2012/PG-13/143 mins.

Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

Well, here it is: the movie that it seems every non-”X-Men” movie of the past five years has been leading up to, ever since that bonus post-credits scene of the original “Iron Man”. Every inexplicable moment involving Samuel L. Jackson, every unresolved issue, every thing that didn’t seem to belong in one of those movies was supposed to be explained in the eventual “Avengers” movie. Five movies ranging in quality from good to “meh” were all supposed to culminate in this one. I’m not sure if Marvel was hyping up this film as much as they were setting it up for disappointment. If “The Avengers” didn’t deliver on all the unresolved issues and unanswered questions in “Iron Man”, “Captain America”, “The Incredible Hulk” and “Thor” then not only would “The Avengers” be a disappointment, but it would retroactively make those films even worse, even more incomplete. Plus, with such catastrophic hype behind it, how could this film not fail to live up to expectations? It seemed, at best, to be a big marketing opportunity for Marvel’s film division: combine four of its second-tier heroes in a movie that would draw in the fans of each of those heroes, giving them a bigger box office take than any of these heroes could achieve on their own. I figured it would be like Marvel’s “Wild Hogs”. John Travolta, William H. Macy, Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence all do okay box office individually, but combining them in one film gave Disney a surprise hit. Maybe combining four superheroes that do okay box office (though not in the same league as, say, Spider-Man) might bring the same results, only on a larger scale (which it has, big time). It did not, however, seem like a recipe for a great film.
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2008/PG-13/112 mins

Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

When it comes right down to it, The Hulk is perhaps the least original character in the Marvel Universe. I mean, really he’s just Dr. Jeckyll/Mr. Hyde crossed with Frankenstein’s monster. He’s pure id and he’s huge and that’s about all there is to him. But he’s also one of Marvel’s most popular characters. Aside from Spider-Man, he’s probably the most well known of all Marvel’s creations. No one ever said originality and popular success go hand in hand. The Hulk speaks to something dark about the human condition, but something that lurks within each and every one of us. He’s the guy who loses his temper when he’s drunk or when he’s cut off in traffic. He’s the guy who does something horrible and then feels awful about it the following day. We can relate to the Hulk, that’s why he endures, despite his somewhat derivative nature. That’s why filmmakers keep trying to make a great film about him. There’s so much potential in the idea of the Hulk, so much room for deeper exploration of the human psyche.
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Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

At the end of my review for the original “Iron Man” I wrote that I was “giddily awaiting the inevitable sequel”. After having seen it a couple of times now, I really wish I had just stuck with the sequel in my own head.

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Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

With the nation (and, judging by the early foreign box office figures, the world) firmly in the grip of “Avengers-mania” I felt it was the perfect time to revisit the films of the individual superheroes that form Marvel’s ultimate supergroup. And if we’re going chronologically (according to the comics at least) then why not start with the “first Avenger”: good old Captain America.

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Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz
PG-13 / 112 Minutes / 2010

If Woody Allen were into video games instead of old jazz music, “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” is the kind of movie he would make. Now, I realize that Woody Allen isn’t the hippest filmmaker in the world (I doubt many of his fans are under the age of thirty) but I’ve always found him to be, surprisingly, one of the most experimental. Woody breaks the fourth wall more often than nearly any other filmmaker. He’s also integrated animation, toyed with genre conventions, tinkered with the very art of storytelling itself, and explored social taboos in a playful, lighthearted manner that nonetheless does not make light of them, more than any other filmmaker that comes readily to mind. Especially in his comedies, Woody Allen eschews the rules that constitute the so-called “reality” of other films but he does so in order to make cogent and well-thought-out points about the rules, relationships, phobias and psychology that govern our day-to-day existence. (It goes without saying that I am talking about his BEST movies. In films like “Deconstructing Harry”, “Celebrity” and “Curse of the Jade Scorpion” he’s simply going through the motions, using his often ingenious and revolutionary filmmaking style either to make the same damned points he’s been making for more than thirty years or to make points that no one not named Woody Allen could relate to.)

With “Scott Pilgrim”, Edgar Wright addresses the thorny relationship dilemmas that plague damned near everyone in the most irreverent and bizarre way possible. In short, he structures the quest of his nerdy hero (Michael Cera) to win the woman of his dreams (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) like a video game. Namely the sort of old school game where you had to blow into the cartridge to get it to work properly (the only video games the film mentions by name are Tetris, Pac Man and Super Mario Brothers, and I think that’s intentional). After Scott and his dream woman (her name is actually Ramona Flowers) begin dating, he learns that he must defeat her seven evil exes in order to keep seeing her. Each of these exes appears in turn and Scott must vanquish each one in order to move to the next level…of his relationship.

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2010 / 95 Minutes / PG
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

Gru, the main character of the new animated film “Despicable Me”, is the sort of guy who would have a hideout in a hollowed out volcano and would enthusiastically describe it as a “lair”. He’s the sort of guy who’s not happy unless he can get his hands on a space laser. He’s got an army of minions. He steals major landmarks (well, at least their smaller Las Vegas versions). He carries a freeze ray with him at all times and has a stuffed crocodile for a sofa. When he watches a Bond movie, he’s obviously rooting for Dr. No.

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2010 / 103 Minutes / G
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

It’s amazing to realize that it’s been fifteen years since Pixar released the original “Toy Story” and revolutionized animation. It seems like only yesterday that I was ponying up five bucks to see what all this “digital animation” hubbub was about. And while seeing it for the first time didn’t blow my brains out the back of my skull I was moderately impressed and definitely charmed. Last year I took another look at the film and, despite the dozens (seems like hundreds) of CGI cartoons that have arrived on the scene since, “Toy Story” still remains one of the field’s high water marks. Unlike so many of its imitators it not only boasts dazzling visuals but a great deal of hilarity and heart. The second “Toy Story” is somehow even better. When Jones and Ben kvetch in podcasts (as I’m sure they do) about the simpletons that prefer “Toy Story 2″ to Pixar masterpieces such as “Wall-E” and “UP”, I’m one of the simpletons about whom they are complaining. They can disagree all they want but, for me, “Toy Story 2″ ranks alongside such sequels as “The Empire Strikes Back” and, especially, “The Road Warrior” as the gold standard of what sequels can accomplish. It was the only sequel Pixar had made and it was a home run, a movie that was faster, funnier and even more powerfully poignant than the original. It and “UP” are the only two animated movies that have ever reduced me to tears.

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2010 / 109 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

It’s not often that the side character from one movie gets a movie of their own. Aside from “Get Him to the Greek” and “Evan Almighty”, in fact, no others come to mind. In “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”, Russell Brand played pompous British rocker Aldous Snow. His main purpose in that film was to steal the hero’s girlfriend. But as an object of scorn he was just too bizarre and cool for even that film’s hero to completely hate. Brand stole nearly every scene in which he was featured in that film, so I suppose it was a natural progression for Snow (and Brand) to get his own film…although “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”, despite being one of the finest American comedies of the past decade, did not exactly set the box office on fire so making a film revolving around one of its side characters and releasing it during summer blockbuster season seems a particularly brave/foolhardy enterprise.

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2010 / 140 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” claims to be a “dark” version of the tale, unlike so many. It seems they think we still associate Robin Hood with green tights and a feathery cap, a’la Errol Flynn in 1938’s “The Adventures of Robin Hood”. But this claim rings pretty hollow when you compare Scott’s latest film with the dueling Hoods of 1991. Both Kevin Costner’s “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” and Patrick Bergin’s (remember him? Neither, it seems, does anyone else) simply titled “Robin Hood” boasted just as much grit and alleged darkness as this one. In fact, I’d argue that “Prince of Thieves” was darker than this film. For one thing, it had devil worshippers and an army of pagan Celts (who, as Alan Rickman helpfully pointed out, “drink the blood of the dead”). It also had an equally muddy and dirty production design…though I think the sun was visible more often than it is in Ridley’s version. On a side note, if you love the Robin Hood story and dislike the sun, then I would suggest seeking out Patrick Bergin’s “Robin Hood”, a film that was supposed to be shown in theaters but was beaten to the punch by Costner’s version and therefore premiered on Fox television. In that film, the whole of England was covered in darkness until evil was vanquished at the end, at which point the sun finally emerged from the clouds, basking everyone in its glory. Incidentally, Bergin makes a fine Robin Hood and the film, as a whole, is pretty decent. It’s got great villianous turns by Jereon Krabbe and Jurgen Prochnow and Uma Thurman makes for a lovely Maid Marian (although she convincingly disguises herself as a teenaged boy for a good portion of the film). In short (well, short-ish) any claims Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” makes toward pushing the grime and violence envelope of this story are about nineteen years too late. Scott’s film is, however, darker than “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” AND the Disney version in which Robin Hood was played by an animated fox.

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2009 / 118 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

A man and a woman meet (covertly). They check into a hotel room, glancing over their shoulders to assure that no one they know has seen them. Once inside that room, after indulging in some sexual hanky-panky, the woman expresses her concern over what the two of them are doing. She is worried about being caught. She is guilty over cuckolding another woman. The man tells her that she needn’t worry, that his marriage is a mess/sham, that the moments he spends with his mistress are the best moments of his miserable life. We’ve seen this scene a hundred times if we’ve seen it once. In this case, however, the other woman and the adulterous man were married for almost twenty years and have been divorced for ten.

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