Courtesy photograph
‘The Avengers’ has coolness of its heros
Scarlett Johansson stars in “The Avengers.”
Jason Wallis
- ‘The Avengers’
-
★★★ 1/2 (out of four)
2012, Dir. Joss Whedon, U.S., PG-13“The Avengers” is rated PG-13 for superhero violence and mild profanity.
- New films
-
‘Dark Shadows’
Director: Tim Burton.
Starring: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer.
The plot: An improsoned vampire, Barnabas Collins, is set free and returns to his ancestral home, where his dysfunctional descendants are in need of his protection.
Genre: Comedy, fantasy.
Rating: PG-13.
‘Where Do We Go Now?’
Director: Nadine Labaki.
Starring: Claude Baz Moussawbaa, Leyla Hakim.
The plot: A group of Lebanese women try to ease religious tensions between Christians and Muslims in their village.
Genre: Comedy, drama.
Rating: PG-13.
- Film roundup
-
“The Hunger Games”
★★
I enjoy exploitation as much as the next red-blooded American, but if I’m gonna wallow, I gotta wallow in style. Unfortunately, “The Hunger Games” is devoid of such style, with Ross preferring constant and inexplicable close-up shots, even in the most inappropriate moments. The action scenes (which come at a brisk clip once the maddeningly detailed expository scenes are through) are incoherent blurs of motion — somewhat understandable, given the difficulty inherent to depicting 12-year-olds being wantonly butchered, but still presumably avoidable with a competent artist in the director’s chair.
Posted: Friday, May 11, 2012 8:50 am
|
Updated: 10:21 am, Fri May 11, 2012.
‘The Avengers’ has coolness of its heros
The summer movie season is now underway, ushered in by the record-smashing debut of the long-awaited “Avengers” movie — surely the first of many, considering the truly remarkable box office receipts this juggernaut has generated in a very short time.
But is it deserving of such massive success and unanimous fanboy gushing, or has the unsuspecting public been duped into heaping hype and praise upon a merely “good” film? The answer is wrought with complications, and I’ll do my best to explain my conflicted (but generally quite positive) reaction to the film below. So please go easy on the hate mail.
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Posted in
Jason wallis
on
Friday, May 11, 2012 8:50 am.
Updated: 10:21 am.
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