Review of "The Future"

Miranda July may be a bit too weird for her own good. On the other hand, it is a glorious weird.

In "The Future," July's second film (following 2005's superb "Me and You and Everyone We Know"), July does a dance in an upside-down T-shirt; she voices a damaged cat who serves as the film's narrator; she has the moon in a speaking part; and she has a little girl digging her own apparent grave in a backyard.

With all these odd images and characters you might think "The Future" would be outsized and loud; instead it is small, contained and subtle. It's oddball, yes, but it is everyday oddball.

And it's a whole lot like genius.

July plays Sophie, girlfriend of Jason (Hamish Linklater). They live in a funky Los Angeles apartment; he works in tech support, she teaches dance to kids, they're both shooting toward 40 and worried about it.

As the film begins, they're adopting a cat with renal failure. They figure it may live six months, but then they're told it could hang on for five years. Suddenly, the commitment-phobes are cementing their future.

But the cat can't come home for 30 days. They have that much time left before they're tied down by a pet's life. What will they do?

July is dealing with the precarious balance between responsibility and desire, between standing strong and running wild, while throwing in all sorts of related and unrelated musings and images about beauty, sex, need, primal fear and love.

A well-known performance artist, July turns the film itself into a sort of performance art series as she moves far beyond standard narrative and into powerful impressionistic moments.

"The Future" is more cerebral and challenging than the lovely "Me and You;" its fear factor is palpable, its ending unsure, its spirit uneasy. Does that sound like any future you know?

Review of "Myth of the American Sleepover"

There's something so Detroit, and so American, about "The Myth of the American Sleepover."

The Detroit part is easy to explain — it was shot here on a minuscule budget by first-time feature writer-director David Robert Mitchell, who grew up in Clawson; and its suburban mix is just right: brick ranches, sunburned lawns, a lake party, an abandoned factory, a drive to U-M. All on a long, warm summer night.

But it's the American naturalism that's striking: Kids walking along suburban streets, pillows and sleeping bags in hand, on the way to sleepovers. Girls crowded into living rooms, giggling and gossiping; guys slouched in chairs watching porn-tinged horror flicks.

Partiers daring one another to go skinny dipping — which nobody does. Drinking cheap vodka straight from the bottle. Adolescents pressing toward the mysteries of high school life. Older boys hitting on younger girls.

The structure to "Myth" is recognizable as a younger, tougher updating of "American Graffiti." Mitchell follows four kids as their paths crisscross on the last night of summer.

There's pierced and spirited Maggie (Claire Sloma), partying with older kids; new-to-town toughie Claudia (Amanda Bauer); and Rob (Marlon Morton), searching for a blonde beauty (Madi Ortiz) he spied in a grocery store.

They're all about to enter high school. And then there's college guy Scott (Brett Jacobsen), nursing a broken heart and dreaming of twins (Jade and Nikita Ramsey).

Most of these kids are new to film, and there's a sweet purity, almost like body memory, to the way they take on characters who probably aren't all that foreign.

Combine that with Mitchell's well-grounded overlapping stories — none of which spin out of control, all eminently recognizable and believable — and "Myth" manages to feel both uncommonly sincere and strikingly human.

A disclosure here: Madi Ortiz, the elusive blonde beauty, is the daughter of Detroit News photographer (and longtime friend) Max Ortiz.

Perhaps even more compromising, the houses and streets in this film look pretty much like the houses and streets in my neighborhood.

But most importantly, the kids in this film remind me of my kids. Heck, they remind me of me.

It's somewhat ironic that this most real-feeling film has the word "Myth" in its title. And it's downright amazing that Mitchell manages to incorporate a breezy dance number into the movie.

"The Myth of the American Sleepover" is an indie movie-lover's dream, one of those rare instances where a lack of budget and experience is trumped by heartfelt vision, natural talent and amateur enthusiasm.

Review of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"

Mess with Mother Nature and things could get a little hairy.

That's the none-too-subtle but still effective message at the heart of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," a prequel that doesn't monkey around.

The problem with prequels, of course, is you know where they're going; the intrigue is you can't be sure how they're going to get there.

"Rise" offers some fairly credible background to the notion that Earth will one day be ruled by hairy simians that keep humans as slaves, topped off by a shrieking-crazy apes-gone-wild in San Francisco climax. Mayhem lovers should be pleased.

As is so common in today's techno freaked-out world, the bad results here come from good scientific intentions. James Franco stars as Will Rodman, a Bay Area scientist hoping to find a cure for the dementia his father (John Lithgow) suffers from.

To this end, Will has been injecting chimpanzees with a serum intended to generate cell growth in their brains. Of course, Will works for a chrome-and-glass corporation that hopes to make zillions off the new drug some day.

Will thinks he's struck gold with one chimp, Bright Eyes, who exhibits an extraordinary leap in intelligence. But then Bright Eyes goes wild, attacking her keepers, and has to be put down.

Initially, Will thinks the drug is tainted, but then a baby chimp is discovered in Bright Eyes' cage. The mother was just protecting her newborn.

With nobody around to protect the baby chimp, Will ends up taking him home and naming him Caesar — and darned if the little Dickens doesn't turn out to be brilliant, just like his mother.

Logic falters here a bit as Will sets to work on an improved serum even though Bright Eyes' rage was not drug-fueled. But this gives Caesar time to grow and strut his stuff.

Will too conveniently meets and falls in love with a beautiful veterinarian named Caroline (Freida Pinto), and Caesar sort of becomes their surrogate son. Meanwhile, Will is secretly administering his new formula to his father and the man's dementia not only goes away, he actually becomes smarter than ever.

But then it all falls apart, as it must.

It turns out keeping a full-grown super-intelligent chimpanzee in a neighborhood Victorian isn't a great idea, and Caesar runs afoul of the law. He's taken to a shelter for abandoned apes where he learns all about both survival of the fittest and human cruelty.

At which point, Caesar decides he's had enough of this monkey business. And the Evolution Revolution begins.

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" doesn't have much use for humans. From the corporate ruler to the shelter workers (specifically Tom Felton, Harry Potter's blonde nemesis) to the neighbor next door, most of the people Caesar encounters are jerks or worse. And even the good guys are made of cardboard. Caroline is a pretty cipher, Lithgow is your classic doddering Dad, and Franco's Will is a simple ball of earnestness.

But really, it's all about the apes, wondrous (and scary) computer creations, and waiting for their rampage, which director Rupert Wyatt turns into an absolute blast of primate rage.

In the end, we humans lose, but then we humans should. Please pass the bananas.

Review of "Crazy Stupid Love"

If a better comedy about love than "Crazy Stupid Love" comes out this year, then it will be a crazy stupid good year.

Featuring an astoundingly strong ensemble of actors, a pingponging smart script from Dan Fogelman and perfect-rhythm direction from "Bad Santa" writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, this is surely one of the funniest and best films of the year, right up there with "Bridesmaids" and "Midnight in Paris."

It will surely be referred to as a romantic comedy, but it follows few rom-com norms. Instead of focusing on one couple, it spreads the love — and the jokes, and the insights, and the pain — every which way.

There's the babysitter (Analeigh Tipton), who's in love with the dad (Steve Carell). There's the son (Jonah Bobo), who's in love with the babysitter.

There's the mom (Julianne Moore), who has an affair with a co-worker (Kevin Bacon), and then dumps the dad.

And there's the smooth-talking lounge lizard (Ryan Gosling), who takes home a different woman every night, except the one who got away (Emma Stone).

But don't forget the woman (Marisa Tomei) who becomes the first of Dad's post-marital conquests. Dad sure won't, although he'll wish he could.

The story begins with Dad Cal and Mom Emily, teen sweethearts now in their 40s, out at dinner. Trying to decide what to have for dessert, Emily opts for divorce.

On the ride home, she confesses her infidelity to a stunned, silent Cal. He opens his door and drops out of the moving car.

After Cal moves out, he begins frequenting an upscale singles bar, loudly bemoaning his romantic woes, even though no one wants to hear them. After a few nights, the smoothest dude in the bar, Jacob, pulls Cal aside and offers to teach him how to be an operator if he'll shut up and stop drinking vodka and cranberry juice through a straw.

Meanwhile — and though there's no hard center to this movie, it never seems out of control — Cal's 13-year-old son, Robbie, is loudly proclaiming his love for 17-year-old babysitter Jessica; Jessica herself is trying to figure out a way to seduce an unwitting Cal; and Emily begins dating co-worker David.

At the same time, Hannah (Stone), the only girl to ever laugh off Jacob's advances, is studying to take the bar exam and hanging on to her dullard beau, Richard (Josh Groban). Hannah's relevance will become clear and crucial.

This is clearly the best ensemble cast, comedy or drama, of the year, especially when you add the great character actor John Carroll Lynch to the mix as Jessica's father.

Carell and Gosling have the most central roles, as age-reversed mentor and teacher; as the film progresses, Cal realizes who he really is by playing who he's not, and the empty Jacob realizes who he should be.

The famously funny Carell finds sincerity in Cal. And Gosling, probably the best dramatic actor of his generation, moves out of his indie comfort-zone into the mainstream, looking every bit as comfortable while sporting a heartthrob bod that, as one woman exclaims, looks Photoshopped.

Still, this film is the total of all its parts, from the string-bean beauty Tipton to the sly adolescent Bobo and all the veterans. It's notable that no one — not even Bacon's character — is a villain in this film. They're all just people looking for, wrestling with and falling in love.

This is the sort of film that Oscar generally ignores come awards season. It shouldn't. "Crazy Stupid Love" is a crazy smart film.

Review of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2"

The end is here and it rocks. There are a number of reasons "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" is the most satisfying of the Harry Potter films. First off, the story finally comes to its long-awaited conclusion. After a decade of wishing for some sort of resolution, that's no small thing.

But the sheer velocity of the film also helps. While prior Potter films had to deal with intricate puzzle pieces, adolescent angst and large helpings of mumbo jumbo, "Deathly Hallows Part 2" pretty much gets to galloping within a few minutes and then never really slows down. This is a film that seems to literally charge at the viewer, and after seven movies necessarily weighed down by waiting for a big ending, the charge is exhilarating.

That charge does leave some blurs in its wake, however. Cherished characters who've been central to earlier films — Professor Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent), Professor Sybil Trelawney (Emma Thompson), even Rubeus Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) — stream by with little more than a glance. But then if director David Yates had done a farewell tour of charming characters, it would have added an hour to the film's running time.

Instead Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves wisely opt to focus on heroes Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint), Big Bad Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and the forever pending story of evil-or-is-he? Professor Severus Snape (Alan Rickman, born to the part). The time for details and enjoyable quirks is past; in "Deathly Hallows Part 2" it's High Noon at Hogwarts and peripheral characters best stand back.

The story itself is fairly straightforward. Harry's search for the magic objects that hold much of Voldemort's power has brought him back to his beloved school, Hogwarts. Voldemort knows Harry is hiding out in the halls and surrounds the school with a horde of evil minions. Both sides draw their wands and go at it.

That going at it is a joy to watch as Yates unleashes the best fantasy battle scenes since "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, with stone warriors facing off against bloodthirsty giants, deformed-looking goblins feasting on dead students and enough wand-wielding to blind the meek.

But of course it all eventually comes down to Harry versus Voldemort. And in the midst of all the chaos, the big questions that have hung over Harry throughout his life are resolved in a generally winning way, thanks to series author J.K. Rowling. It's doubtful anybody will be asking for a refund.

There is, though, a chance some parents may wonder what the film's images are doing to their offspring. If the Potter books and movies grew progressively darker as Harry aged, well, that darkness reaches a midnight shade here. The violence quotient and scare index may be too much for some kids to handle.

On the other hand, fans of physical chaos will likely be ecstatic. The janitors at Hogwarts are going to be busy for a long, long while.

Ever since the third Potter film, "Prisoner of Azkaban," the Potter movies have been helmed by a succession of directors who've been able to balance the fantastic and the personal with more than a touch of class.

At the same time the Potter movies have featured a parade of possibly the finest British thespians ever assembled, a parade that's capped off by the addition here of Kelly McDonald as the ghostly Helena Ravenclaw.

And yet this gargantuan undertaking inevitably rested on the young shoulders of its unknown (a decade ago) leads. Whoever cast Radcliffe, Watson and Grint deserves major credit for the success of the series; all three actors grew into their roles near-perfectly.

As film undertakings go, the only thing comparable to the Potter series is "Star Wars," and everyone knows how poorly that played out. "Deathly Hallows Part 2" sends Harry off into the pop culture pantheon on a thrilling high note. Well played. Well played indeed.

Review of "Super 8"

Super indeed.

There's so much that's right about "Super 8," the riveting, coming-of-age, sci-fi, adventure, buddy, young love, conspiracy-driven, innocence-in-America action film from director J.J. Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg that it's hard to find anything bad to say about the movie.

Then again, it's hard to say anything at all, since most of the film's storylines and major conflicts have been kept under tight wraps for months. Trailers for the film tell next to nothing about it, and that's as it should be.

Better to trot out the movie's obvious influences, which include about every decent thing Spielberg himself presided over in the '70s and '80s — "E.T.," "Close Encounters," even "Poltergeist" and "Goonies."

Toss in a healthy measure of Rob Reiner's bonding classic "Stand by Me" and passing winks at "WarGames," "Independence Day," "Gremlins" and even "Duel," and you've got one grand mash of a movie that's trying to capture the innocence and energy of an earlier time while bringing it into the right here and now.

Not that the here and now is actually here and now. In keeping with the suburban nostalgia theme, "Super 8" takes place in the late, pre-video camera '70s and follows a bunch of dorks — not unlike the young Spielberg and later Abrams — who like to make amateur movies on Super 8 film cameras.

The auteur is Charles (Riley Griffiths), who's directing (what else?) a romantic zombie story, using adolescent kids from around his small town. But the film's star is Joe (Joel Courtney), son of the town's recently widowed deputy sheriff (Kyle Chandler) and in charge of make-up and models.

Joe is struck dumb when a 14-year-old beauty, Alice (Elle Fanning, making a strong case for a long career), joins the cast. Not only is she a bit older than the rest, she's also the daughter of a town troublemaker, and brazen enough to steal his car to drive to a shooting location.

That location would be the town train station, where Alice blows her pre-adolescent peers away with a line reading that shows she can actually act (it's a much cleaner version of Naomi Watts' mind-boggling audition in "Mulholland Drive").

But just as the guys are bathing in Alice's talent, a train begins approaching the station, and the gang scrambles to try to get some real train footage in their low-budget movie.

They get a lot more than they're looking for when the train runs into a pickup waiting on the tracks and the resulting disaster sees screaming kids running everywhere as train cars go flying and exploding.

The camera, of course, keeps recording. And that turns out to be very important. Because something escapes from the wrecked train. And as hordes of soldiers and government officials begin flocking to the scene, it becomes clear that something is very important.

If the film does have a weakness, it's that those accustomed to Spielberg will quickly get an idea in what directions things are heading; although Abrams skillfully keeps questions looming overhead for a good long time.

Bodies are whisked out of shots; all the dogs leave town; interment camps are set up: What's going on here?

What's going on here is an old-fashioned, good-feeling summer movie spectacle that doesn't rely on comic tie-ins, familiar superheroes or even movie stars.

What's going on here is a great story, well-told, with humor, thrills and — most importantly — a sense of wonder that quashes all cynicism.

Remember the good old days? This is the movie you went to see on a Saturday afternoon in the good old days.

And if you weren't around for the good old days, well, you are now. "Super 8" is summer at its best.

Review of "Midnight in Paris"

Every few years Woody Allen makes a great movie, and people talk about how Woody's back.

Well, since he does this regularly, he's never really away. With "Match Point" (2005), "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (2008) and now "Midnight in Paris," it's pretty clear that New York City's favorite neurotic nerd is still one of America's greatest and most prolific filmmakers.

"Midnight in Paris" opens as a loving postcard to all things Eiffel and then turns into a fairy tale balancing the timelessness of dissatisfaction with the beauty of human aspiration.

Along the way, Allen trots out a troupe of classic literary characters played by actors who seem to be having a lot of fun, and the high is contagious.

Owen Wilson plays Gil, a present-day hack Hollywood screenwriter trying to work on a serious novel as he visits Paris with his uptight fiance Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her even more uptight parents. Inez is hanging out a lot with a pretentious British professor (Michael Sheen, wonderfully obnoxious) so Gil finds himself wandering the streets one night when the clock strikes 12.

Just then, a car from the 1920s pulls up and offers Gil a ride to a party where, to his astonishment, he meets Scott (Tom Hiddleston) and Zelda (Alison Pill) Fitzgerald, who in turn introduce him to Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll), Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) and numerous other literati and artists (Adrien Brody is particularly ripe as Salvador Dali).

Soon Gil finds himself transported nightly to his favorite artistic period and enthralled with a lovely woman named Adriana (Marion Cotillard). Is it a dream come true, or just a dream?

The fantasy is sweet, but there's also real tension here, with Gil both a prisoner and traveler in time. Ultimately, though, and happily, "Midnight in Paris" is a loving embrace of the city, of art and of life itself.

Review of "The Tree of Life"

The vision is dazzling. The portrayal of family life palpable. The ending … well, let's go back to the vision.

"The Tree of Life," writer-director Terence Malick's fifth feature film release in nearly 40 years, is stunning, confusing, invigorating and frustrating. It has no clear storyline, instead jaggedly following a Texas family in the '50s dealing with tension, failure, death and the eternal bond of blood.

Which sounds stark, but Malick isn't content with the mere human condition. He's barely got his dusty tale rolling when the film swerves wildly, turning into a brilliant light show of converging abstractions that emerge as the very beginning of creation.

Talk about going into your backstory. Malick's fantastic visual display eventually reaches dinosaurs and the rush of evolution, slowly rounding back to the family in Texas. Malick doesn't offer just a bit of family history; he offers all of history.

And then just this family, living in a suburban neighborhood. Mr. O'Brien (Brad Pitt) seems dragged down by work, his fingers still longing for the classical music he loves to play.

The luminous Mrs. O'Brien (the otherworldly Jessica Chastain) is downright angelic (Malick's shot of her rinsing her feet in a lawn sprinkler is heartbreakingly beautiful), and she needs to be because it turns out Mr. O'Brien has a temper.

At the heart of the film — which certainly does have a heart — is the tension between eldest son Jack (Hunter McCracken) and his abusive father. Sean Penn plays Jack as a grown man in flash-forward scenes, apparently a morose architect ruminating on his past.

"Tree" ends in a misfire netherworld straight out of "The Twilight Zone." Malick's command of texture, his rebel ambition and sense of scope are impressive and undeniable. If only he could land as well as he flies.

Review of "Fast Five"

'Fast Five" is a loud, sloppy, outrageous, muscle-bound cartoon of a movie. People are probably going to love it.

This is director Justin Lin's third time around with the "Fast and Furious" franchise, and with it he switches gears, taking what has been primarily a street racing series and turning it toward heist hi-jinks.

Don't worry, fans; there are still lots of shiny cars vrooming through the movie at high speeds. It's just that this time the cars and their drivers have bigger ambitions. It's "The Fast and the Furious Italian Job."

The movie starts with Dom (Vin Diesel) in a bus on his way to a life sentence in prison. But, of course, his old partner-nemesis O'Conner (Paul Walker) and his sister, O'Conner's girlfriend Mia (Jordana Brewster), manage to break him out.

Next stop Rio, where the three get involved with stealing some cars off a moving train (the film's most over-the-top stunt), managing in the process to infuriate the country's top gangster.

So the gangster is now out to get them, but he has to stand in line as a special crew of FBI fugitive hunters has been sent to Brazil to bring them in. This crew is headed by Hobbs, played with sweaty, muscle-flexing nuance by Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson.

What will our heroes do? They decide they've got to steal the gangster's money — $100 million. So in a classic but somewhat lowbrow way they assemble a team of specialists, a sort of greasy "Ocean's 11," bringing back characters from previous "Furious" films, most of whom have little to do.

As heist movies go, this one is pretty lackadaisical. The plan devolves into fuzzy chaos, and the entire enterprise is only an excuse for a big crazy race-through-the-streets and smash-cars ending. The auto body death toll here may actually exceed that of "Bad Boys II."

It's understandable that Lin wanted to take a right turn into heisting with the franchise — it gives the series someplace to go.

But heist movies should lock intricately into place, while this one just lurches to its end. Next time, let's have a real plan.

For Diesel, who looks more artificially inflated every year, these films have become his career; this is the first film he's made since "Fast & Furious." The same can pretty much be said for Walker and Brewster as well. These people are literally living off this franchise, so they'd better hope the heist thing catches on.

It probably will. The "F&F" films are all pretty dismal (the oddball "Tokyo Drift" remains the most interesting), but they give audiences what they want: lots of flashy cars, fast scenes, fights, stunts and psychic noise.

You can't say "Fast Five" delivers the goods, but it delivers what it's supposed to.

Review of "In a Better World"

Simply put, this would be a better world if there were more films like "In a Better World."

Not that this year's Oscar winner for best foreign language film is all butterflies and jellybeans. It's decidedly not. It challenges the viewer, eschews easy answers, raises ugly questions and faces tragic situations head-on. But director Susanne Bier, working again with scriptwriter Anders Thomas Jensen (they previously did the masterful "Brothers" and "After the Wedding"), manages to bring great reality and emotion to eerily believable moments in this film.

She never gives in to sensation, she never loses control of her often out-of-control characters, and she guides the film's roiling emotions toward a properly imperfect end.

The setup is a bit complicated, but then life is.

Anton (Mikael Persbrandt) is a Danish surgeon working in African refugee camps. The need there is overwhelming, but he's professional and carries on. Still, he's rocked to the core when someone brings in a woman who has had her living fetus cut out of her.

It turns out this was the work of someone called "The Big Man." The Big Man likes to make bets on what gender baby a woman is carrying, and then he cuts the child out to prove if he's wrong or right.

Meanwhile, back in Denmark, Anton's oldest son, pre-teen Elias (Markus Rygaard) is being bullied mercilessly at school. Enter new student Christian (William John Nielsen), a boy whose mother has just died and is in no mood for bullies.

When he emphatically puts Elias' attackers in their place, a bond grows between the two boys.

After all, Christian is down to one parent, the too-understanding Claus (Ulrich Thomsen), and Elias' parents have separated because of Anton's long leaves of absence and an apparent indiscretion.

When Anton returns home on a break, he and his physician wife Marianne (Trine Dyrholm, playing brilliantly beneath the character) share custody of Elias and meet Christian.

Soon however, it becomes apparent to Elias that something has snapped inside of Christian. This occurs to him around the time Christian begins building bombs.

This tension comes to a head when Anton, trying to break up a tussle between his younger son and another boy, is accosted by the other boy's father and challenged to a fight.

Anton attempts to explain to his children how fighting is never the best method to resolve problems. But Christian will have none of it. And suddenly Elias finds himself crushed within the argument.

Then Anton is sent back to Africa, where he finds the notorious Big Man requesting/demanding medical help.

What can Anton do? He's a doctor.

Moral pitfalls and dark choices litter this film; they are ugly situations that press in on the characters — socially, psychically, emotionally. And they each have consequences, often grim, always fraught with uneasiness or danger.

Yet somehow Bier and screenwriter Jensen keep it clear that these are real, breathing people enduring life's trials. Using beautiful Danish sunrises and sets, Bier constantly reminds that all these intense problems co-exist with intense beauty.

"In a Better World" doesn't so much dream as it does discover the decency down deep. It is heartbreaking and at times harrowing, yet it also manages to never be without wonder.

This isn't simply a film worth seeing; this is a film to treasure.

Review of "Thor"

'Thor" is a tale of two worlds, which may be one world too many.

Essentially, when the movie comes down to Earth it's pretty good. But when it spends time across the universe — and it spends a lot of time across the universe — it's pure geek fare. Which may thrill geeks but leave others yawning.

Across the universe sits, apparently, the fantasy realm of Asgard, a sparkling city of magical bridges and hallowed halls housing a race of do-good warriors who are sort of guardians of the galaxy.

Odin (Anthony Hopkins) is king of this world. His one son, Thor (Chris Hemsworth), is an arrogant hot-head who lives to do battle. The other, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), is a shifty magician. Each man wants to be king.

When Thor goes off on some unauthorized inter-planetary vengeance mission, busting the chops of evil blue giants who love to freeze things, Odin flips his literal wig and, as punishment, banishes Thor to earth.

All the preceding, which takes up the film's first half hour, is delivered with full fantasy pomp and circumstance, with characters dressed in armor and capes, gold goblets raised, giant monsters unleashed and gobs of computer-created visuals.

Then Thor hits the ground and the movie becomes a lot more fun. Odin drops his boy in the New Mexico desert, where he's promptly hit by a car driven by scientists studying the sky.

Those scientists would be the lovely Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), her irreverent assistant Darcy (Kat Dennings) and mentor Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard).

At this point, the film becomes a funny fish-out-of-water story as the imperious Thor runs face first into American culture, and Hemsworth transforms his character (a bit too easily) from a self-loving jerk to an amiable lug.

As he's doing this, a sort of obligatory chaste instant love occurs between the big guy and scientist Jane, although few sparks are detected on screen.

Luckily for the plot, Odin tossed Thor's signature weapon, the mighty hammer of whatever-or-other, down to Earth behind him, so Thor has something to do when he gets here. A secret government agency has surrounded the hammer — it conveniently landed a few miles from where Thor touched down — and now Thor needs to reclaim it.

And so on. Eventually Thor zips back to Asgard for a final geek-fantasy showdown that's so overblown it makes "The Lord of the Rings" look like it was based on actual events.

All of this is directed by Kenneth Branagh, the Shakesperean actor-director who has much experience with costume dramas and little-to-none with comic book epics and 3-D visual spectacles.

For some reason he shows a particular affection for faraway shots — tiny horsemen crossing a long bridge with a magical city glimmering in the background — that take on an irritating 3-D fuzziness.

And while he lets humor aid the earthbound scenes, everything set elsewhere has a dreary, heavy tone. Maybe the surroundings are so inherently silly that he — and the film's eight (!) screenwriters — is afraid to be silly in them.

In truth, "Thor" is so thoroughly ridiculous (the people in Asgard just happen to all speak English) it makes "Spider-Man" seem plausible.

The best comic book films trade on self-effacing humor to offset their absurdity (think "Iron Man"); when "Thor" does this, it's kind of fun. When it gets ever so serious, it's tedious.

True believer comic freaks, of course, won't care. But for others, "Thor" may be too out of this world for its own good.

Review of "Jane Eyre"

She is fragile, strong, anxious, angry, brave, broken, driven near mad, but never — you see it in her eyes, across her face — beaten.

She is "Jane Eyre," a character brought to film countless times, read in books, thousands, millions more.

Yet it's doubtful anyone has ever quite breathed the life into this abused orphan and damaged romantic that Mia Wasikowska has at the ripe old and completely appropriate age of 21.

Who? Mia Wasikowska.

Pronounce it "VAH-shee-KOF-ska." She's Australian by birth and appeared in two films last year. One was the best picture Oscar-nominated "The Kids Are All Right" (she was one of the two kids); the other was "Alice in Wonderland." She played Alice. The film earned more than a $1 billion.

VAH-shee-KOF-ska. Remember it.

Because with "Jane Eyre," the potential apparent in those earlier films reveals itself as a full-blown, wondrous thing.

Wasikowska has a face that can go from plain to dazzling in an instant; it can bring to life a complex range of reactions and then land on just the right one. She is beautiful and average and all things in between when she needs to be, and beyond that filled with both raw emotion and powerful sophistication.

In other words, this is one heck of a young actress. She doesn't play Jane Eyre. She makes Jane Eyre her own.

Not that this new production is filled with flash. Director Cary Fukunaga, working with a screenplay adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's novel by Moira Buffini, is certainly dealing with a classic look and sticking to the story.

But unlike other directors, he neither broods over the tale's nightmarish qualities or gushes with romantic foppery. He lays it out as it is, relying on Wasikowska to carry the day. Good move.

The orphaned Jane is sent off to a boarding school by a cruel aunt (Sally Hawkins). There, she is kept under strict rule until she is old enough to work as a governess.

Then off she's sent to Thornfield Hall, to teach the young charge of the mysterious Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender), a mercurial sort who is both taken aback and intrigued by the striking honesty and plain beauty of his new employee. Jane and Rochester begin a bantering relationship, even though it can seemingly go nowhere.

Love eventually blossoms in its repressed, clumsy British way, only to be trampled by a near-literal ghost-in-the-attic. Jane, led astray, runs off across the foggy moors in search of either death or a new life.

She finds the latter with the help of an altruistic young preacher (Jamie Bell) and his two sisters. But even as good fortune mounts for her, she cannot forget Rochester.

The usual issues are raised by this production — the limits of propriety, the boundaries of love, the false distinctions of class and the illusion of comfort.

But somehow Wasikowska makes it all seem much more personal, more real. With her stark, starched dresses and blunt, elastic face, she draws you in, making both Jane's pain and incredible resolve tangible.

She doesn't make the old new again; she makes it good again, far better than you'd imagine.

There's unexpected fire in this "Jane Eyre." One can only imagine — and look forward to — what heat Wasikowska will bring elsewhere.

Review of "Sucker Punch"

Watching attractive young ladies dressed in skimpy outfits fighting orcs and dragons and zombies can be fun. For a while.

Director-writer Zack Snyder stretches "a while" way too long in his elaborate love kiss to geek fan boys, "Sucker Punch."

One such ridiculous action scene is impressive, if puzzling; two such scenes make for overkill while still offering little sense; and from there on the effect becomes both numbing and maddening.

"Sucker Punch" is the story of Babydoll (Lolita-esque Emily Browning), a young thing tossed in an insane asylum and awaiting a lobotomy. But wait! Maybe instead it's a house of prostitution? Or is that all in her head?

No matter what, when Baby Doll does an apparently wildly erotic dance (which the audience never sees), she transfixes those around her, while simultaneously traveling off to wild battle scenes — usually with her gang of foxy fellow inmates (Abbie Cornish as Sweet Pea, Jena Malone as Rocket, Vanessa Hudgens as Blondie and Jamie Chung as Amber).

All of these women are super-powered Kung Fu-fighting killing machines. Or maybe that's just in their heads. No matter what, it makes for much mayhem.

Too much mayhem as the story basically becomes an excuse for high-gloss carnage. And yet all this energy is undercut by the fact that in reality — whatever that is — it's clear that none of this is happening.

In the end, the entire film is a tedious sexual tease of eye candy and slo-mo fight choreography, which is likely what Snyder — "300," "Watchmen" — intended.

If the goal was sensory overload and audience stupefaction, he has succeeded indeed. Snyder apparently is offering lobotomies to all. Step right up.

Review of "Limitless"

'Limitless" is limited, but intriguing nonetheless.

Much of this has to do with director Neil Burger ("The Illusionist"), who brings a kooky edge to the story. The rest has to do with star Bradley Cooper ("The Hangover," "The A-Team") proving he actually might be more than just another pretty face.

Cooper plays Eddie Morra, a would-be writer who's been going nowhere for quite some time. As we meet Eddie he's scraggly and run-down looking, which only goes to show that Bradley Cooper is still killer good-looking even when he's scraggly and run-down.

Early on, Eddie runs into his ex-brother-in-law, a sleazoid type who has just the thing for Eddie: A special pill that will allow him to use all the brain power at his disposal, as opposed to the sliver of gray matter humans use on a regular basis.

Suddenly Eddie's finishing a novel in a couple of days, and it's brilliant. Scoring a few more pills, he realizes he can make a fortune in the financial world. Unfortunately, he needs some start-up money, so he turns to a loan shark (Andrew Howard). Then, when he's scored big, he starts working with a major mogul (Robert De Niro).

Meanwhile, Eddie's dealer runs into some trouble of the dead kind and Eddie makes off with his stash.

His addiction grows; his success grows; his stash keeps shrinking.

Eventually, his associates want a part of it. Eddie may be on top, but the bottom seems to be beckoning.

It's a straightforward tension Burger is dealing with, working from Leslie Dixon's adaptation of Alan Glynn's novel, but he keeps throwing in little kinks to keep things interesting.

And, at its heart, the film keeps asking: Would you do it? Who could pass it up? Is this the devil in disguise or heaven opening up?

You choose.

Review of "Paul"

Aliens: They're either out to take over the planet or they're cute as all get out.

"Paul" is an alien of the cute variety, spiked with a number of unsavory and rude but thoroughly enjoyable habits. After he miraculously brings a bird back to life he promptly stuffs it in his mouth and eats it. He tends to moon people. He enjoys cursing. And he sounds a lot like Seth Rogen.

That's because "Paul" is voiced by Seth Rogen, and Rogen's groggy expertise with voiceovers is about all that makes you buy the cheap-rubber-suit look of "Paul." The whole thing is so silly it doesn't matter if it's realistic. The same can be said of the entire movie.

"Paul" stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the amiably mismatched Brits who sent up zombie movies in the brilliant "Shaun of the Dead" and then sent up cop movies in the not-quite-brilliant but still pretty funny "Hot Fuzz."

This time around the duo are sharing writing credits — "Superbad" director Greg Mottola directs — while sending up movies about extraterrestrials. The results are, again, not-quite-brilliant but funny enough. Pegg and Frost play Graeme and Clive, two British nerds who decide to tour the U.S in an RV, looking at famous sites of supposed alien landings.

Wouldn't you know they pick up an actual alien along the way? That would be "Paul," who has escaped a government facility after 60 years. He wants to go home; so bingo, you've got an instant alien-nerds road-trip movie.

Throw in a very funny Kristen Wiig as a Christian fundamentalist who suddenly sees the other light and you've got gags-a-plenty. Too many, in fact, as the film runs about half an hour too long.

Apparently silly aliens aren't much for self-editing. But they are good for a laugh, and so is "Paul."

Review of "Kaboom"

"Kaboom" is one of those films with a wildly complex plot that's over-ridden by wholly irrelevant sex scenes.

Most films like this turn out to be pretty flimsy and ultimately disappointing. Count "Kaboom" in that number. Maybe its incompetence and absurdity are supposed to evoke laughter. They don't.

Writer-director Greg Araki has a history of getting talented young people to perform in his "experiments."

In 2004's "Mysterious Skin," he used (abused) Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michelle Trachtenberg. Here he's got the promising trio of Thomas Dekker ("Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles"), Haley Bennett ("Music and Lyrics") and Juno Temple ("Notes on a Scandal," "Atonement"). All have done and will do better work.

Dekker plays bi-sexual college frosh Smith, best friend to Bennett's acerbic lesbian-in-learning Stella, and sometime playmate with Temple's sexual dynamo, London.

You know something's weird when Stella has an affair with a witch early on; it's for sure weird when a bunch of guys wearing masks murder a lovely redhead in front of Smith one night.

What's going on? Who cares? Seriously, Araki mostly concentrates on the trade-partners sex scenes and too-clever dialogue for most of the movie.

But eventually it turns out there's a huge underground cult quietly controlling the world, and they're about to blow it up. Luckily/unluckily for Smith and London, they unknowingly have ties to this cult.

Araki waits until a final car chase scene to explain — and explain — what all this means, shoving two hours of bad plot into five minutes of bad exposition, then the movie ends.

You'll be glad. That it's ended, that is. Not that you watched it.

Review of "Lord of the Dance in 3D"

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Don't go see "Lord of the Dance in 3D."

First off, the 3-D is terrible, absolutely the worst. Somehow it actually manages to make the production look one-dimensional, especially when the camera pulls back to capture the full width of the stage.

Beyond that the entire proceedings are dark and fuzzy. In truth, the only time you notice the "3-D" is when occasional cheesy animated designs shoot out. The rest of the time it just looks like a really poorly made film.

There's one other major problem, though. The dancing is so repetitious, it's headache inducing.

Realize this opinion comes from a guy who's so full-blooded Irish he bears a shamrock tattooed on one arm and a Celtic braid done in Dublin on the other.

But after watching star Michael Flatley dance the same essential steps for an hour, my reaction was: Really? That's all we've got?

Centuries of culture and all we've come up with is some tap-dance-jig stuff?

True, there's a story of sorts going on here. Some of the tap-dancing-jig folks are dressed in Gestapo black, others are in white. The Gestapo guys break the flute of some fairy dancer.

Then the white-dressed Mr. Flatley comes out and does tap-jig battle with the main Gestapo guy, and guess what? Good triumphs over evil.

Again: Really? That's all we've got?

All the repetitious dancing is accompanied by rock concert-type lighting and there's an elaborate stage set. This is probably quite stunning live. In awful 3-D it's not.

Every once in a while a couple of hot blonde female types break things up by having an electric violin fiddle-off. But then the fiddle-offs become repetitious as well.

Obviously there are many fans of this stuff, "Lord of the Dance" having played approximately two billion sold-out shows. But even fans are going to find the 3-D hard to fathom.

Meanwhile, non-fans are sure to be asking, when is that guy going to stop slamming his feet on the floor? And: Where's the Guinness?

Review of "The Mechanic"

Jason Statham needs to get a tune-up, switch gears and hit the gas.
"The Mechanic," his latest killing spree dressed up as a movie, has all the explosions, gunfights and acrobatic stunts fans of his action films have come to expect.
But it also has smoldering Ben Foster as his co-star and it could have been, should have been, so much more.
Let's review: Statham surfaced in two Guy Ritchie films — "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and the underrated "Snatch" — where he played an average bloke. But by "The Transporter" he had been transformed into a balding chop-socky action hero.
Since then, he's done efficient low-grade action flicks, gonzo action flicks (the "Crank" movies), choice ensemble roles ("The Italian Job," "The Expendables") and one solid crime caper flick ("The Bank Job"). All his movies probably make money; most could be much better.
"The Mechanic" should have been one of those much better movies simply because of the premise and Foster, who is coming off what should have been a career-changing role in "The Messenger."
Instead, the movie is a series of clumsy moves leading from one fight scene to another in a totally predictable manner.
The fight scenes are fun — Statham really knows how to shoot people when he's not beating them to death, and Foster plays an enthusiastic if consistently sneering student. But director Simon West and the multiple screenwriters don't seem to care at all about motivation or logic.
Statham plays Arthur, apparently the world's top hit man, able to kill you without making it look like murder. He's a cool, unemotional machine.
But after one particularly ugly hit he's approached by Steve (Foster), the aimless son of an old friend. Steve wants to learn how to do what Arthur does.
Knowing full well Steve is a complete hot-head with psychological problems and a temper like Vesuvius, Arthur still agrees to become his mentor.
So the training begins. This is where you'd expect a lot of technical stuff, lessons in humility and precision-thinking, weaponry, etc.
The training consists of Arthur and Steve going out in the woods and blasting away at stuff with their big guns. That's pretty much it.
Then Steve gets his first assignment. He's supposed to quietly kill some guy. Instead, he turns it into a gigantic brawl.
Why would Arthur keep him around? No good explanation is given.
By the time Steve messes up on the next assignment it's easy to think Arthur might just shoot him outright. But no, Foster has a contract and must make it to the movie's end.
The priority here, obviously, is just to move as quickly as possible from one outrageous action scene to the next. This can be done without leaving all sense behind (see last summer's "Salt"), but "The Mechanic" is too slipshod to even bother.
The thing is, Statham is actually darn good at this stuff (although maybe not so good at choosing scripts). He can do macho with a big twist of humor and his fighting skills are top notch. But he seems stuck. It's time to climb the ladder.
Statham's got films with Robert De Niro, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Ian McShane, Javier Bardem and Christopher Walken on the way. Let's hope some of the golden stuff rubs off.
"The Mechanic" may be good enough for Jason Statham fans, but it shouldn't be good enough for Jason Statham.

Review of "Blue Valentine"

There are moments of sheer romantic bliss in "Blue Valentine," but not many.
For the most part, this devastating look at modern romance revolves around bad choices, seething frustrations and good days gone bad. It is an acting showcase for two maverick talents that seems to go beyond mere acting and into another realm of aching revelation.
It's not an easy movie, but it is a powerful, unforgettable experience.
"Blue Valentine" tells the story of Cindy (Michelle Williams) and Dean (Ryan Gosling), lovers who quickly become husband and wife and then mother and father.
Director-writer Derek Cianfrance flashes back and forth in time with such an abandon that it's sometimes hard to tell what is when, but that experience becomes part of the film's intentional confusion — these people are probably always in love, just as they're always in conflict, conscious or not.
Less-than-ambitious furniture mover Dean meets aspiring nurse Cindy and they quickly fall in love.
But, in the future, we see their strained marriage, Dean's aimless desperation and Cindy's yearning. As the film moves forward from both then and now, love blossoms at the same time it is strangled.
The virtually unknown Cianfrance reportedly spent years getting this film made while earning a living making documentaries. It was time well-spent, especially since it led to Gosling and Williams taking on these roles. Each is frighteningly good — appealing, pained, raw and consumed.
There is one small scene where the young lovers pause at a storefront at night and Dean serenades Cindy on the ukulele while she does a silly tap dance that may be among the most charming interludes ever filmed.
But the dance grows ragged, the song dissonant, and darkness smothers the charm. "Blue Valentine" is as honest, and as terrifying, as love gets.

Review of "The Illusionist"

There are no 3-D effects, no lovable monsters, no memorable songs or cute tykes. Heck, there's hardly any real dialogue.
But the Oscar-nominated "The Illusionist" is animation of the finest kind. A French import that's long on grace notes and wry humor, it eschews flash and opts for heart to great effect.
At the beginning, we are introduced to the Illusionist, a performer who pulls a troublesome rabbit out of his hat, performs mystifying card tricks and generally seems an old — and old school— trouper, traveling about Europe playing everything from music halls to rock shows and weddings.
At one such wedding, he dazzles a drunken Scotsman, which leads to a trip to a remote Scottish village where he performs in a rustic pub. While there, he befriends a lowly cleaning girl, buying her a new pair of shoes.
When he leaves Scotland, the cleaning girl stows away and travels with him. Eventually, she's discovered and he befriends her again, sharing the apartment he rents in a vaudeville hotel filled with eccentric performers.
He has opened up a whole new world to her; it's a world she wants to revel in, and reveling can be costly. He takes up odd jobs so he can buy her things. But in the end, he is an old man, and she is a young girl.Director Sylvain Chomet ("The Triplets of Belleville"), adapting a story by Jacques Tati, doesn't try to avoid the sentiment inherent in all this, but he does spice things up with a colorful array of goofy characters — a foppish rock band, a lonely clown, an upbeat trio of gymnasts — while letting his central characters become more and more real.
We Americans expect dazzle from cartoons; "The Illusionist" trusts in story and connections and quirks that delight even in a tale that aches. This is such sweet cinema.