Quick Hitters: Ender's Game and Thor: The Dark World

So...yeah, it's been a while.

Not sure how it happened, but I currently owe reviews on five theatrical releases, not to mention a few movies I caught at home that I'd also like to write about at some point.

Tonight, I will begin the process of digging myself out of this hole.

Typically, I hate writing quick-hitter, capsule reviews.  I'm fully aware that I, myself, am the main beneficiary of this blog and, when I write just a short, one-shot review of a movie, I feel like I'm robbing myself of the writing exercise this blog was created to provide.  

But...what're you gonna do?

Luckily enough, a few weeks back, I saw two movies that I don't have strong feelings about.  Neither of these films were terrible, but they didn't really lend themselves to any sort of deep-dive analysis or recounting.  Thinking about them now, it's actually hard to remember more than just general details anyway.  In short, I don't think I'm doing myself -- or any of my five readers -- a great disservice by offering abbreviated reviews of these two films.

So, without further ado, I offer my short takes on both Ender's Game  and Thor: The Dark World.

Ender's Game **

I suppose I should say up front that the novel upon which this movie is based is not my favorite book of all time.  If it were, I would have been sorely disappointed.  As it was, my disappointment was only mild.  

This is basically a cliff's notes version of Orson Scott Card's sci-fi classic that gives short shrift to some of the most compelling parts of the original story and waters down everything else.  Ender's Game was always going to be a difficult cinematic lift and it would be impossible to get everything just right in a two-hour movie.  But, even if you give the filmmakers the necessary leeway to accomplish what it is a near-impossible task, it's hard not to think that there was a better movie in there somewhere.

The movie comes with spectacular visuals -- particularly in the scenes in the zero-gravity chamber wherein war-games commence -- enough to keep you from thinking you've completely wasted a couple hours of your life.  There's just very little there there when it comes to the story and the characters.

Asa Butterfield -- the star of the magnificent Hugo from a couple years ago -- seems miscast playing the titular hero.  But, that may just have been the dialogue.  And, as always, Harrison Ford -- playing the Colonel Gruff...err...Graff -- phones in another surly performance.

All in all, this is a nothing-burger a movie, which isn't all that bad.  It's just a little sad that they wasted so much of the potential that came with the source material.

Thor: The Dark World **1/2

Simply put, if you liked the first Thor movie -- a Flash Gordon-esque romp of stupidity that was somehow way better than it should have been -- you'll like Thor: The Dark World.  With this sequel, they've successfully recreated the tone and overall feeling of the first film and essentially made what feels like the same movie all over again.

That's not a complaint, just an observation.

The one thing missing from this second film is Tom Hiddleston's Loki.  Sure, he's in the movie.  But he doesn't have nearly the screen time that he deserves.  As Chris Hemsworth walks around flexing and while Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins make you wonder what they're doing in a movie like this, all you can do is wait for Loki to show up.  And, when he does -- for longer than a single scene -- it's the best part of the movie.

Yes, despite the name of the movie and Hemsworth's top billing, Tom Hiddleston is the undisputed star of the Thor franchise.  Deal with it.

In the end, this is a super hero movie.  If those types of movies are your bag -- and they're definitely mine -- you'll find more to like than to dislike with this movie.  That's precisely where I come down, hence the two and a half stars.

In Theaters: Snow White and the Huntsman ***

Evaluating Snow White and the Huntsman is pretty easy.  It's all a matter of assigning grades and finding the averages.  Basically, this is a movie with A+ production values, but only C-level story telling.  That puts it solidly in the B range.  Of course, I don't give movies grades, I give them stars.  Using my grade-to-stars conversion system, a solid B is worth roughly three stars.

Everyone with me so far?  Good.

This new telling of the familiar fairy tale marks the feature film debut for director Rupert Sanders.  Apparently, from what I've gathered, his pre-Snow White directing credits have been limited to TV commercials.  He shows remarkable visual flair with his first movie, but he has a little trouble checking all the boxes in terms of story and character development.

This is a different take on the Snow White story than we're used to.  It may be more faithful to the original Grimm's fable, I really have no idea.  But, the most basic and familiar elements are all present -- magic mirrors, dwarves, poisoned apples, spell-breaking kisses, etc.

In the prologue, we learn that Snow White was the daughter of King Magnus, a noble and beloved ruler.  Her mother died while she was a small child and his father eventually marries Ravenna (Charlize Theron), who eventually turns out to be the evil queen/stepmother character that we all know and love.  Obsessed with keeping her youthful beauty and threatened by that of her stepdaughter, Ravenna locks Snow White away in the tower for many years.

Unsurprisingly, the queen is also something of a witch, possessing the power to suck the youth and beauty out of her victims in order to maintain her own.  She also converses with a magic mirror that, when spoken to, morphs into something of a cross between the T-1000 in Terminator 2 and a Dementor from the Harry Potter movies.  The scene in which the mirror is introduced is legitimately terrifying and is the first of many visual triumphs of the movie.  It's also in that scene that the mirror informs Ravenna that, by eating the heart of Snow White, she can remain young and beautiful forever.

She sends for her captive, who is now an adult (played by Kristen Stewart, the boring chick from the Twilight movies).  Snow White uses this opportunity to escape the castle and she evades the queen's men, one of which is the queen's brother (Sam Spruell), sort of angry, gross Prince Valiant type, and heads into the Dark Forest.  The queen's men won't dare enter the forest without a guide, so Ravenna hires the titular Huntsman (played by Thor, himself, Chris Hemsworth) to lead the pursuit.  As payment, the queen promises to resurrect the Huntsman's dead wife.

Thus begins the meat of the story wherein the Huntsman finds Snow White and decides to protect her instead of turning her in.  Then, they meet up with a gaggle of dwarves, all played by recognizable non-dwarf actors, including Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, and Nick Frost, their faces super imposed on the bodies of actual little people when necessary.  This led to a small (no pun intended) controversy as groups representing the interests of little people weren't happy about these casting choices.

The middle third of the story features some of the most brilliantly rendered visuals of any movie this year.  There is an outstanding showdown between Snow White, the Huntsman, and a massive troll that happens to be hiding under a bridge in the Dark Forest.  At one point, Snow White, the Huntsman, and the dwarves leave the Dark Forest and enter some kind of fairy land.  The look of this scene has all the conventions of a familiar fairy-tale landscape, yet is also stunningly original.  It is also one of the only moments in the movie where the visuals match the intended emotional impact.  If every scene in the movie were constructed so well, I'd have given it four stars.

Shortly thereafter, the movie devolves into a conventional medieval battle flick.  The charge up to the castle is competently depicted, yet it is not unique enough to set it apart.  There is some good filmmaking in these climactic moments, but we're never invested enough in the characters to really care about the outcome.

In the end, that is the major flaw of Snow White and the Huntsman and it's a big one.  The characters are all one-dimensional, no arcs, no nuance.  Perhaps that's how it has to be -- this a retelling of a classic fairy tale, after all.  Yet, from the outset, it's pretty clear that this ain't your grandfather's Snow White.  They went to great lengths to darken the story and give it a little edge, at least in terms of the visuals.  Seems like it would have been a perfect opportunity to create some internal conflicts or contradictions, to give Snow White some flaws or the Evil Queen some sympathetic moments.  But, other than a hint at a quasi-feminist explanation for the Ravenna's beauty obsession, there's none of that, which is a shame.

That said, it's clear that Charlize Theron had a ball making this movie.  People tend to forget that she's actually an outstanding actress despite some poor post-Oscar role choices. And, in this movie, it's almost like she's teaching master class in chewing the scenery...and I mean that as a compliment.  The way she hams up every scene -- speaking too loudly, over pronouncing and accenting words -- her evilness is evident from the outset and you can't help but enjoy the ride.

I don't know, perhaps my praise of this performance undermines my earlier complaint about the lack of complexity.  Indeed, had there been any subtlety to Ravenna's character, Theron's performance probably wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable.  But, in the end, it's the sum of the parts that matters most.  So, if offered, I think I would have traded the campy-but-goodness of Theron's work in the movie with an overall more compelling character arc.

In the end, this a very enjoyable, imminently watchable movie.  I'd definitely see it again, which is, I think, high praise for what is essentially just a summer popcorn movie.  Ultimately, if you liked what you've seen in all the trailers, you'll like this movie.

In Theaters: The Avengers ****

Alright.  I saw it.

Truth be told, I went into the movie this morning thinking that I'd end up shooting holes and nit-picking the whole thing when I got around to writing my review.  I'm not exactly sure why.  I'm a sucker for super hero movies, so I was certain that I would like it, I just wasn't prepared to buy into the hype.  I suppose that's because I haven't been sold on this whole Marvel Universe thing.

Prior to this film, the Marvel Universe endeavor has consisted of one stellar movie (Iron Man), one terrible movie (Iron Man II),  a couple movies that aren't great but will do in a pinch (The Incredible Hulk and Captain America), and a movie that was remarkably entertaining notwithstanding the fact that it was pretty lame (Thor).  With that decent-but-not-great build up, I was certain that I'd like it, but I just hadn't been able to get fully on the bandwagon when it came to The Avengers.

So where am I now?  Am I a full-blown believer in the genius of the Marvel Universe?  Is it the greatest idea in the history of cinema?  I don't know.  But, I will say that, with The Avengers, they did everything right.  And, while the composite parts of the Universe that lead to The Avengers haven't all been stellar, they helped make this movie better.