Fantastic Four (2005)/Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)

rating (combined): ****

the story: Reed Richards leads a scientific mission that inadvertently gives his team superpowers; the Silver Surfer arrives on Earth as a herald of the apocalypse.

review: In hindsight the Fantastic Four duology featuring Ioan Gruffudd (Mr. Fantastic), Jessica Alba (Invisible Woman), Chris Evans (Human Torch), Michael Chiklis (Thing), and Julian McMahon (Dr. Doom) is one of the most tightly-conceived superhero movie experiences yet filmed.

In the wake of the X-Men (energized comic book fans) and Spider-Man (energized mass audiences), the Fantastic Four always had a tough few acts to follow.  Where the X-Men became known for Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, Sam Raimi only ever had to contend with one hero.  History has shown that if you try to focus on a number of superheroes in one movie, you really need to earn it.  And Fantastic Four (2005) introduced, well, four of them, and they all compete for attention.  You can kind of tell in the sequel, Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) how there was the perception that Chris Evans' Human Torch dominated the first one too much, or that maybe Michael Chiklis's Thing was too depressing.  One consistent element was the relationship between Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman.  They go from catching back up romantically in the first one to spending virtually the entire second one trying to get married.  There's no loss of focus there.  It's the most direct a second superhero movie has ever come to being a true sequel since Superman II played out the threat of General Zod and company introduced in the first one.

I can only guess the number of reasons why these movies have always been perceived as familiars.  Aside from Thing, it's also depressing to think that the nominal lead, Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic), is basically the Absent-Minded Professor.  The Robin Williams version of that character has virtually the same arc as Reed across his two movies in Flubber (1997).  Unlike Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker (Spider-Man), Ioan Gruffudd never gets to look cool, partly because, again, Evans spends all his time in the first one making Johnny Storm (Human Torch) look as cool as possible.  And Johnny is also just as clearly always a supporting role, made all the more clear in the second one, even though technically he has the most redemptive arc and gets the save the day.

I also get the sense that superhero movies viewers will never be able to admit how uncomfortable they are watching women be superheroes.  Jennifer Garner, by all rights, should have become iconic after Daredevil (2003), but her solo follow-up Elektra (2005) was the flop that doomed both the character and the franchise.  Halle Berry's Catwoman (2004) was a flop, too, and she was consistently deemed a weak link in her role as Storm in the X-Men movies.  And despite there being ten years worth of Avengers movies now, there has still not been a single solo Black Widow movie.  Yet there are plenty of high profile action movies led by women, including the Hunger Games series and Wonder Woman (2017). 

So the fact that Jessica Alba has a prominent role in both movies as Susan Storm (Invisible Woman), to my mind, is no coincidence.  You might try to argue that it's the nature of how she's used in the movies, but I don't buy it.

It might not help that along with Chiklis (The Commish, The Shield) and McMahon (Charmed, Nip/Tuck), Alba was previously best known in a TV show (Dark Angel), so it gives the movies a smaller feel than the superhero movies before and after it, by and large populated by known movie stars.  The only one among them truly hamstrung in performance for this is McMahon, who never really earns the menace needed to sell the Doom the mere human Victor Von Doom becomes.  I don't usually like manipulating voices; giving him an entirely new one might have done the trick.  Laurence Fishburne is fantastic (heh) voicing the Silver Surfer in the second one.

Speaking of Rise, a lot of fan complaints for this one stem from the fact that we never actually get to see Galactus.  For those who don't know, Galactus in the comics is a gigantic humanoid in purple armor.  I don't know how that works in a movie.  Rise instead depicts him as a menacing cloud.  If anything is wrong with the concept it's that the movie dedicates all its foreshadowing of his threat to the random journeys of the Surfer around the globe.  There's very little effort made to sell Armageddon.  You can see, throughout both films, that the budget was mostly reserved for selling how cool the team's superpowers are, and certainly in contrast to later Avengers movies that's going to look disappointing, but the team's powers are cool, especially Human Torch and Invisible Woman's.  Thing stands out so much, it's really a wonder that so little effort has ever been made to give him solo stories, in the comics.  If there were solo movies for these guys, he'd be a natural lead, right along with his frenemy Johnny Storm.

Even if Doom can be disappointing, he makes for an effective, well-explained enemy, which is something a lot of superhero movies struggle to find.  That's another reason these movies look better in retrospect.  They have a lot going on, but they never bog down in following the journeys of each member of this strange family.  They have much better defined arcs than the generalized family shenanigans of the Pixar Four, the Incredibles.  And they're always going to have much more storytelling potential.  There was a reboot in 2015, equally underappreciated.  Tim Story directed both of these, and he's made a career directing duologies.  Just, never again, superhero movies.  That seems a shame.

American Made (2017)

rating: ****

the story: Based on a true story, an airline pilot finds himself drafted into the Iran-Contra Affair.

review: Tom Cruise was one of the biggest movie stars of the '80s and '90s.  At the turn of the millennium his reputation took a big hit due to his increasingly visible affiliation with the Church of Scientology.  Subsequent film projects had to compete with this reputation, and he's never been as popular since.  All that being said, his career remains fascinating.  He starred in Born on the Fourth of July in 1989, a drama that helped define his career.  Suddenly Cruise wasn't just a hotshot playboy but someone who had something to say about the state of the country, even if he was commenting on the war in Vietnam, already fifteen years in the past by then.  It wasn't until Lions for Lambs in 2007 where he offered a true follow-up.  This was a movie about the increasingly toxic cultural divide that had resulted in part from the Vietnam era. 

And then in 2017, he gave us American Made.  Unlike his earlier efforts, this one doesn't attempt to lecture about what's right or wrong.  The whole point of the movie is that Cruise's character has no idea, and never really cares, about the implications of his actions, which involve the CIA hiring him to take reconnaissance photos in Central America, and then to deliver drugs to revolutionaries in Panama, including future dictator Manuel Noriega, and finally guns to the Contras in Honduras.  Director Doug Liman's whole approach to the movie draws on Cruise's charisma and recent reputation as an action star, and turns all that on its head.  This is a movie to be enjoyed with irony.

Late in the film Cruise has been arrested and charged for his activities, but the sequence feels more like Jack Reacher, in the second movie Never Go Back, explaining to authorities that he's going to walk away from the situation.  For a split second he has to worry about actually facing consequences, going to jail, but then he hears his sentencing as community hours.  But he begins worrying about real ramifications, from something worse than a trial, expecting his car to be laced with explosives, after a car his brother-in-law has just gotten in blows up.  It's really a movie that understands tone, and its message about what these events really signify doesn't need to be hammered as a result, and that's refreshing in an era where everything is delivered with as much bluntness as possible.

Domhnall Gleeson, appearing in just about everything these days and constantly changing up his persona, is Cruise's CIA handler, depicted much as CIA handlers tend to be (similar to how they're depicted in The Hunting Party, for example), but elevated thanks to Gleeson's uncanny ability to be fascinating in the most mundane ways possible (his scene-chewing snarls in Star Wars films notwithstanding).  Jayma Mays plays the prosecutor who thinks she's nailed Cruise; ever since her breakthrough in Red Eye I've been waiting for something worthy to fall in her lap, and this is it.  Caleb Landry Jones picks up another scene-stealing supporting role as the ill-fated brother-in-law.  For me, it was fun seeing Star Trek: Enterprise standout Connor Trinneer in a small role as a young George W. Bush.  His character isn't identified, but Trinneer certainly looks the part, and his scene adds a nice additional irony to the proceedings. 

Given his lowered profile, Cruise can no longer count on his projects landing the way they once did.  More often than not his interesting work is slipping through the cracks.  It'd be a shame if American Made did.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

rating: ****

the story: Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man.

review: This is the fourth Spider-Man movie, first not directed by Sam Raimi or starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst.  In other words, it's the first of two directed by Marc Webb and starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone.  I much, much prefer these movies.  I get the goofy appeal of the Raimi films (the first two of which are greatly admired by the public at large, the third not as much).  Ever since Adam West first dressed up as Batman, or even George Reeves as Superman, audiences kind of expect a little smirk in their superhero.  The Avengers movies certainly benefit from that perception.  I don't think it's necessary.  I think you can take superheroes seriously.  And I think along with Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder, no one's done it better than Marc Webb.

The only thing I don't like about Amazing Spider-Man is the giant mutant lizard Rhys Ifans becomes.  I think giant mutant villains of any kind is exactly what's wrong with a lot of superhero movies.  I like the villains to be identifiable, not cartoons.  The superheroes themselves are enough of a stretch in storytelling logic.  To make any sense they need to inhabit the real world, as close to the real world as possible.  That can't happen with giant mutant villains.

Other than the giant mutant lizard Rhys Ifans becomes, this is as intimate and realistic a superhero movie as you're ever likely to find.  The classic template of the origin story is there, a lot like you saw it in Raimi's first movie, but it feels more authentic in Webb's telling.  Webb's best film is (500) Days of Summer, a heartbreaking romance where the breakup is fore-ordained and never undone, and the whole point is trying to make peace with it, and why it happened in the first place.  So why does Peter Parker become Spider-Man?  Well, in this version it has a lot to do with his parents. 

Yeah!  In most Spider-Man stories, Peter's parents are dead and forgotten, right from the start.  Their absence is taken for granted.  We see him raised by his aunt and uncle, the one who also has to die in order for Spider-Man to be born.  But in this version, even in their absence Peter's parents means a great deal.  We see that they were involved in the science that eventually results in Spider-Man, and the giant mutant lizard played by Rhys Ifans.  And it's Peter chasing after his absent parents that drives the story.  That's full storytelling.  Never let an absence become an absence. 

I'm not faulting Ifans for the failure of the giant mutant lizard.  Ifans is awesome!  He's never gotten enough credit, or enough work, for the level of integrity he brings to the table.  He's a perfect match for Garfield, and for Stone, who are both credible high school students (I can't say the same for the guy who inherited Garfield's mask).  The whole idea of Peter Parker feels real in this incarnation.  Uncle Ben is played by Martin Sheen, who like Ifans has never quite gotten the credit he deserves, despite at least two exceptional spotlights (Apocalypse Now, The West Wing, plus a supporting role in The Departed).  Sheen feels real, too, and his death is a real tragedy.  Field is Aunt May, and once Sheen is out of the picture, she fills in his void.  This is a movie about voids being filled.  That's what Spider-Man is all about, and that's what his movies ought to be about, and what the characters in them ought to represent.  And Denis Leary plays Stone's dad, the police captain who fills the void the absence of J. Jonah Jameson creates, the cynic who rejects the idea of Spider-Man.  Until he has a change of heart, when he no longer has a choice.  At which point he has Peter make an impossible promise.  But the last line of the movie is what ties it all together.  Peter admits that promises you can't keep are the best kind. 

The traditional logic of Spider-Man is that like all superheroes he eventually makes a vow to do what's right ("with great power comes great responsibility"), but Spider-Man is an act of defiance against all logic, not in a destructive way, but a redemptive one.  That's what his origin is meant to convey.  For the first and perhaps only time, a movie reflects that.  It's worth celebrating.

Lions for Lambs (2007)

rating: ****

the story: Two conversations tackle the state of America in 2007.

review: From the vantage point of 2018, the conversation in America sucks.  Lions for Lambs captures perhaps the last real opportunity the nation had to correct this before it became impossible for differences to be set aside and people to be civil about their political differences.  At the time of its original release, it was dismissed as talky, academic.  I always found the results, all the same, to be fascinating.  Today they're downright essential.

A political science professor played by director Robert Redford and a brilliant but disenchanted student played by Andrew Garfield form one of the conversations.  A hotshot Republican played by Tom Cruise and a liberal reporter played by Meryl Streep form the other conversation.  Soldiers played by Michael Pena, Derek Luke, and Peter Berg participate in military maneuvers, illustrating the realities of what their talking about.  I love the idea of Redford, Cruise, and Streep converging on something.  I love Garfield already submerging himself in vital material.  I think few actors today have chosen as interesting material, as consistently, as Andrew Garfield.

Cruise was still working at winning back his credibility after his affiliation with the Church of Scientology had become toxic.  Today he subsists mostly on Mission: Impossible movies.  The opportunity has definitively, it seems, been lost.  Back in 2007, though, Lions for Lambs is a kind of latter-day answer to Born on the Fourth of July, the Oliver Stone movie where Cruise plays a real-life veteran who after having become paralyzed in Vietnam becomes disenchanted and begins protesting the war.  Garfield's role is the complete opposite of that role; he never even signs up.  That's exactly the legacy of the Vietnam era right there.  I saw it myself on campus in the early part of the century.  Garfield doesn't believe he can affect change, despite his passionate, well-considered opinions.  Today we see students protesting...everything.  But we don't see them inserting themselves into the process.  We've collectively decided the process is broken, just as Garfield's character does.  But Redford challenges Garfield to choose a different path.  He admits he was a Vietnam protester, too.  But to motivate Garfield, he tells him about two other students he had, Luke and Pena, who chose very different paths, enlisting in the army.  They give a brilliant presentation in his class explaining exactly why.

It's the juxtaposition of their thought process, Garfield's, and the fact that Redford is willing to support all three of them despite having other ideas.  He sees it as essential that participation, not protest, is chosen as a reaction.  When Obama was first elected, he was called a symbol of hope, that the system could still work.  After the Bush presidency, voters wanted to believe in positive change.  Yet Obama ended up presiding over a further polarized culture, not because he was black but because protest became a permanent way of life, disengagement, cynicism.

And that's what Cruise and Streep's conversation reflects.  Meryl Streep's career fascinates me.  At this point she hadn't yet chosen to represent the protests of Hollywood.  That was still reserved for documentary filmmakers.  She was only a few years removed from portraying a pastiche of Hillary Clinton in The Manchurian Candidate.  Later, she'd rocket to new levels of acclaim playing all sorts of morally superior figures, and be rewarded with a staggering array of Oscar nominations.  She'd become a figure out outrage.  Her character in Lions for Lambs ultimately decides on that path.  She opts to give up the idea of dialogue with the other side, after sitting through the conversation with Cruise.  Her producer begs her to keep trying.  She decides it isn't worth it anymore.

It's the kind of conclusion you can either agree with or find unsettling.  I find it the latter, and I see that as exactly what happened, over the past decade, and I think that was a massive mistake.  This is a movie that reflects what could've been.  And now it stands as a testament to what didn't happen, and why.

Maybe it's a little hard to watch, because it is talky, but sometimes that's exactly what's necessary.  Arguably, more than necessary.  And now it serves as testament to what should have happened, and why.  The sad part is, we know it was rejected at the time, as well as the idea it represented.