Occam's Razor

The Avengers: The Age of Ultron

I’m sure it’s just me, but I’m kind of hoping that one of these days between major crises the Avengers use their fantastic powers to do something about more pedestrian problems, like global warming or making sure litter is getting picked up along our highways. Instead, they are usually busy saving our world that these days seems frequently less worth saving.

In The Avengers: The Age of Ultron we at least get a different kind of criminal: one entirely of the Avengers own creation. Tony Stark and Bruce Banner just can’t help themselves after The Avengers raid a Hydra outpost and in the process acquire some artificial intelligence from a scepter once owned by Loki. The fighting is hardly over before they have pumped the A.I. software into J.A.R.V.I.S, Stark’s talking virtual machine with a mission to completely defend the planet. The result is Ultron. This sounds worthwhile: it would put The Avengers out of business. Naturally it’s not quite that simple and the only way Ultron can figure out how to keep the planet safe is to destroy all of humanity, which at least shows you that Ultron is not stupid. The Avengers get to spend the rest of the movie cleaning up their mistake. It probably won’t spoil any endings to tell you they eventually succeed, but of course not without a lot of work, sweat and character exposition. It was up to Joss Whedon to once again to pull it off.

Perhaps because of his original Avengers movie in 2012, the public was primed for more of the same. The result is that the movie is turning out to be one of the highest grossing movies of all time. However, the movie often feels anticlimactic, and a bit of a hot mess with a lot of it not making a whole lot of sense. Presumably audiences didn’t care too much, as they were far more interested in the spectacle and the nuances between character interactions than to worry about how coherent the story would be. There’s no time to ponder its logical holes and its directorial flaws however. Like the last Avengers movie, this is a speeding bullet and it’s all the audience can do to keep up with the moment-to-moment details.

For those into Marvel comics there is plenty to marvel over. Whedon clearly has not lost any of his directorial talent. Since Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Whedon can credit his success to a combination of story and interesting characters. When his superheroes aren’t trying to defeat Ultron, they are arguing with each other, or he’ll meander into controversial plot points such as a budding relationship between Black Widow and The Hulk. This is the part of the movie that brings home the bacon. The Ultron plot and all the carnage that results is mostly window dressing. What we really care about? Can Tony Stark’s bloated ego be controlled? Will Captain America stay pure? Can anyone but Thor wield his mighty hammer? This movie then is really a complex exploration of these many Marvel superheroes for you to enjoy. And enjoy it you will if you are into this stuff. If like me you didn’t read many comic books growing up and are not familiar with the nuances of all these characters, it’s more of a bloated shoot-em-up movie and thus more of the same.

The financial success of the movie speaks for itself and for Whedon’s wise choices directing the movie. While engaging, the movie arguably gets lost in these conflicts and contrasts of characterization. Just as Star Trek movies have a long backstory, so do these Marvel characters. The more you know the backstory, the more you are likely to enjoy it or be upset by Whedon’s interpretation. Without the backstory, it is just another bloated but reasonably engaging superhero movie, just with lots of superheroes imperfectly trying to work together. Frankly, I’d prefer more attention to the superhero part instead of the character part, which is why I’m probably rating it lower than most of those who waited in line for midnight showings have.

3.2 out of four-stars.

[xrr rating=3.2/4]

The Interview

I hadn’t planned to watch The Interview, but that was before I read this recent NPR story about North Korea’s unique way of killing its defense minister: using anti-aircraft guns. North Korea desperately tried to stop the release of The Interview some months back because it was not complementary to its dear leader. North Korea’s hack of Columbia Pictures though simply gave people reason to see a terrible movie. I have to wonder why Columbia Pictures executives, after having viewed this mess of a movie, would have released it at all. Releasing it at least let them cut their losses.

If you like sophomoric movies like Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues then you might like this movie, but I doubt it. This movie is highly grating, not the least bit funny even if inebriated and actually makes you feel sympathetic toward the North Korean dictator. He may be evil, but at least he’s not Dave Skylark. Kim Jong-un, like his father, is known for quietly having western tastes, at least in cars, women and bad TV. One of these bad TV shows is “Skylark Tonight”, starring Dave Skylark (James Franco), which is produced by his buddy Aaron (Seth Rogen). Skylark gives wild interviews with celebrities like Eminem, but Aaron is bored with their formula and hungers for the show to be newsier. When they discover Kim Jong-un is a big fan of his show, he reaches out to North Korea and is quickly granted an interview. This helps elevates their show in the ratings.

The plot involves an attempt by the CIA to use Skylark to kill the dictator. All it takes is a simple handshake and about twelve hours of waiting. Once the two actually meet though Skylark finds Kim to be his new bestest buddy and can’t imagine that he is as evil as he is portrayed. The humor of this movie, such as it is, includes lots of Lord of the Rings references, blowing things up with a tank, backslapping, and hard to watch buddy-love. There are also potty-mouth scenes that are not the least bit humorous and make sophomoric humor in the Anchorman movies seems somewhat elevated. Does Kim Jong-un “pee and poo”? This is one of the “humorous” plot points that this “movie” turns on.

In short, it’s a mess of a movie, and largely Seth Rogan’s carnage since he helped direct and write the movie. It’s amazing that they found backers for this piece of garbage. I’ve seen worse movies than this, but only a few, with Ishtar coming immediately to mind. I can’t actually assign a rating to this movie. It’s not quite zero, but its heartbeat is simply too feeble to read. Its dismal box office totals ($6.1M gross to date, with an estimated production cost of $44M) attest to this waste of money.

As with Anchorman 2 if you are going to watch this a few beers before the movie may help you sit through it, as anything that will lower your critical thinking is likely to help. But there’s really no way to turn this ugly weed into anything of redeeming value. The only funny thing about this movie is why North Korea went through the bother of trying to stop its release.