"Captain America: Civil War" PG 13
Set in the Marvel universe of movies, the third Captain America movie could be called Avengers also, and features a 1991 event that leads to the present day, where Tony Stark or Iron Man, is cornered into signing a government accord to keep the Avengers from wrecking cities. Captain America refuses to signs the contract, which leads to the arrival of a new threat, Baron Zemo, and a frame up job involving brainwashed Bucky, or the Winter Soldier.
Distant from the comic book series of the same name, the story has an armada of heroes and really two villains, and remarks on those being mentally distorted in some way.
The death of Stark's parents, spoilers included, leads him to get revenge on those who did it, in some way like the recent other versus movie by DC, but here the villain's motivations aren't to enact cold vengeance, but to crush the heroes through misdirection so they fight each other.
CACW is actually a very tense and fun movie, and has more charm than either of the new DC Superman reboot movies, making them scramble to upgrade their line up in reprisal.
The one drawback is the three act formula of some bad guy wants revenge, which is becoming old, but they distract enough in the telling to keep you interested.
Nitpicking the film, someone falls from the sky like many others had, and there was at least five minutes there to rescue him and not use that plot.
Also when did Cap find out about 1991? If he found out after he got thawed out, which is evident, then he could have just told Tony about it and no boss fight would have happened. Still this part was handled way better than the twist in that BvS movie where the link there is someone's mother's name, when that is equally contrived.
They handled the reboot Spider Man very well though and had an accurate version of him, closer to the comics, even if his aunt was a little too young.
Also Black Panther is one of those odd stereotyped Marvel characters from the 1960s that gets a free pass because he's a good guy. It's still kind of weird that he happens to be literally from Africa andall.
When they did Iron Man 3 they were the opposite with the obviously tasteless Mandarin, who they made a white guy, but he was a villain, because they had a large Chinese market they did not want to offend.
Clearly they do not find a character associated with an American protest group, and both came out coincidentally about the same time, at all offensive and it was okay, not that there is anything wrong with that if they intended to do it.
It is a very good Avengers film, even though as Marvel fan material the blog is supposed to say this is the best ever. It's not the best, but it's a good sequel.
Review by Adam Browne
Monday, May 16, 2016
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Review: "Keanu" is cute and vulgar in a familiar way
"Keanu" R
Kay and Peele break off from their 2 season Comedy Central show, which was lorded as a rip off of Dave Chappelle since it started, and of the Internet Charlie Brown Kwanzaa parodies of Most Offensive Video, and many others. to make a movie.
The story starts out with a Boondock Saints meets The Boondocks cartoon like fight in a gangland town where thugs have a gunfight over drugs while a kitty, mostly a CGI motion capture animal, runs off into the darkness.
Presumably some time later, the striped kitty arrives in east LA, ala Cheech and Chong and Slackers, and is taken in by a downtrodden pot smoking slightly portly dude who is sad because his girlfriend left him.
His more hip friend is taller and bald, and looks like he could be Mr. Clean, and he assures his friend that things will get better. Even though his wife is apparently running off to hang out with his pasty white and obviously sleazy neighbor for the weekend, the smarter dressed man still claims to be smarter.
The two men become like stand ins for Chapelle and various others, but without the same charisma.
When the kitty is taken by a rival gang, the down dude wants to go full gangsta and rescue the little guy, leading to one of the more amusing scenes, as they go full Lethal Weapon meets Let's be Cops meets 21 Jump Street and pretend to be ganstas to get the kitty.
The drug kingpin though wants them to swear loyalty by doing a job, and training some of his dippy lackeys, but the smart bald dude is a minivan driving poser who loves George Michael songs, and his stoner friend is given the job of going on the run.
When a disastrous cameo gunfight occurs, involving a certain chick from Scary Movie, the film dips into that territory. This could have been called Action Movie.
Much of the jive talking lines are lifted from comedians who did it better before, such as Dolemite, Moody and Pryor and Murphy, even Chapelle, and the Film Threat dudes over at Most Offensive Video. A lot of it comes from the slang from the Kwanzaa stories, but what made them funny wasn't the street talk. It was that Charlie Brown and Linus were speaking it. Put the lines in actual black dudes and they don't work as well.
Still the movie makes up for the manic riffs and one liners, by having a kind of circular narrative, far more interesting that a line-o-rama, and a long SNL sketch.
The other drug lord who wants the cat back is played pretty funny by the fellow comedian guy from CC. So there's that.
The GCI and real kitty moments are adorable and similar to those 'kitty in cute peril slides off a desk or a window sill' YouTube videos. Sometimes though the violence in the story makes it look like kitty is in actual peril, when he likely is not even real in those scenes.
Kay and Peele are not Eddie Murphy in his time, or Dave Chapelle in his, but they try. They could be cast in a Lethal Weapon comedy remake, but this kind of us one.
Review by Kal Kat
Kay and Peele break off from their 2 season Comedy Central show, which was lorded as a rip off of Dave Chappelle since it started, and of the Internet Charlie Brown Kwanzaa parodies of Most Offensive Video, and many others. to make a movie.
The story starts out with a Boondock Saints meets The Boondocks cartoon like fight in a gangland town where thugs have a gunfight over drugs while a kitty, mostly a CGI motion capture animal, runs off into the darkness.
Presumably some time later, the striped kitty arrives in east LA, ala Cheech and Chong and Slackers, and is taken in by a downtrodden pot smoking slightly portly dude who is sad because his girlfriend left him.
His more hip friend is taller and bald, and looks like he could be Mr. Clean, and he assures his friend that things will get better. Even though his wife is apparently running off to hang out with his pasty white and obviously sleazy neighbor for the weekend, the smarter dressed man still claims to be smarter.
The two men become like stand ins for Chapelle and various others, but without the same charisma.
When the kitty is taken by a rival gang, the down dude wants to go full gangsta and rescue the little guy, leading to one of the more amusing scenes, as they go full Lethal Weapon meets Let's be Cops meets 21 Jump Street and pretend to be ganstas to get the kitty.
The drug kingpin though wants them to swear loyalty by doing a job, and training some of his dippy lackeys, but the smart bald dude is a minivan driving poser who loves George Michael songs, and his stoner friend is given the job of going on the run.
When a disastrous cameo gunfight occurs, involving a certain chick from Scary Movie, the film dips into that territory. This could have been called Action Movie.
Much of the jive talking lines are lifted from comedians who did it better before, such as Dolemite, Moody and Pryor and Murphy, even Chapelle, and the Film Threat dudes over at Most Offensive Video. A lot of it comes from the slang from the Kwanzaa stories, but what made them funny wasn't the street talk. It was that Charlie Brown and Linus were speaking it. Put the lines in actual black dudes and they don't work as well.
Still the movie makes up for the manic riffs and one liners, by having a kind of circular narrative, far more interesting that a line-o-rama, and a long SNL sketch.
The other drug lord who wants the cat back is played pretty funny by the fellow comedian guy from CC. So there's that.
The GCI and real kitty moments are adorable and similar to those 'kitty in cute peril slides off a desk or a window sill' YouTube videos. Sometimes though the violence in the story makes it look like kitty is in actual peril, when he likely is not even real in those scenes.
Kay and Peele are not Eddie Murphy in his time, or Dave Chapelle in his, but they try. They could be cast in a Lethal Weapon comedy remake, but this kind of us one.
Review by Kal Kat
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