Doctor Strange: Awesome Movie I Don't Recall Asking For

We've all heard my argument before: it's beginning to look a little redundant that Marvel has yet to make a movie that not only doesn't qualify as “good” but hasn't even managed to make one in the definitive “bad” category. With the closest thing to an actual “bad” movie being the likes of Iron Man 2 or Thor 2 (which are still incidentally better than anything currently in the DC catalog), it just feels like Marvel should be cockier and willing to take more deliberate chances just to see what characters audiences might not be willing to tolerate (Howard the Duck? Gwenpool? Ms. Marvel?). Finally, after seemingly running through what feels like their entire roster, Marvel seems to at long last have landed on the unfilmable superhero with Doctor Strange (he's a wizard who sometimes freelances as a Necromancer and a therapist to the superheros). The result? A predictably great movie with fun humor, interesting main characters and enough charm and wit to be memorable. This is getting kind of old, Marvel.

If you haven't guessed it, yes, Doctor Strange is awesome (sigh). Benedict Cumberbatch is fun and interesting and fits the character well enough that I'd like to see him more often in the universe, the cast chemistry is endearing and, even when the movie goes off on the whole gonzo metaphysical stuff characteristic of the Doctor Strange comics, it still remains simple enough to follow. Throw in Mads Mikkelsen as arguably the best and most relateable villain since Loki and you have something that not only appeals to the masses but somehow will likely appease all but the most psychotically devout fanboys. Its like a universally appealing art house movie; it just doesn't happen like that!

As for bad, try as she may, Rachel McAdams is criminally underused and completely underwhelming as human love interest Christine Palmer. This could mostly be chalked up to the script writers wishing to blow off Strange's human life quickly to get to the good stuff (and by “good stuff” I mean weird metaphysical nonsense with hints of Inception), but it is kind of sad to see how thoroughly pointless the actual human side of Strange becomes in this movie. Newsflash, screenwriters: the less human a character seems, the less we relate to them.

The argument for watching this comes down to how you feel about Marvel movies. If you like the path this is going and are not at all concerned that they may have added a kind of Deus Ex to the next Avengers movie (the guy is basically a mortal with the power to stop time and destroy whole universes), knock yourself out because this is just more of the same good writing mixed with great casting that you've come to expect from this franchise. If you're seeking something with a little more depth or character development, you probably own four or five other Marvel movies that do it better. Your choice.

Scott Derrickson (Sinister) proves that you can escape the bottomless pit of a horror genre director to make movies that Disney will throw money at you to make with Doctor Strange, a fun, mostly enjoyable trip through alternate dimensions that you might want to be sober to partake in. Having lost the use of his hands in a car wreck, neurosurgeon Dr. Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) begins looking for ways to regain not only the proper use of his body again but for a deeper purpose to his life. Along the way, Mads Mikkelson's Kaecilius will be a totally awesome bad guy who the powers that be should have taken more advantage of, Strange's human friend (McAdams) will drop in and out occasionally to ask the questions we're already asking, Strange will prove that you can beat an enemy to death with boredom (literally) and, all in all, it will probably be the second most magical thing you've seen in November (Because The Cubs Won The World Series!). Go have predictable fun with this one.

My score: 8/10. Is it me or is Marvel beginning to seem a little bit arrogant about their seeming inability to make a bad comic book movie? I would suggest they make another Howard the Duck as a humbling exercise, but I have an odd feeling they'd just make that awesome too. Maybe they should steal some Deadpool characters (Dazzler anyone?) for the challenge...

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2: Still Messing With Expectations

James Gunn's 2014 masterpiece Guardians of the Galaxy has me conflicted for numerous reasons. On one hand, its arguably the best Marvel movie made during the current cinematic cycle, has a perfect cast with spot-on humor and chemistry and action sequences that remain some of the best you will see on the market today. On the other, Gunn is something of the directorial equivalent of an internet troll and I could never quite shake the thought that the man might just be arrogantly teasing us with his talent by making the most un-Marvel movie ever (a nothing post-credit scene, an air of self-loathing on top of all the humor). If I were to go by Volume 2, I might as well just remain conflicted.

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 is awesome. The characters are still perfect, the humor is still spot-on, there's actually some depth to the side characters for a change and Drax (Dave Bautista) is still the weird, out-of-touch psychopath that we all know and love from the first movie. Throw in a surprising narrative turn that gives both Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Yondu (Michael Rooker) much needed back stories with out-of-left-field depth they were sorely lacking in the original and you have a movie that fixes the only niggling things I could manage to find from its original. They took a practically perfect movie and made a sequel seemingly to remove the hard-to-find blemishes. That's insane in a good way.

As for bad, as with most Marvel sequels, there's just not a lot of wonder to go around this time and there's really nothing even the likes of Gunn can actually do to fix such a problem. While it's easy to love these characters, we already know them and their motivations, making them familiar and, to a lesser extent, kind of boring. Throwing in a misplaced alien psychic with Mantis (Pom Klementieff) as the new character doesn't help when you realize she only seems to be there for strict plot progression purposes. This was a movie that somehow made Sylvester Stallone into a deep and relatable character yet somehow couldn't make the newest member of the Guardians anything but a plot point? Come on, man!

As for watching it, yeah, go do that. It's still a fun time with all the humor you could either want or stand and, while the whole main plot does tend to get a little out of hand near the end, you'd still be hard-pressed to find anything to truly dislike out of the whole experience. If anything, this is a nice farewell for James Gunn from the franchise and his last, big obscene gesture to us all for expecting him to play by the book. Plus, they made freaking Yondu (the guy who openly talks about eating Peter) a sympathetic character! Talent!

James Gunn (Slither) continues to make movies seemingly as practical jokes on audiences with Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, a fun, mostly entertaining, sci-fi epic-like movie that spends very little time trying to acquaint you with its lore and more time making fun of your expectations. While fleeing from another botched heist, the Guardians encounter weird, hippy alien Ego (Kurt Russell) who promptly drops a bomb on Peter (Chris Pratt): he's his father and he's also a freaking planet (it makes more sense when you watch it)! While everything seems good and he's finally at peace, Peter and his friends can't shake the feeling that something is seriously wrong with Ego. Along the way, Yondu will finally show just how honorable he can be and why he's so cynical in the first place, Nebula will form some kind of sisterly bond with Gamora (Zoe Saldana) while describing the unpleasant things she wants to do to Thanos (Josh Brolin) in later movies and 5 (FIVE) post-credit scenes will tease us with nothing except how stupid we are to be sitting in a movie theater waiting for the credits to end just for a few milliseconds of some future, unfinished movie (it openly mocks you for expecting anything more). Go watch it and feel kind of dumb for not realizing these things earlier.

My score: 8/10. I often say that April is the month Hollywood dumps their worst tripe as some kind of extended April Fools' joke. After seeing the line up of last month, I stand by that accusation.

Ghost In The Shell: The Philosophy of Humanity for Dummies

It is said that, to sell any foreign entity to an American audience, one must first know those consuming the product to begin with. Are you trying to sell Mexican food? Mix together some random combination of meat, cheese or vegetable and give it a Spanish name. Trying to sell a Japanese role playing game to the American public? Simplify the combat system and translate the dialog. And, best of all, trying to sell a story that argues about the nature of their own humanity? Bog it down with backhanded commercialism comments and add some pretty scenery. If Ghost in the Shell is any indication, the Japanese have long ago mastered this particular art.

Okay, to be nice, Ghost in the Shell is a pretty awesome movie from a strictly cyberpunk/sci-fi standpoint. The original message of the 1995 anime (What Makes Us Human?) is still there and, although dumbed down for mass consumption, does feature moments of philosophical brilliance. The story, though mixed together with limited success with not only remnants of the '95 movie but also the late 90s TV series, still manages to pull off something resembling a cohesive and immersive plot. The characters range from decent mirror images (Batou) to straight-up improvements over their source material (Aramaki). Throw in a setting and overall oppressive feeling of a world tinted with a fresh coat of paint to cover up its unpleasant underbelly and you have a movie that tries and mostly succeeds in at least being a cliff notes version of the property. Regardless of your opinions on the casting or even the need for this property to exist in live-action, you can't deny that the production didn't skimp over details when it came to giving you something pretty to look at.

Unfortunately, while it is a very well-shot movie filled with some deep-rooted philosophies, the movie ultimately fails on its insistence on focusing solely on the image rather than the brain. Yes, The Major (Scarlett Johanssen) is a lot of fun to watch in action, but she's mostly just playing a blank slate (a literal amnesiac) with the occasional doubts about her own humanity. Yes, Kazu (Michael Pitt) is an interesting villain with a sympathetic story and a few interesting twists to go along with it, but he doesn't really have much of a point out of being a catalyst for Major's own awakening. Even the city, so well rendered and full of unique sites, gets stale after the fiftieth freaking pan shot because the filmmakers apparently couldn't think of a better way to do screen transition. I get it! The city looks cool! You don't have to keep proving it to me every time you want send me somewhere else!

As for watching it, did you watch the original and wish there was more humor to go along with its dour tale of humanity lost? This will offer enough moments of levity to at least feel more entertaining than the original's rather depressing plot. Did you love the original and, as a knee-jerk reaction, spit on any attempt to recreate that particular tone? This probably won't change your mind and you could find better uses of your time trying to figure out how to get over yourself.

Rupert Sanders (Snow White and The Hunstman) continues to make visually stunning, if thematically flawed, movies that pretty much no one asks for with Ghost in the Shell, a cyberpunk-themed story about how being human doesn't necessarily involve humanity. Fatally injured in a terrorist attack, The Major (Johanssen) is augmented to the point of near complete machine and put to work fighting cyberterrorists. Along the way, she will realize that everything about her may or may not be a lie, Aramaki (Takeshi Kitano) will be the most awesome version of himself ever and the soul of the original will be lost in translation in exchange for a by-the-numbers action movie with only hints of the whole darkness-of-the-human-soul stuff Japan doesn't seem to have any problems with. Hey, looks cool, though!

My score: 5/10. So...did anyone else notice that The Major is actually an Asian woman inside the body of a white woman? Isn't that kind of like sidestepping the “whitewashing” puddle just to fall of a freaking cliff?

Power Rangers: Fixing Old Problems

If you, like me, were a kid in the early 90s, chances are you heard of Saban's Power Rangers, a Fox Kids staple that featured bad stereotypes of teenagers who used their karate powers to operate giant dinosaur robots in their eternal battle with Moon monsters. While I'll admit that last part in the description sounds ridiculously awesome, the show never quite reached its potential as a watchable series mainly because 1.) the dialog was laughably bad, 2.) none of the main characters were anything short of bad 90s stereotypes (the funny one, the smart one, the hot one, the leader) and, regardless of how hard I tried, 3.) I just couldn't find a real world scenario where five attractive, smart and athletic “teenagers” could be possibly bullied by an overweight greaser and his moronic sidekick (that's Bulk and Skull in case you were wondering). In the end, the human element never felt real because any characterization always came off as forced or written by someone who'd never even met a teenager. Now, with that particular franchise run into the ground (almost 20 seasons of this stuff!) and Saban Studios seemingly desperate to relive the “good times”, we've been given Power Rangers, the first iteration in the franchise that actually feels like the writers knew what they were doing. And it's awesome!

Yes, Power Rangers, despite being based on one of the dumbest kids shows of the 90s (an era dedicated to dumb kids shows), has somehow managed to bottle lightning and become far more awesome that its predecessor could ever hope. The characters are likable and display actual depth, the script seems to realize how bad of an idea its inception was and actually tries to fix its most glaring problems, Elizabeth Banks is fun and campy as Rita Repulsa, the action is fluid and the dialog doesn't feel like it was written by a childless thirty-year-old. Throw in a straight-faced Bryan Cranston as Zordon and ACTUAL BACKSTORIES for everyone and you have what Saban should have done twenty years ago: write smarter scripts and rely on your audience's intelligence.

Unfortunately, while the movie works great as an origin story, the actual “morphing” into multi-colored ninja warriors and flying giant mech parts still reeks of a property woefully connected to its past. While its not all bad (there's a pretty awesome Rita vs. giant robot moment that's perfect in its build up and execution), its still sad that the franchise succeeded so well in making believable characters just to skimp on the crazy monster fights at the end. Oh well, at least you have interesting kids fighting monsters this time.

As for watching it, do you remember growing up with this tripe in the nineties? Chances are you've either booked tickets far in advance or renounced all connection to that series permanently and are, thereby, confined to that opinion regardless of what I say. Have you only heard of Power Rangers in minor passing references and always wondered what all the fuss is about? This would be a much better starting point than the T.V. Series. Pick how you want to watch Karate-infused teenagers fight monsters, I guess.

Dean Israelite (Project Almanac) tries to get away from bad found footage movies with pretty resounding success with Power Rangers, a movie that didn't have to be as good as it was for a reboot. Basically, five teenagers stumble across karate powers and use them to fight monsters while wearing tights, driving giant dinosaur robots and kicking rock monsters in the face. Yeah, its actually as awesome as it sounds. Go for it.

My score: 8/10. There have been many great lines in movies over the last century, yet I am hard pressed to find a better recent one than, “We have to stop Rita from destroying the Krispy Kreme!” That's like Shakespeare for millennials there...

Logan: The Best There Is At What He Does

Even with occasionally spiraling quality of the parent X-Men movies, there just never seemed to be a way to make a good movie about its flagship character Wolverine. While this could be chalked up to Fox losing faith the series after a few self-inflicted misfires (X-3), it never helped that the first actual trip into the tattered psyche of the character (Origins) still consistently ranks as one of the worst comic book movies ever put to film. And, while they did try to fix this problem with an awesome premise (Wolverine vs. Ninjas!) in The Wolverine a few years later, even that effort came off as too ham-fisted and afraid to explore the character fully. Apparently tired of hearing these complaints over the years and with the added bonus of Deadpool totally proving their business model wrong (R rated movies CAN make money!), Fox has finally decided to give us Logan, the movie Wolverine always deserved but never seemed to get. The result is something very near perfection.

Yes, despite taking 17 years and literally another hero (Deadpool) to convince stupid people of its potential, Logan is an awesome send-off to a worthy character who deserved it a decade sooner. The action is visceral and merciless, Stephen Merchant as Caliban is both a disconcerting comic relief and a genuinely honorable character, Dafne Keen might be the best newcomer of the last few years and does so with little or no dialog and, finally freed of the hang ups of a PG-13 movie, the script is able to weave and honest and believable narrative without neutering it for consumption purposes. This world isn't a happy place for mutants and whole dream of that utopia never came to fruition. Instead, the world just found a way to “deal” with mutants and left the survivors not so much to pick up the pieces but to wallow in the ash of the perfect world Xavier (Stewart) so desperately wanted to create. The final result is a world where mutants aren't so much a vilified race anymore as a decimated and little thought-of population desperately trying to find hope where they are little more than an endangered species no one is really keen on saving. It's a superhero movie where the superheroes are the ones who need rescuing.

Unfortunately, while the movie works so well when it focuses on its own humanity, it ultimately fails on its biggest selling point: the over-the-top violence. While this worked early in the movie as an explanation for just how hard the world has become, it eventually loses its context and falls into nothing but pointless bloodletting over its 135 minute run time. While this violence is still fun to watch, by the third act, it all falls into a tired pattern of Logan (Jackman) running into an army of disposable meat heads and choosing to dice his way through them for little purpose outside of feeling like the producers purchased too much overpriced fake blood. This, compounded by the film's scattershot narrative being given too much time to fester, causes the movie to have multiple narrative problems when it should be wrapping up for the awesome finale. While it still nails the ending by giving the main characters a worthy send off, it still remains a sad footnote that they pretty much had the whole movie in the bag before someone said, “Hey! Let's add one more action scene!”

As for watching it, do you like comic book movies but hate that they seem to neuter their best characters for a more box office-friendly PG-13 rating? This isn't kid-friendly in the slightest. Would you prefer being able to take your kids with you to the theater? Go watch Disney Marvel while the big boys finally get their day in the sun over at Fox. Either way, Marvel gets your money here.

James Mangold (The Wolverine) finally gets the green light to make a proper Wolverine movie with Logan, a dark, poignant superhero movie about a man wanting to die while desperately seeking something to live for. In the far future, mutants are now on the verge of extinction and Logan (Jackman) is an old man slowly dying from sepsis due to his metal bones. When offered a job to get mutant clone Laura (Keen) to a safe haven in Canada, Logan packs up his last friend Charles (Stewart) and the three go on a road trip occasionally punctuated by Laura getting angry and bad guys dying horribly. Basically, its The Road with a slightly more hopeful message and more cyborgs. Check it out.

My score: 8/10. Showtime just released its newest promo for the Twin Peaks reboot. It's a twenty second clip of creator David Lynch eating a glazed doughnut. Never change, man...

The Great Wall: Too Tall An Order

There are a lot of things I feel when people claim they are offended by a movie. Due to the fact that I'm incapable of such an emotion (I blame G-Force), I tend to mock said people because, in my mind, they are wasting what little time they have on this Earth not so much being offended by something that targets them particularly, but because they are offended AT THE BEHEST of an entirely different demographic of people. So, to those people, I say this from the bottom of my heart: shut up! Don't hate Great Wall for casting Matt Damon (a box office draw) in a Chinese movie (not a box office draw). If you have to hate it for something, hate it for being a generic cash grab with little depth and an even less understandable story.

Sadly, Great Wall, despite its obvious ploying for a Chinese audience (98% of the cast are established Chinese stars), is a pretty terrible movie. The story is confusing, the acting is hammy at best, the pacing is glacial and most side characters tend to go off on tangents that don't really get resolved in any satisfactory manner. Throw in the fact that some of the most memorable characters' best aspect get completely lost in translation due to poor introductions and you have a movie designed solely to pander to the Chinese under the guise of normalized relations instead of any kind of attempt at entertainment.

Fortunately, if you can bear with the heavy slog of exposition dialog via subtitles, there are a few awesome things to behold. Like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the White Witch and pretty much every Chinese epic ever made, the battle scenes are colorful and exciting and never skimp on a chance to see some interesting battle choreography. And, while she kind of gets written into a corner as a forgettable soldier with too much emphasis on duty, Tian Jing is kind of fun to watch and actually displays more depth than this movie would ever require. Hey, it made me interested in one foreign actress's career for a little while. I call that a win.

Reasons for watching it come down to you preference or lack thereof for foreign movies. Do you overlook subtitles and just enjoy the experience? You'll probably find a few things here to have fun with before the inevitable White Man Meddling that comes into play in the second act kind of drags the whole thing through the mud. Do you hate all foreign movies because they require you to read? You won't be missing anything really unique and, in all honesty, Damon and his English speaking cohorts are so bland they might as well have been named Bland English Speakers in the credits. It just comes down to how you want to spend about two hours of your life this time.

Yimou Zhang (House of Flying Daggers) goes from making amazing movies about Chinese legend to a sort of okay movie about Chinese legend with The Great Wall, a hammy-at-times, mostly overbearing attempt to dumb a foreign culture down enough for American consumption. After killing a mysterious creature on their way to China to trade for black powder, Mercenaries William (Damon) and Tovar (Pedro Pascal) are drafted into a secret Chinese order dedicated to guarding the Great Wall against supernatural attacks (via lizard...things) that occur regularly every sixty years. Along the way, William will learn about honor by watching a bunch of Chinese soldier die, Tovar will randomly spout something that's hilarious about sixty percent of the time and the whole movie will feel more like D-Wars (minus that awesome second act) than anything resembling an epic adventure. Tread here at your own risk.

My score: 4/10. Seriously, has anyone ever watched D-Wars? It's one of the worst movies ever made and, near the eighty minute mark or so, becomes freaking awesome! They've got dragons fighting helicopters, giant rhino things fighting tanks, stone soldiers fighting dudes with machine guns and a Korean snake dragon hugging a building! Then they all wind up on Mars or something and the thing dips back into its original, terrible quality. Why couldn't this movie do that?

Lego Batman Movie: Everything is (Slightly Less) Awesome

While I'm aware he's been around for far more decades than myself, it's still really hard to take anything Batman-related seriously because, let's be honest, no one else seems to even when they seem to demand your respect. The character, either through federal intervention, lazy writing or just the simplest of greedy motivations, has run the gamut of everything from hilariously bad (Batman and Robin) to horribly bad (Batman vs. Superman) to goofily awesome (Batman 66) to realistically average (Dark Knight Rises). Throughout these iterations, it always feels like the creators all had one thing in common: none of them were actually Batman fans. Well, for those of you wondering about the creators of Lego Batman, yes, they are fans and, yes, they are ready and willing to call out the character for his shaky history. The good news? The result is freaking awesome.

For all intents and purposes, Lego Batman could possibly lay claim to not only the best version of the character ever (Will Arnett) but also the first Batman movie to not take itself too serious to actually be fun. The characters are interesting, the setting is fun, the jokes are funny and, underneath the kid-friendly veneer of Lego blocks and PG dialog, there's an encyclopedic knowledge of Batman and his history that seems to exist for one very special reason: to make fun of just how ridiculous he truly is. This isn't the broody Nolan movies or the wasted Snyder attempt. At its core, its an argument that, if Batman wasn't such a loner, maybe he wouldn't constantly be reinventing himself (via numerous different writers and artists). Its like a Batman movie that tells you that Batman kind of stinks if you think about it too hard. Take that, nerds!

Unfortunately, and mostly because of its obvious connection to the superior Lego Movie, not quite everything really lines up when its supposed to. While the cast, setting and story are near perfect, the movie falls into a rut near the beginning of the third act due to the poor animation of what I call “Lego Action” (i.e. what happens when you try to fluidly animate plastic bricks). And, while its predecessor went out of its way to cleverly mock crass commercialism and kid movies as a whole, Batman lacks some of the biting humor that probably would have pushed this one over than particular ledge of quality. Hey, they can't all have an annoying song that you don't mind getting stuck in your head.

As for watching it, are you a Batman fan or a small child? Go watch this. The fan in you will love the Easter Eggs of days gone by and the kid in you will love the inherent silliness (sort of like the franchise as a whole). Are you neither of these things? Go watch Fifty Shades Darker as punishment for your boring existence.

Chris McKay (Robot Chicken) takes his irreverent comedic talents to the big screen with The Lego Batman Movie, a movie meant to help Batman fans get over themselves. When Gotham City, a multicolored metropolis supported by a flimsy brick bridge over a void that “smells strangely of dirty underwear”, is attacked by The Joker (Zach Galifianakis), Batman, with the help of accidentally adopted son Robin (Michael Cera), must find a way not only to put everything right, but also help Batman work out his compatibility issues with...well, everyone. Along the way, Rosario Dawson will be the best Batgirl ever, Superman (Channing Tatum) will seem like a bigger tool than he probably is and Jerry Macguire will be openly mocked as an unintentional comedy. It's like the movie equivalent of a flame war, but you have to be a comic book fan to either laugh or be offended by it.

My score: 8/10. In the movie, the Joker does bad things because he feels neglected and unappreciated by Batman's constant indifference to him. This movie actually claims bad things happen because Batman's a jerk. I wasn't aware filmmakers had guts like that. Respect.