New Release: Long Shot (2019)

Director: Jonathan Levine

A flawed but funny comedy very much in keeping with Seth Rogen's comedy film career trajectory.

Long Shot tells the story of Secretary of State Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron) – a bright and rising political star whose intelligence, political savvy, and photogenic image all suggest that she is poised to take the next great step into the presidency. During a charity dinner, Field comes across Fred Flarsky (Rogen), whom Field grew up around and even babysat for a time when she was in high school and Flarsky was in junior high. Flarsky has since become a highly independent journalist with a strong liberal bent, and one who has just quit his job at a small media outlet because it has been bought out by a massive, right-leaning media conglomerate. After their awkward reunion, Field brings Flarsky onto her team as a speech writer. The two, as different as they are in diplomacy and polish, start to reconnect and grow closer as they travel the world and try to put Field in a position to raise her political stock.

The movie is certainly entertaining enough. Like nearly every other Seth Rogen movie I’ve seen, he almost can’t help but be funny. He has always had a knack for selecting writers with whom he works well, and Long Shot has more than a few gags and lines that had me laughing out loud. It helps that the supporting cast all keep up admirably. Theron once again shows off her comic chops, though she does mostly play the "straight woman" to Rogen's typically goofy character. And others like O’Shea Jackson as Flarsky’s best friend and June Diane Raphael as Fields’s primary strategist only enhance the humor.

O'Shea Jackson Jr., left, as Flarsky's best friend, Lance.
Jackson's is one of several excellent supporting performances
that leave you wanting to see a bit more of him.

The story itself is fun enough, though lacking in a completely consistent tone. The humor is often fairly grounded, though it will take little flights into the more fantastic at times. This would normally be fine, but when one of the themes of the movie is the very real battle for women to be taken seriously and granted political power for more than just their looks, then sillier humor can feel a bit out of place. It still made me laugh, but it also dilutes what could have been a deeper message. Related is the rather obvious trope of the “dumpy, scruffy, average-looking guy hooks up with insanely beautiful woman” that is at the center of the movie. At first glance, this can be a bit off-putting. Once I thought about it, though, I actually appreciate it as a gender-reversal of sorts. In this movie, the male really has none of the obvious power here. Charlotte Field is more powerful, more beautiful, and at least as intelligent as the disheveled but principled Flarsky. For the most part, their established emotional connection feels organic enough without the woman serving the purpose of filling a powerful man’s needs. Quite the opposite – Flarsky is arguably there to fill one of the few needs that the immensely-successful Fields has – the need to rediscover what she truly loves in life, after so many years playing the game of optics in the high-stakes world of global politics.

I will offer the brief caveat that the humor in the movie can run into the raunchier end of things at times, which is par for the course in a Seth Rogen-headed film. The language is the primary source, but there are a handful of sex and body function gags in there, as well. I’m personally not bothered by such things, but it bears mentioning for those who may be put off by them.

My basic litmus test of a comedy is whether I would watch it again. With Long Shot, my answer is yes. It might not be right away, but it’s a fun rom-com that I can easily see my wife and I surfing across at night and staying to get some good laughs, along with a dash of depth.

Spoiler-Free New Release Review: Us (2019)

Director: Jordan Peele

A rather novel and compelling horror film by the director who brought us the seminal Get Out, but this follow-up effort I found to have some elements which weren't as effective as I suspect Jordan Peele hoped. Still, it's a movie well worth seeing.

Us follows the story of Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong'o) and her family - husband and two children, during a vacation trip to the shore. When the Wilson's are set upon by a quartet of eerie strangers, Adelaide is forced to recall some very disturbing memories from her childhood - memories which hint at a far larger, far more sinister and horrifying plot unfolding around them.

Being the spoiler-free section of this review, I can only say so much, so I'll stick to general reactions. I found the concept and overall story arc highly engaging. The great strength of this movie is the grand mystery around the Wilsons' attackers - who are they? Where did they come from? What do they want? The answers are teased out at a fairly satisfying pace, and they leave enough mystery in the end to allow viewers to draw more than a few of their own conclusions about several elements of the story. The other great strength of the film is, not surprisingly, the acting. Any movie headed up by Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke is one that you know is going to wring everything possible out of the script, and Us is no exception.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that this movie felt just a bit flat. I didn't find the tense moments all that tense, and I didn't find several of the expositions nearly as gripping as I've seen in other thriller/horror movies. To be completely honest, I didn't once feel a sense of dread or anxiety in this movie, unlike other recently-seen horror movies like Hereditary or even the same director's own Get Out. There were also a few of the plot elements that didn't seem to completely add up, though I feel that this is somewhat forgivable, considering that Peele was really swinging for the fences with this story.

I may eventually watch this movie again, or at the very least try to seek out a well-written study of its themes and over-arching messages. There is a certain amount to unpack in this film; I'm just not sure that I need to sit through the entire 2 hours one more time to get at the heart of it all. 

New Release with No Spoilers: Avengers: Endgame (2019)

No Spoilers Here - Read Away!

Directors: Anthony and Joe Russo

What a titanic piece of work, and one that takes more than a few risks. That is why it is a highly impressive follow-up to last year's Infinity War, and a wonderfully fitting final chapter to the Marvel Cinematic Universe's (MCU) first decade of blockbuster movie domination.

Before getting into my general thoughts, I should point out that Endgame, like its predecessor Infinity War, is not a friendly film for those unfamiliar with the seminal films of the MCU. For the last few years, the MCU has been better described as a large-scale film series rather than a group of individual films which take place in the same "universe". While a viewer certainly doesn't need to have seen all 21 of the previous MCU films, seeing at least a half dozen specific ones will provide far greater context for the events in Endgame. My personal recommendations for the highly recommended "homework" films would be:

Iron Man
Captain America: The First Avenger
The Avengers
Thor: The Dark World
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Captain America: Civil War
The Avengers: Infinity War
Ant-Man and The Wasp

There are a few other films that one could watch in order to fully understand some of the lesser plot points and gags in Endgame, but the nine listed above will give one a very solid foundation upon which to enjoy the new movie without feeling lost.

This being the "no spoiler" section, I cannot dive into the plot points except to state that Endgame spends a fair bit of time dealing with the fallout of Thanos's "snap" from Infinity War, with which he used the Infinity Gauntlet to literally annihilate half of the population of the known universe at the end of the previous film. The surviving superheroes grapple with the unfathomable loss just like everyone else - with varying degrees of success and failure. Some eventually move on. Others wallow in sad states of guilt and loss. Eventually, a possible and highly risky form of salvation is presented and those heroes left behind pull themselves together to try and enact it in an effort to bring back the countless numbers of people lost.

One of the movie's many strengths is seeing who among the
survivors ends up teaming together in the name of the new
mission laid out by Endgame.

Perhaps the thing that stands out to me about Endgame is just how different the pace and tone are, compared to Infinity War. That previous movie had an extremely brisk pace and plenty of action, right from the jump. Endgame takes a much different approach, using nearly all of the first act (which clocks in at nearly an hour) in a somber mood, looking at the familiar characters dealing with their grief and some still searching for solutions. It's not without humor, to be sure, but the moments of levity are fewer and further between than any MCU film I can recall. For a dedicated fan of the MCU like myself, however, this was a very welcome and all-but-necessary shift, coming on the heels of such a wild and devastating end to Infinity War. Viewers not familiar with the main characters' backstories are likely to be bored by the slower pace, but such is always the case when one picks up a series in its final chapter. Once the second act begins, though, things pick up quite briskly.

The second act of the movie was a very fun one, despite being the most obvious form of fan service in the entire 22-film MCU. This is not to say that it felt contrived or pandering. It actually does make complete sense within the plot of the movie, all while offering real fanboys and fangirls tons of "wink wink, nudge nudge" moments for about an hour, as we recall the many, many details from earlier movies referenced in this part of the epic film. It all culminates in scenes teased, suggested, and hoped for based on Infinity War - a third-act battle sequence of huge proportions and featuring just about every major and secondary character from the 21 previous MCU movies. And as they've done with their three previous MCU movies, the Russos show that they know how to do immensely entertaining, large-scale action.

I don't think it's giving anything away to mention that time travel plays more than a small role in this movie (how else did we think the surviving Avengers might seek to undo Thanos's galactic genocide?). As with any story that uses time travel as a device, the plot can get messy and confusing if one thinks too much about it. Endgame doesn't get too bogged down in the weeds on this, which is probably for the best, but it does raise certain questions that I'm yet to come up with answers to, despite mulling them over for a good 48 hours after watching the movie. There are also a few other unresolved plot threads that may give you an un-scratchable itch, but there's nothing that torpedoes the main thrust of the story.

The other aspect at the heart of this film is the characters. Like the narrative, the Russos throw us more than a couple of curve balls here, presenting some heroes as totally shattered emotionally (and not always the ones you expect) while others remain staunchly dedicated to the seemingly futile search for a way to bring everyone back. It is during these inner struggles that it helps to know about the characters since knowing about their past motivations and relationships with each other adds greatly to the emotional impact of the entire movie, especially the first and second acts. And for fans who have enjoyed the emotional heart of this series going back to the earliest seminal movies Iron Man and Captain America: The First Avenger, the ending should be immensely satisfying.

***Since writing the above, I've seen the film an additional two times and thoroughly enjoyed its full length all three times. Of course, I'm a tremendous fan of this series, but it speaks very highly of such a long film that even a dedicated fan can gain so much enjoyment from it.

Spoiler Section - Beware!!!

So let's get into this thing a little more. I could probably write a 20,000-word rabbit hole piece about so many specific details and how I loved or disliked them, but I'll stick to a few of the larger points.

The time travel. Let's get this out of the way. As a plot device to resolve the devastation unleashed in Infinity War, it was a necessary evil. But evil it still was. Yes, it provides a great reason for our heroes to go back and revisit moments chronicled in several earlier films in the series, and do so in some wonderfully entertaining ways. But still, when one thinks about it all for more than a few moments, it all falls apart rather quickly. If 2014 Thanos, along with his army and Gamorah and Nebula, jumps ahead to 2023 to confront the Avengers and gets annihilated, then you've now obliterated all of the things that Thanos (and his army and daughters) did up to and after Guardians of the Galaxy. That has a lot of massive impacts, the most obvious of which is that Thanos is now no longer around to kick of the Infinity War story. On a smaller scale, Steve Rogers going back and staying in the 1940s to live out his life with Peggy Carter (a wonderfully satisfying moment of closure) leaves a ton of unanswerable questions about their relationship, such as why Peggy doesn't ackowledge him as her husband back in The Winter Soldier. And on and on the questions go, leading to a completely shattered continuity. That's by far my biggest issue with this movie. Again, though, it was probably a necessary evil, given exactly what had happened previously.

My other gripes are much smaller and easily shrugged off. The final battle is highly enjoyable, though I could have done without the high amount of posing and the cringe-worthy "She'll have help," up-with-women moment towards the end. Don't get me wrong - I love the women characters in the MCU, and I love seeing them kick ass, whether individually or together. But that moment felt so contrived that it broke my enjoyment of the battle. Oh, and why does anyone, including Peter Parker or anyone else, think that Captain Marvel needs any help to get through a few score foot soldiers? Did they not just see her single-handedly bring down Thanos's immense warship by flying through it in about 10 seconds flat? Those and a few other things had me rolling my eyes a bit, but again - easily shrugged off.

What impressed me the most is how the plot defied my expectations. As I do with all blockbuster movies which I'm eager to see, I completely blocked out any trailers or other information about the movie. That way, it could reveal itself to me upon my first viewing. Endgame rewarded that approach. Having a handful of the remaining Avengers rather quickly track down Thanos and execute him was not something I saw coming, nor was the five year jump in the narrative. And then there was fat Thor, Black Widow's sacrifice, and Steve Rogers electing to go back and reclaim the life he lost in 1945. I really do feel like the writers took some real risks with this story. They could very well have done a full two-and-a-half hour "let's go get Thanos" story, but they elected to focus more on dealing with loss and fighting to undo a horrendous tragedy rather than focus more on a revenge tale. I think this made the movie a great counter-balance and follow-up to Infinity War, which was a very fast-paced film heavily emphasizing action/adventure elements over emotional touchstones.

The curious thing now is the question of where the MCU goes from this point. It was a bold stroke to move the entire universe five years into the future, which threatens to really jerk with the continuity that many of us MCU nerds cherish. The threat of dangling time threads aside, I'm still completely on board with what may come. Right now, there are only a few "known" movies planned, but details are extremely slim. I do hope to see at least one more movie featuring the "Asguardians of the Galaxy," as Portly Thor referred to them. That team-up has a dizzying amount of entertainment potential.