In Theaters: The Judge *1/2

Yeah...this is going to be a short post.  I don't like spending a lot of time writing bad reviews.

On paper, The Judge appears to be something special.  It has a great cast.  It had a great trailer.  In fact, when I saw the trailer the first time, I thought for sure this was surefire Oscar bait.  The previews seemed to scream: "For your consideration!"  But, now that I've seen the movie, the only thing I can compare it to is this parody trailer from a few years back:

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.