Avengers Assemble Winning Combination

Hulk prepares to smash. Hulk strongest one there is. ©2012 Marvel Studios and Walt Disney Studios

When Aristotle said “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” (but he said it in Greek), who would have guessed he was talking about “The Avengers”? Have no doubt about it, this superhero feature may be the best of its kind.

The Avengers are a Marvel Comics superhero team that has been around since 1963. The team has had a changeable lineup over the years; the film’s lineup comprises Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). The Avengers are brought together by Samuel L. Jackson* (expertly played by Samuel L. Jackson) to deal with the threat of global destruction caused by Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Thor’s brother, stealing a device called The Tesseract. With this do-dad, Loki intends to open a portal to another dimension, allowing a force of alien Chitauri to help him enslave the Earth. What follows is 143 minutes of super-heroics.

The remarkable thing about “The Avengers” is that it manages to accomplish so much. There’s quite a bit to set up, from the shadowy machinations of S.H.I.E.L.D. , the agency that Jackson works for, to explaining the mumbo-jumbo of how The Tesseract will work its magic. Sandwiched in there are capsule introductions of our half-dozen heroes and the story of how they are brought together. Unlike, for example, 2002’s Spider-Man, which staggered under a tedious telling of the origin of a single hero before getting to the good stuff, “The Avengers” never feels long or laboured. There is sufficient levity to keep the film from bogging down in ponderous nerdity, but not enough to make it a joke, a fine line nicely managed.

Director Joss Whedon, who also has credit for the screenplay, captures the characters well, showing how disparate they are. They may have to work together, but they are not all friends, or even friendly. None of the friction in the team feels forced, but rather a natural product of the characters. Comic-book fans should appreciate that the characters seem true in spirit to themselves. Granted, Thor has an Australian accent, Black Widow doesn’t have a Russian accent, and Hawkeye’s flamboyant purple costume stays in the closet, but these are minor things that don’t get in the way of enjoyment. The purist may complain about Nick Fury, who is the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the comics, being replaced by Mr. Jackson, but Fury never really was much of a character. Mr. Jackson brings a lot more excitement to the role of S.H.I.E.L.D. head. One suspects the comic book writers would have used Samuel L. Jackson as the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. all along if they could have figured out how to use a real person in their comics.

The action scenes, as one would hope are bold and exciting. Keep in mind that I saw this in glorious 2D, so I cannot speak for how it looks in 3D (blurry with a chance of headaches, one suspects). There is a real sense of danger and the heroes rising to the occasion when all seems lost, which is the definition of cinematic heroism.

Performances are good throughout, though Scarlett Johansson stands out. Unlike many other superhero films, we find a capable, believable female character who is not simply eye-candy or a damsel in distress. Whedon can take some credit for having written it and Johansson for bringing it to life. Samuel L. Jackson is a joy to watch as himself, though, sadly, “Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking aliens on thismotherfucking planet” is a line that seems to have been left on the cutting room floor.

Given the awful “Iron Man 2.” the dubious “Thor,” and the so-so “Captain America,” it seemed a possibility that “The Avengers” could have come up short, but it delivers on all fronts: action, character, performances, and even intelligence. Most importantly, it takes us on a genuine journey, as these individual heroes come together and come to appreciate each other. It’s a pleasure from start to finish and the new measure of what a superhero movie should be.

Rating 5/5

*This character is sometimes mistakenly referred to as “Nick Fury,” but it is quite certainly Mr. Jackson.

Another Earth No Place Special

copyright 2011 Fox Searchlight Pictures

“Another Earth”, a film putatively about second chances, misses its chance to make a point. In this meandering character piece, a mirror version of Earth has been discovered, a world where we each have a duplicate self. What this means, philosophically or practically, to our world is never addressed, as director Mike Cahill chooses to focus his feature-film debut on Rhoda Williams (Brit Marling).

We meet Rhoda at the beginning of the film, when she is a bright 17 year-old student celebrating her acceptance to M.I.T. She leaves the party and is driving home when she hears a report on the radio about the discovery of the planet, which is soon dubbed Earth Two. While drunkenly scanning the sky for a glimpse of the planet, she collides with a car, killing a mother and child and leaving the father in a coma. Four years later, Rhoda is graduating from prison rather than university. She hides herself away from society, taking a job as a custodian at the local high school. The cleaning that she pursues as a heavy-handed metaphor to cleanse herself doesn’t work, leaving her restless. She enters a contest, hoping to win a place on a privately-funded space mission to Earth Two, wanting to escape her actions.

After an unsuccessful suicide attempt, she approaches John Burroughs (William Mapother), the man who survived the wreck. She goes intending to apologize for what she has done. She loses her nerve and, through a twist of shaky logic, winds up as his cleaning woman. John is a wreck, living in squalour, having let both the house and himself go. Mapother plays him reluctant and taciturn at the beginning, as if he has almost forgotten how to speak, so deep is his sense of isolation. With him not realizing who she is, the two grow close, Rhoda drawing him out of his despair and he, unknowingly, alleviating her guilt.

The film is ultimately unsatisfying because it fails to address the nature of the pair’s relationship. Rhoda is being unspeakably cruel, seeking to escape her guilt and responsibility rather than accepting it and coming to terms with it. She shows no consideration for the effect of her deceit on John, only wishing to feel better. The character is young, which may explain her self-centeredness, but the question of her narcissism and cruelty is never addressed. We are meant to feel sorry for Rhoda. A tale of redemption must first have the redeemed search for some kind of self-awareness. Jason Reitman deals with narcissistic protagonists in both “Up in the Air” and “Young Adult” more successfully, making their narcissism the focus of those films. In “Another Earth”, Cahill seems unaware of Rhoda’s character. One can’t believe Rhoda is ready or deserving of a second chance, either on this Earth or the other—where, she hopes, she didn’t kill anyone—because she hasn’t owned up to her actions. Even the struggle to do so would make her more sympathetic.

Another Earth is a low-budget, indie production and the sets and photography show it. There is nothing in particular to be faulted, but it is not visually distinguished. The focus is on the characters and the performances. Mapother’s performance has the required hint of neediness. Marling does, at times, come across as lost and hanging on the edge of adulthood. The real failing of the film is in the script (which Cahill and Marling co-wrote), not the performances themselves.

Despite a premise that sounds like science fiction, the broader implications of how such a discovery would affect our world, either physically or culturally, is never explored in any depth. The “what if?” element that characterizes good science fiction never comes into play. Putting the story into a broader context of a world facing an existential crisis would have made the mirror Earth central, rather than a contrivance.

“Another Earth” fails to make full use of its premise, fails as a redemption story, and fails to explore the narcissistic cruelty of its protagonist. Maybe the Earth Two version of this film does all of those things, but until it is available, “Another Earth” can be skipped without regret.

Rating: 2/5

State of Flux

How much are we who we were and how much are we who we’ve become? That’s the question that “State of Violence,” the latest film from director Khalo Matabane (Conversations on a Sunday Afternoon), addresses.

Bobedi (Hotel Rwanda’s Fana Mokoena) is a high-flying businessman, at the top of the new South Africa. He and his wife, Joy (Lindi Matshikiza), are living the good life. It’s a world totally removed from the violent apartheid-era township in which Bobedi was raised. The crimes he witnessed and the crimes he committed are old memories, decades in the past. When Bobedi and Joy are attacked by an intruder in their home, one who hints at knowing Bobedi’s past, it becomes clear that what’s done is rarely fully done. Joy is murdered by the masked-gunman, leading Bobedi to commence a search for the killer. His literal search for the killer runs parallel to his figurative search for himself.

Unfortunately, “State of Violence” doesn’t deliver on the promise of its premise. If ever there was a country where questions of past actions and present identity resonate, it must surely be South Africa. The transformation of Nelson Mandela from terrorist to respected statesman shows that simple answers don’t exist but that there is some way forward. The film does not delve into these questions with the depth or skill required to make the picture a meaningful commentary. We must content ourselves with one man’s story of revenge, but there, again, the picture fails. As a detective film or thriller, the plot is too pedestrian and straight-forward to give much satisfaction. It’s too broad to be a satisfying as a mystery and too shallow to be a satisfying social examination.

To be fair to Matabane, his star may have let him down as well. Mokoena’s face rarely gives much insight into what is supposed to be happening in Bobedi’s head. While Bobedi does undergo a journey, we only see it happening in the character’s actions, we don’t see it happening on his face or in his mind, so it is not convincing. Presley Cheweneyagae (star of 2005’s Best Foreign Language Oscar winner Tsotsi), as Bobendi’s brother, Boy-Boy, delivers more emotion, breathing some life into his flatly-drawn character.

The film is competently shot, though Matabane’s shaky camera-work leads more to distraction than a sense of urgency. One great chase scene, where such shooting would have really stood out, instead gets lost because of all the jitter in the scenes that could have been more stably shot. The director uses the township where Bobedi grew up, as a character in the film and does it well. What could have been voyeuristic comes across as real and not exploitative.

The film might have benefited from an extra twenty minutes to develop either theme in greater depth. Whether it is as social commentary or a mystery thriller doesn’t matter. Either would have been a better choice than this hybrid that delivers as neither. Much like its protagonist, “State of Violence” starts down an interesting path, but gets lost when it comes to a fork in the road.

Rating: 2/5

Wishes and Choices

Kesenia Rappoport and Filippo Timi in The Double Hour

Second chances can be rare, difficult to recognize, and hard to grasp. “The Double Hour” (La Doppia Ora), by director Giuseppe Capotondi, explores what second chances mean to us. To do this, he brings together two lonely souls, Guido, an ex-cop, and Sonia, a half-Slovenian, half-Italian hotel chambermaid. They meet at a speed-dating evening in Turn, where Guido is a regular. Sonia, who was present at the suicide of a hotel guest earlier in the day, is shaken and finds her first try at speed-dating overwhelming, one man after another trying to make an impression in just a few minutes before moving on to the next woman. Her suitors range from dull to profane. Guido’s guileless gloom touches something in her. The two are immediately drawn together.

Guido (Filippo Timi), widower, failed cop, and, it is hinted, alcoholic, is marking time, unable to connect directly with anyone. His hobby is sound recording; he uses a shotgun microphone to record sound, distancing him from the world around him while lending him some illusion of connection. The film’s name refers to a superstitious game he mentions to Sonia. When the hour and minutes of the time match (this works much better if one uses a 24-hour clock, as in Europe), it’s a “double hour” and one can make a wish. Sonia asks him if it works. He answers “no” with the certainty of one who has tried it innumerable times. Sonia (Ksenia Rappoport), left Slovenia when her mother died, trying to live with her father and his new family, but moved on when that didn’t work. Both are rootless and tentative, seeking a shelter in the broken places they both inhabit. Chance intervenes, however, with further loss.

It is at this point that the film addresses the question of how we deal with loss. Rappoport’s Sonia reels, effectively, between depression and mania, trying to work out her connection to Guido. Does the double hour hold power? Can it bring us back to a time and place we wish to be? Sonia finds herself in a world where the familiar seems alien and the choices we make carry more weight than our wishes to undo them. Timi’s Guido is more taciturn and restrained. He knows that wishes are not granted, however much one would hope. All we can do is choose to rebuild with the broken pieces we have, if we are brave enough. If we get our wish, what will we do with it?

The world Guido and Sonia inhabit is well-photographed but never showy. It captures the mood well, imparting a slight sense of longing, hinting that there is just a little something more we can’t see, a connection waiting to be made.

Loss, longing, love, hope, and fear drive so much of our lives, whether consciously or not, that The Double Hour should resonate with anyone who has had a moment of doubt or introspection. When the double hour comes, it will be our choice what to do with it.

Rating: 5/5