the bed of his dying father, Norman (Chris Cooper of “Money Train”), who bears bad tidings to his son.  Meantime, Max plunges accidentally into a tank at Oscorp and is bitten by genetically adapted electric eels.  Eventually, Max mutates into the electrifying villain Electro who generates no end of problems for Spider-Man as well as the city electric company.

Once again, Garfield outshines Maguire as the costume-clad champion, even though it is obvious that Garfield, an Englishman in his thirties, doesn’t look like an angst-afflicted teen.  The twentysomething Stone is as luminous as ever as Gwen, but she is too old to be playing a teen, too.  Nevertheless, this sympathetic couple shares enough chemistry and radiates enough charisma that it is easy for us to overlook their age disparity.  Meanwhile, you’ll have to suspend your disbelief because the larger-than-life antics could never occur in the real world.  Indeed, Electro qualifies as an unusual villain, driven by revenge, who can materialize seemingly at will whenever and wherever he wants like a wraith.  The showdown in Times Square with Spider-Man where Electro tries to electrocute everybody crackles with thrills and chills.  Battling Electro alone would have been more than sufficient for “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” but Webb and his writers unleash the nefarious Green Goblin while Gwen insists on helping Spider-Man despite the consequences.  You could probably shove your finger into a light socket and experience the same effect that this noisy, ambitious, vertigo-inducing, sci-fi fantasy delivers with gusto.  The OMG prosthetic make-up and visual effects are nothing short of stunning.  “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” doesn’t know when to quit, and it leaves us breathless after a supreme tragedy to soldier on with our webslinger hero poised to battle one more adversary.