The Five-Year Engagement (2012)

The Five-Year Engagement (2012)
Dir. Nicholas Stoller

3.5 out of 5

The perfect is the enemy of the good in the relationship of Tom Solomon (Jason Segel) and Violet Barnes (Emily Blunt), the well-matched couple of The Five-Year Engagement. Tom has a blossoming career as a San Francisco sous chef and, within the film’s first five minutes, the ideal fiancé in Violet, a psychology postdoc banking on an offer from Berkeley. Their wedding plans are delayed when Violet is instead accepted into the University of Michigan, which precipitates a move to the Midwest and a thorough emotional inventory that causes the couple to doubt if they are truly prepared to take the plunge. The relaxed chemistry of the film’s two stars enhances its typical rom-com hijinks, even as it takes a more conventional approach to the material than Nicholas Stoller’s first collaboration with Segel, the hilariously angsty Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Like many Judd Apatow-produced movies before it, The Five-Year Engagement benefits from a stable of comedic ringers that adds variety to the consistently funny script. The supporting cast runs the gamut from stand-up comics (Brian Posehn, Kevin Hart) to sitcom scene-stealers (Mindy Kaling, Chris Parnell) to droll screen veterans (Rhys Ifans), and they riff off one another with ticklish glee. Then there’s Chris Pratt and Alison Brie, who put their own lusty spin on supportive “best friend” stereotypes as a mismatched duo that falls into bed together and, several smash cuts later, stumbles into the lifestyle that Tom and Violet are trying so hard to obtain. Their performances embody how hard the movie works to avoid the obvious. Stoller constantly squeezes humor out of situations that most romantic comedies would consider sacrosanct – when it’s time for Brie and Blunt to have a serious heart-to-heart about the direction of their lives, they impersonate Sesame Street characters to disguise their tone from Brie’s children. (Who knew that Elmo’s voice could make advice sound more sensible?)

Being the fruit of the Apatow comedy tree means that Engagement comes with built-in criticisms about its lengthiness and meandering pace. Several early scenes drag on uncomfortably long, and an entire act where Tom embraces his weird inner woodsman after an initial fish out of water period goes for incongruously broad laughs. But most of the extra time is well spent logically and colorfully fleshing out Tom and Violet’s evolving feelings toward marriage. It’s quite refreshing how film doesn’t pull punches in depicting the problems even the most compatible couples will have on their way to the altar. Sure, The Five-Year Engagement wanders a little too much on its way to comedic nirvana, but that’s tough to hold against a film about two people slowly realizing that a bit of growing apart is an unavoidable – and ultimately necessary – part of growing together.

Dark Shadows (2012)

Dark Shadows (2012)
Dir. Tim Burton

2.5 out of 5

Dark Shadows is the eighth collaboration between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, a partnership that endures thanks to Depp’s ability to immerse himself in Burton’s increasingly facile brand of make-believe without losing his pathos underneath all the pancake makeup and wild hairpieces. Burton’s more recent efforts have been criticized for lacking the depth of his earlier movies, but without the skill of a star like Depp (who has now starred in the director’s last four films) they’d be even harder to justify as something other than pretenses for weird, gothic dress-up. And while Dark Shadows is by no means an unwatchable film, it’s immensely telling of how the creative heat has transferred from director to star over the course of the past 20 years.

Based on the supernatural daytime serial of the late 1960s, the film concerns the lovesick vampire Barnabas Collins (Depp) and his attempts to resurrect his aristocratic family’s fishing business in the Maine hamlet where he first arrived as a boy in the 18^th century. His task is complicated by the fact that he’s been taking a dirt nap for almost two centuries, entombed by angry villagers after he was saddled with the curse of vampirism by former lover and vengeful witch Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green). While Barnabas struggles to adapt to the late-20^th century and its twin plagues of hippies and McDonald’s, Angelique has used the intervening years to build her own seafood empire that makes the barely hanging-on Collins concern feel like a fading memory.

The swinging ‘70s are a boon to Barnabas’ libido, however, and it’s here where Dark Shadows surrenders to dull melodrama despite the best efforts of its committed cast. Even after murdering his parents and his betrothed, Angelique still has her sights set on Barnabas’ heart, and their impassioned romp destroys the witch’s ultramodern boardroom in one of the movie’s giddiest sequences. But the film is unfortunately hamstrung by the chemistry-free pairing of Barnabas and Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcote), a stoic woman who’s the spitting image of his long-lost fiancé. Seth Grahame-Smith’s disjointed script also squanders the talents of Michelle Pfeiffer, Jonny Lee Miller, and Chloë Grace Moretz as the extended Collins clan, stranding them in subplots with no momentum and undermining what little development they achieve with a contrived ending full of empty twists. Credit Depp’s performance for giving Dark Shadows a friskiness that many of Burton’s recent projects have lacked, but it’s just not enough to breathe new life into the movie’s moribund soap opera shenanigans.

God Bless America (2012)

God Bless America (2012)
Dir. Bobcat Goldthwait

3.5 out of 5

Like a middle-aged Travis Bickle in a series of ugly sweaters and Hawaiian shirts, Joel Murray dreams of washing the scum from the streets in Bobcat Goldthwait's pitch-black comedy God Bless America. But Murray isn't interested in hustlers, pimps, and petty thugs. His wrath is fueled by the ignorant mopes that fill the world around him - hateful religious fanatics, fear-mongering political pundits, and anyone who fails to practice proper movie theater etiquette. Fired from his job and facing the prospect of a long battle with brain cancer, a suicidal Murray embraces a macabre form of therapy when he turns his gun on those who aggravate him the most. By gunning down his first victim - a spoiled reality show princess - he impresses a similarly disgruntled teenage sidekick (Tara Lynne Barr) and the pair embarks on a cross-country murder spree, punishing all the people who made Murray so desperate to end his life in the first place.

The veteran character actor Murray is perfectly cast as an unusual breed of anti-hero, his folksy cadence and sideways smile lending a strange warmth to what is obviously Goldthwait's own meticulous list of pet peeves. Though his invective starts off harsh and uncompromising - "Why have a civilization anymore if we no longer are interested in being civilized?" Murray asks a doltish co-worker - he quickly gains perspective once the bullets begin to fly. He's only willing to kill people who "deserve" to die, unlike the more impulsive and ego-driven Barr (a good actress who is unfortunately saddled with Goldthwait's more condescending rhetoric). Their relationship is the most enjoyable part of the film. In one of many instances of Goldthwait echoing Taxi Driver, Murray is a principled but unstable older man futilely obsessed with preserving a modicum of innocence in a teenage girl who is already far too mature for her age. (There's even a scene of Murray buying guns in a motel room that eerily matches Scorsese's beats.)

While God Bless America's satire is mostly a success, it's sometimes undercut by the sense that Goldthwait has chosen the easiest targets. A discomfiting air of superiority settles over certain parts of the film, particularly those that lampoon the news media, as well as Barr's arrogant rant about the greatness of Alice Cooper. Overall, though, God Bless America is just crazy enough to work: you have to admire a movie that makes a running joke of the wildly inappropriate (and decidedly one-way) romantic tension between the leads ("So we're platonic spree killers?" whines Barr). It saves its greatest disdain for the irredeemably mean and inconsiderate, the people who have no idea of how their words and actions affect others. In that, God Bless America isn't particularly groundbreaking, or even that shocking. What does impress is Goldthwait's outrageous way of articulating his many frustrations, and his ability to make sick behavior seem like an appropriate remedy for an equally sick society.

The Avengers (2012)

The Avengers (2012)
Dir. Joss Whedon

3.5 out of 5

A lot of things fall into place with The Avengers, the culmination of a historically expensive promotional campaign that included feature-length advertisements like Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America. It's the ultimate payoff to Marvel Studios' efforts to build a cohesive cinematic universe for its well-known comic book characters, an ambitious project reliant on a volatile mix of anticipation and expectation. Marvel upped the ante even further when it tabbed Joss Whedon - a geek icon who has inspired equal amounts of devotion from his fans and indifference from the mainstream - to write and direct. The result is a movie with real-life stakes almost as big as the fictional ones: when Earth is threatened by the Norse trickster god Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the planet's greatest heroes (including franchise keystones Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), and a bevy of other slashable names) must pull together and stop Loki from opening an interstellar portal to facilitate an invasion of hostile aliens.

When you have as many headliners as The Avengers does, the difficulty lies in giving each of them their due without making it seem like you're just spinning plates. Whedon turns this potential weakness into a strength by devoting a good chunk of the film to the team's wrangling of egos and questioning of allegiances. Predictably, there's an alpha struggle between the sarcastic Stark and the straight-laced Rogers, but Thor (Chris Hemsworth) seems to be the biggest wild card, as it isn't obvious that joining an organization devoted to protecting a foreign planet is in his best interest. Whedon gets a little overzealous in creating quips for the famously witty Stark, but he nails the flavor of each team member's personality without leaning on their one or two stereotypical character traits. A simple scene like Stark and a show-stealing Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) commiserating over their shared love of science perfectly captures the appeal of a movie about a supergroup of superheroes and validates the laborious process that made it possible.

But while much of Whedon's script has a satisfying snap, there are still plenty of places in The Avengers' two and a half hour running time when things start to drag. There's a glaring contrast between the film's intriguing exploration of character dynamics and its more conventional fistfights-and-explosions portions. Although the action is bold and colorful, it has a tendency to exhaust with its frequent cross-cutting, especially in the film's climax around the streets and skyscrapers of New York City. Such divided attentions mean that super-spy Black Widow (Scarlett Johannson) and expert archer Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) don't really get a chance to shed their ancillary labels, though at least there's no shortage of other, more compelling characters. Despite its slightly uneven quality, The Avengers successfully raises the bar for successive superhero adventures, impressively tying up the first batch of Marvel films while suggesting that there's still much to be explored.

Sound of My Voice (2012)

Sound of My Voice (2012)
Dir. Zal Batmanglij

4.5 out of 5

Self-styled investigative journalists Peter (Christopher Denham) and Lorna (Nicole Vicius) find themselves getting a little too close to the subject of their exposé in Sound of My Voice: an enigmatic cult leader named Maggie who claims to be a messenger from the year 2054. Their thrall is understandable given that Maggie is played by Brit Marling, whose hauntingly ethereal presence was established so well in last year's Another Earth (which, like Sound of My Voice, was also co-scripted by Marling). The film opens with Peter and Lorna's initiation in the basement of a nondescript house in the San Fernando Valley, where the couple believes that Maggie is amassing followers for a nefarious purpose. They are surprised to learn that there's a distinct lack of doomsaying in Maggie's rhetoric, which instead combines a vaguely New Age philosophy with aggressive psychotherapy. But as they embed themselves deeper into the cult, both Peter and Lorna find their hard-earned skepticism tested by Maggie's ability to deflect attention from the veracity of her own story by ruthlessly exploiting the many doubts they still have about themselves.

Sound of My Voice truly shines when it picks up on similar discrepancies between its characters' personal truths and the lies that they tell themselves to sustain those principles. Though Maggie can quickly switch from cuddly to demanding, Peter is just as fond of hectoring his girlfriend when he harps on the need to expose this supposed time-traveler as a shrewd charlatan. Never mind that as a substitute schoolteacher with severe abandonment issues (stemming from his mother's refusal to seek medical treatment for her terminal cancer), he's both professionally and emotionally unequipped to withstand Maggie's powers of persuasion. And while Peter is using Maggie as a stand-in for his maternal revenge complex, Lorna comes to understand her as a kind of mascot for those with broken, unfulfilled lives like herself. Indeed, most of the group takes Maggie's frailty at face value (she claims that the unfamiliar atmosphere is slowly killing her) and regards her with the compassion typically reserved for nursing sick animals.

This is a film that is beyond belief, and proudly so. It is staged with urgency, waiting until the final frame to connect the dots of its several ostensibly non-sequitur scenes, but much of its meaning is obtained organically. Maggie's dewy-eyed finale is perhaps the only bit feels partially unearned - it's difficult to accept after her normally placid gatherings turn into physical and emotional hazing rituals about halfway through the film. Batmanglij is also unsuccessful in imposing a pointless chapter structure on such a dreamy, elliptical story. (It's a formal misstep he atones for by recruiting his brother, Vampire Weekend bandmember Rostam Batmanglij, to contribute the movie's appropriately spacey score.) Thankfully, Sound of My Voice is happy to leave the boundaries of its general narrative undefined, and wisely preserves the mystery that makes Marling's character such a tantalizing figure in the first place. No matter how inviting or perceptive she seems, her essence is ultimately unknowable - a comforting reminder that even if we believe some things are preordained or part of a greater destiny, our future technically remains unwritten.

Lockout (2012)

Lockout (2012)
Dir. James Mather and Stephen St. Leger

2.5 out of 5

There's something charmingly old-fashioned about Lockout, an epic act of recycling in the grand tradition of Die Hard knockoffs. It feels like an experiment in reverse-engineering the most successful elements of popular American action films, except one where the results were buried in a drawer for over 20 years. French super-producer Luc Besson has been cranking out slick facsimiles of smarter and more expensive action fare for decades - he's responsible for the entire Transporter series, as well as the smash Francophone franchises Taxi and District 13 - but with Lockout you can feel his lingering affection for the comparatively simple gimmicks of yesteryear. The result is a film that loses points for its lack of originality, but gains most of them back with its nostalgic appeal.

Guy Pearce stars as the film's Bruce Willis surrogate, a former CIA agent arrested on trumped-up murder charges who gets a shot at redemption when the very first Supermax prison in outer space unexpectedly goes Attica. It just so happens that the president's daughter (Maggie Grace) is on a "humanitarian mission" to investigate the convicts' living conditions when things get hairy. I suspect that if the warden had to do it again, he wouldn't have chosen a half-blind, psychotic Scotsman (Joseph Gilgun) for a meet and greet with the First Daughter. Armed with little more than his wits and an arsenal of atrocious one-liners, Pearce gets his ass to space jail with orders to rescue Grace before the cons find out exactly who she is.

I've always wondered if the other hostages ever get bored in a movie like this. Establishing shots show the prison facility as an enormously imposing structure - large enough to absorb a collision with the International Space Station - yet the interior is as barren and deserted as the infinite void surrounding it. Everything about Lockout is conspicuously economical, though the sparing use of CGI and strategic placement of extras successfully contribute to the film's claustrophobic atmosphere. Unfortunately, the limitations extend to the functional dialogue and one-note performances - Pearce is particularly wearying in his state of perma-smugness. Lockout is at least a sincere effort at creating fun, brainless entertainment, even if it's ultimately just a shallow simulacrum of something you've seen before.

The Three Stooges (2012)

The Three Stooges (2012)

Dir. Bobby and Peter Farrelly

2 out of 5

If comedy exists on a scale similar to the familiar classroom diagram of human evolution, the Three Stooges would land somewhere in the section with our knuckle-dragging simian ancestors. But whatever the slap-happy trio of Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Curly Howard may have lacked in sophistication and critical acclaim, they earned many times over in laughs and in profits from the cycle of shorts and films in that "classic" lineup's 15-year run. It's this configuration of characters that returns to the screen in the Farrelly Brothers' homage to their populist predecessors, a project that languished for years in development hell (Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, and Jim Carrey were once slated to play the Stooges in a version that never materialized, to the chagrin of few). And though The Three Stooges is a surprisingly tender and respectful nod to these iconic slapstick artists, the film is also an unintentional primer on the devolution of lowbrow comedy - an attempt to fill in a massive generation gap with gallons of baby piss.

Sean Hayes, Will Sasso, and Chris Diamantopoulos are physically passable as Larry, Curly, and Moe, respectively, but it's the plot that stands out as noteworthy, at least by Three Stooges standards. Though structured as a series of "episodes," the movie follows an unexpectedly strong thread as the three mooks struggle to save the Catholic orphanage that nurtured them through childhood and still employs them as live-in handymen. The diocese is in desperate need of cash, and the Mother Superior (Jane Lynch) is out of options when these man-children volunteer to go out into the real world and raise the money by any means necessary. It's a significant challenge that tests the strength of the Stooges' lifelong friendship, especially when they stumble into a murder plot hatched by a bombshell trophy wife (Sofia Vergara) who exploits the trio's naivete for her own gain.

Despite maintaining the characters' Bowery accents and anachronistic wardrobe, the movie doesn't fully capitalize on the idea of the Stooges as castaways adrift in the modern world. Except from a highly enjoyable interlude where Moe terrorizes the cast of Jersey Shore, the 21st century is just a procession of generic backdrops for slapstick comedy: Hospital, Zoo, Fancy Party. The Stooges' cartoonishly violent antics - which still cause enough consternation to necessitate a closing "don't try this at home" disclaimer - don't mesh well with the garden-variety potty humor. (I'm not sure why a close-up of lion testicles appears in a PG film, but there you go.) The resulting movie is a messy amalgamation of silliness and scatology. Credit The Three Stooges for doling out an impressive variety of physical abuse and letting its cast (which includes an unforgettable Larry David as a nun with an unrepentant hatred for the Stooges) indulge in spectacularly hammy performances. It's just too bad that so many of its banal hijinks are beneath even these thick-skulled mouth breathers.