  B003V924PQ  Blasphemy? Perhaps. But the best thing about what may be the most rousing and well-crafted superhero movie since The Dark Knight is not the boffo action scenes that culminate in a New York City-destroying finale that rivals Michael Bay's obliteration of the Chicago skyline in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. No, the real appeal of The Avengers comes from the quiet moments among a group of decidedly unquiet humans, extra-humans, mutants, and demigods. In no particular order those are Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans), Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), S.H.I.E.L.D. world-government commander Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), and indispensable functionary Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg). That's a superstar lineup both in and out of character, and The Avengers brilliantly integrates the cast of ensemble egos into a story that snaps and crackles—not to mention smashes, trashes, and destroys—at breakneck pace, never sacrificing visual dazzle or hard-earned story dynamics. Writer-director Joss Whedon is no slouch when it comes to being a comic geek and he handles the heavy duty reins with efficient panache. The effects are of course spectacular. They include a monstrous flying aircraft carrier that is home base to S.H.I.E.L.D. and Nick Fury's Avenger Initiative; Tony Stark's gleaming skyscraper in midtown Manhattan; off-world scenes of malignant evil; as well as blindingly apocalyptic fights and the above-mentioned showdown that leaves New York a virtual ruin. Yet it's the deeply personal conversations and confrontations among the very reluctant team of Avengers that makes the movie pop. Full of humor, snappy dialogue, and little asides that include inside jokes, eye rolls, and personal grudge matches, the script makes these superhumans real beings with sincere passion or feelings of disillusionment. The conviction of the actors as they fully commit to their clever lines gives credibility to what comes off as more than simple banter, even during the more incredible moments among them (of which are many). The plot involves the appearance of Loki, disgraced villain and brother of Thor, who was also a key player in his eponymous movie. Loki has come to Earth to retrieve the Tesseract, a blue-glowing energy cube that is valuable beyond compare to forces good and evil throughout the universe. As Loki, Tom Hiddleston is supremely, yea gloriously appealing as the brilliantly wicked regal charmer who captures minds from S.H.I.E.L.D. and attempts to conquer Earth with the hideous army at his command. To say he is foiled is an understatement. His face-off with the Hulk is one of the giddiest moments in a movie filled with lightheaded mayhem, and is a perfect example of Whedon's throwaway approach to translating the mythic mystique of the Marvel comics universe. Though at times deadly serious (as deadly serious as an outrageous superhero destructo/fight-fest movie can be, that is), The Avengers is best when it lightens up and lets the fun fly alongside the powerhouse punches. By the way, a single blink-and-you'll-miss-it powerhouse punch is another moment that makes Hulk the most loveable underdog of a smashing green rage monster ever. That spirit of fun and pure adventure makes The Avengers the greatest kind of escapist Hollywood fantasy $250 million can buy. A blockbuster in the most literal sense. —Ted Fry |  In resourceful orphan Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield, an Oliver Twist-like charmer), Martin Scorsese finds the perfect vessel for his silver-screen passion: this is a movie about movies (fittingly, the 3-D effects are spectacular). After his clockmaker father (Jude Law) perishes in a museum fire, Hugo goes to live with his Uncle Claude (Ray Winstone), a drunkard who maintains the clocks at a Paris train station. When Claude disappears, Hugo carries on his work and fends for himself by stealing food from area merchants. In his free time, he attempts to repair an automaton his father rescued from the museum, while trying to evade the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), a World War I veteran with no sympathy for lawbreakers. When Georges (Ben Kingsley), a toymaker, catches Hugo stealing parts for his mechanical man, he recruits him as an assistant to repay his debt. If Georges is guarded, his open-hearted ward, Isabelle (Chloë Moretz), introduces Hugo to a kindly bookseller (Christopher Lee), who directs them to a motion-picture museum, where they meet film scholar René (Boardwalk Empire's Michael Stuhlbarg). In helping unlock the secret of the automaton, they learn about the roots of cinema, starting with the Lumière brothers, and give a forgotten movie pioneer his due, thus illustrating the importance of film preservation, a cause to which the director has dedicated his life. If Scorsese's adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret isn't his most autobiographical work, it just may be his most personal. —Kathleen C. Fennessy  An affectionate, extremely knowing spoof that also manages to be a full-blooded, rip-snorting scary movie, this Joss Whedon production should have horror fans levitating off of their seats with bliss. Kicking off with the best title card of the year, the film follows a standard assortment of college kids (jock, stoner, cheerleader, bookish Final Girl, etc.) as they head to the creepy, cobwebby location of the title. Meanwhile, a pair of blas� white-collar drones (the wonderful Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford) trudge through what appears to be just another day in the office. These plotlines are not altogether unrelated. Those averse to spoilers can be forgiven for applying earmuffs from here on out, but one of the beauties of Whedon and Drew Goddard's script is how it manages to continually up the ante, revealing the basics of its plot in the very first scene and then proceeding to run amuck within the boundaries it so gleefully establishes. (If you think you've got it figured out, just wait five minutes.) Although scoring major points for ambition, debuting director Goddard does occasionally struggle with the film's swings between laughs and screams, with a couple of promisingly scary scenes blunted by badly cued punch lines. In addition, as with many Whedon projects, some viewers may find this teetering on the edge of glibness, with every character sporting a full arsenal of almost too-clever wisecracks at the ready. Any such nitpicking, however, should be obliterated by Cabin's completely hellzapoppin' final act, which mashes-up seemingly every supernatural trope in existence into a coherent, outrageously plasma-soaked validation of the genre. In conclusion, if you have any interest in horror movies at all, you gotta see this. —Andrew Wright  The clarity of the Blu-ray format heightens the power and beauty of Hayao Miyazaki's striking ecological fable. A notable extra is "Behind the Studio," a short documentary that features composer Joe Hisaishi, studio executive Toshio Suzuki, and director Miyazaki (as well as this writer) discussing the making and significance of Nausicaä. "Enter the Lands" offers trailers of some of the Ghibli films and short descriptions of the main characters, but the map is rather tricky to navigate. Miyazaki's storyboards, timed to the soundtrack, were included in the previous release. Fans of Miyazaki's extraordinary films will want this Blu-ray for their libraries. (Rated PG: some scary imagery) —Charles Solomon |
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998 Items
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Jun 16, 2020
Jun 16, 2020
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