Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (2014)

** SPOILERS **

Ninjas are very loud, according to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Traditionally, they aren't supposed to be. Ninjas are silent killers, like radon gas. Even Shredder, the evil ninja master and arch enemy of the Ninja Turtles is loud, clad in his clanky battle armor bristling with swords and knives. This new Michael Bay-produced and Jonathan Liebesman-directed reboot is a frenetic cacophony, updating the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies by bombastically ramping up the action and the Ninja Turtles themselves. Now motion capture and CGI creations instead of stunt men in rubber suits, the Ninja Turtles and their wizened "father" and sensei Splinter the rat (voiced by Tony Shaloub!) are bigger, more expressive, more dynamic, and... a lot louder. 

As ever, the Ninja Turtles are named for Italian Renaissance painters and coded by color, weapon, and personality: Leonardo (blue mask, katana swords, played by Pete Ploszek and voiced by Johnny Knoxville) is the serious leader; Donatello (purple mask, bo staff, played by Jeremy Howard) is the nerdy techno-whiz; Michelangelo (yellow mask, nunchaku, played by Noel Fisher) is the party-loving horn dog, Raphael (red mask, sai, played by Alan Ritchson) is the hard-nosed loner who likes to put on his growly "Batman voice." Of course, they're into hip hop and superhero movies, and they still love pizza. Moreso, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles loves product placement money; the movie practically stops halfway through for Splinter and the Ninja Turtles to shamelessly pitch Pizza Hut to the audience.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is very much the Megan Fox show. Having learned how to anchor a Michael Bay special effects extravaganza based on a 1980s cartoon from her Transformers co-star Shia LaBeouf, Fox proves up to the challenge as the nexus of her own franchise. As yellow-clad reporter April O'Neil, Fox is the best she's ever been in a movie. A diehard Ninja Turtles fan in real life throwing herself into the material and playing it straight, Fox is in nearly every scene, working her ass off to sell both the bizarre exposition and the frenetic action she gets involved in. Trying to prove herself as a serious investigator by uncovering the truth of the "vigilantes" battling against the fearsome Foot Clan terrorizing New York City, Fox uncovers not only the insidious plot by billionaire industrialist William Fichtner and Shredder (Tohoru Masamune) to poison all of New York, but the secret of the Ninja Turtles. 

In a clever twist, the Ninja Turtles turn out to be Fox's childhood pets, whom she freed when a fire set by Fichtner killed her scientist father. This creates an interesting new bond between Fox and the Ninja Turtles while also presenting us with such visuals as a bewildered Fox sitting cross-legged opposite a talking rat. The blood in the Ninja Turtles that mutated them is the mutagen that can cure Fichtner and Shredder's poison, conveniently. Even though Fox is sort of the Ninja Turtles' "mother," it doesn't stop Michelangelo (Fox's real life favorite Ninja Turtle) from hitting on her repeatedly. It's awkward, but Fox just shakes it off with a laugh. Best not to contemplate Fox-Turtle mating any further.

Every human in the movie, including her news editor Whoopi Goldberg and roommate Abby Elliott, talks down to Fox as she tries to prove the "vigilantes" battling the Foot Clan are in fact four six-foot-tall talking turtles... and mutants... and teenagers... and ninjas. The only human (not affiliated with Shredder) who sort of believes her is her camera man Will Arnett, who's really just there to ogle Fox and try to get in her pants, as if seeking high fives from the men in the audience. (Just like when LaBeouf used the cartoon tag line "More than meets the eye" in Transformers, Fox is nonplussed when Arnett suggests the Ninja Turtles are "Heroes in a half-shell.") Poor Arnett finds himself blue-balled by the unattainable Fox and caught up battling and escaping from ninjas shooting machine guns while trying to drive an Optimus Prime-like truck down a snowy mountain side. But Arnett acquits himself admirably throughout; who can blame him for taking a moment during a car chase to scope out Fox's ass?

Though relegated to the shadows for much of the movie, by the time they're all together taking on Shredder on top of a skyscraper and trying to save themselves and Fox from plummeting to their deaths (their tag team move with Fox to kick Shredder to a Joker-like death dive was a nice Batman '89 homage), the Ninja Turtles do get their moments in the sun. Each Turtle's personality and capabilities gets a chance to shine through (at least enough to effectively tell them apart beyond the color coded masks) and they get a touching climactic moment reaffirming their family - turtles, rat and Fox. Where the Ninja Turtles got the Turtle Van with the rocket launcher on the roof at the end is a question that might have to be answered in the announced sequel, but whatever. More Turtle Power to them.

Hercules

HERCULES

** SPOILERS **

Brett Ratner's Hercules takes the monsters and the gods out of the classic Greek mythology of gods and monsters. In this revisionist take on the legend of Hercules (where everyone has a Greek name except Hercules himself, because if he had his actual Greek name he'd be called Heracles), the legend that Hercules is the son of Zeus and performed Twelve Labors against the most fearsome monsters of Ancient Greece is just that. In actuality, Hercules, as embodied (and what a jacked body it is) by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, is merely an incredibly strong mortal man and who is surrounded by a gang of warriors (including Rufus Sewell, Ian McShane and a fearsome Amazonian warrior played by Ingrid Bolso Berdal) who are loyal to the end. Nor did Hercules face monsters, for there are no monsters; each of the Twelve Labors was against either an otherwise normal animal (the Nemean Lion) or people pretending to be monsters (the Hydra) that Hercules and his buddies tag teamed and defeated. The legend of Hercules is just smoke and mirrors. It's all just a story, a myth built around Hercules mostly spread by his carnival barker of a nephew as a means for them all to make money. Hercules and his posse gots ta get paid, preferably in Hercules' weight in gold.

Traveling across Ancient Greece and eking out a living as mercenaries, Hercules and friends - exiles from Athens and their king played effetely by Joseph Fiennes - are brought to Thrace by the Thracian king John Hurt to train his army and lead them in a war against centaurs. (Hint: there are no real centaurs.) Little does the soft-spoken, lion's mane-as-a-hoodie-wearing Hercules realize that he's a pawn in a diabolical scheme by Hurt to make himself an emperor over all of Greece. Despite his legend preceding him, there's a lot of doubt cast as to whether Hercules is the demi-god he claims he is, but once the Thracians see Hercules beat the crap out of five guys at once with one blow of his club and powerslam a horse, doubt erases as to whether Hercules is the real deal. If only Hercules believed his own hype; Johnson's Hercules is haunted by the murder of his wife and children - blamed on him by Fiennes - and of the Twelfth Labor left uncompleted: battling Cerberus, the three headed dog of Hades (note: there is no three headed dog from Hades.) 

As a sword and sandals spectacle, Hercules is sufficiently entertaining, even surprisingly so. While the long yak hair wig and odd anatomy of his armor never quite suit him, The Rock brings a godly physicality to the role that makes him totally convincing when he lays the smack down on Ancient Greek candy asses. (Repeat: Hercules powerslams a horse.) Johnson is especially mighty in the final act when Hercules finally unleashes all of his incredible Hercules-ness and flattens whole armies by toppling giant marble statues onto them. Sewell, McShane, and his compatriots handle most of the exposition and the comedy, while Hurt makes for a dastardly old villain. In a weird way, by having a gang of buddies around him as a makeshift family who ride or die with him, Hercules kind of has his own Guardians of the Galaxy. The studio should use that in the marketing of Hercules; it might lift up its ungodly box office.

Guardians of the Galaxy

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

** SPOILERS **

Rollicking, breakneck space adventure, big, impactful emotional moments, ribald jokes galore, and a heartwarming core message of the importance of family and friendship are the prime reasons to blast off with Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, perhaps the riskiest venture yet from Marvel Studios. A risk that has paid off big time. Opening up the vastness of outer space in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Guardians introduces us to world-annihilating alien cultures, long dead space gods, weapons of infinite destructive power, and more than one genetically modified talking animal. Earth's Mightest Heroes, the Avengers, are nowhere to be found out there in the final frontier. Instead, the galaxy's best hope are a ragtag bunch of assholes. The Galaxy doesn't know how lucky they are to have these assholes as their Guardians, but they - and we - happily learn soon enough.

The Guardians of the Galaxy are Peter Quill, a.k.a Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), a human self-styled outlaw abducted as a child by a cadre of cannibalistic (so they claim) space pirates called the Ravagers lead by Yondu (Michael Rooker); Gamora (Zoe Saldana), an emerald-skinned assassin and "daughter" of the malevolent Mad Titan Thanos (Josh Brolin); Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), a muscle-bound lunatic out to avenge the murder of his family; Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a genetically engineered talking raccoon who's the technical whiz of the operation; and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), a kind-hearted plant creature, kind of like a wooden, leafy Chewbacca. The future Guardians are thrown into and break out of a space gulag together when chasing after the most dangerous McGuffin in the universe: an Infinity Stone, one of six power sources from the dawn of the universe capable of unlimited destruction. Also after the Infinity Stone are the big bad of the Kree Empire, Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace), a genocidal fanatic who swings a hammer even bigger than Thor's, and Thanos himself, who sent his second most favorite daughter Nebula (Karen Gillan) to aid Ronan in bringing him the Infinity Stone. Ronan has other plans, which directly conflict with the plans of the Guardians (although the Guardians, technically, don't have plans, per se. They just tend to improvise.)

Amidst the edge of your seat, anything goes careening action and adventure, the most surprising and pleasing aspect of Guardians is how richly realized the main characters are. All of the Guardians are broken people (er, and a raccoon, and uh... a Groot...), each nursing trauma, guilt, or regret like raw, open wounds. Certainly nothing can prepare you for the sight of a talking raccoon crying and drunkenly forlorn over existentialism. Equally sweet and touching is the moment Drax pets the weeping Rocket, and Rocket's reaction to something that has never happened to him before. Drax mourns his family and craves vengeance. Gamora has a serious case of sibling rivalry and a profound urge to fight against the nefarious plans of Thanos and Ronan. Groot is as soulful and heroic as a bizarre plant thing that can only utter "I am Groot" can possibly be. Quill is hardly the space hero Luke Skywalker or even Han Solo are, but he is learning, and he wants to save the galaxy for the most logical of reasons: because he's one of the idiots who lives in the galaxy. The Guardians squabble and brawl with one another, but gradually learn to trust each other and see themselves as a misfit family, going even further than the Avengers did as a unit when they assembled to save the Earth.

Writer-director James Gunn plays every card in his deck like it's a trump: from the outrageously fitting 1970's soundtrack on cassette tapes so coveted by Star-Lord, to the running jokes of people incredulous at calling Quill "Star-Lord," Drax taking everything literally, and Rocket's claiming he needs various cybernetic appendages of random people amputated for his schemes, to every timely laugh gleaned from Groot saying his one line. Gunn propels the Guardians and the audience to the far-flung corners of the Marvel Universe. We visit the futuristic home world of the Nova Corps, the army of space police lead by Nova Prime (Glenn Close) and captained by Dey (John C. Reilly). We are awed at the sight of Knowhere, a mining colony and wretched hive of scum and villainy housed within the gigantic, hollowed out skull of a long-dead Celestial, one of the Marvel Universe's majestic space gods. We watch a seething, pouty Ronan plot to annihilate an entire world from his fearsome starship, and we pay a brief visit to Sanctuary, the asteroid base of Thanos, seated on his throne, biding his time until he finally takes center stage to threaten all of the Marvel Universe with the Infinity Gauntlet. We even find out whatever happened to that dog the Russians launched into space decades ago. (He doesn't talk like Rocket, or like a certain duck who lives in Knowhere does.)  

Guardians of the Galaxy is a spectacular triumph for Marvel, a crowd-pleasing, devil-may-care romp though the dangerous waters of Marvel outer space, full of traitors, tyrants, and that loveable talking tree. Five oddball characters borne from Marvel Comics most people have never heard of are now, delightfully, our beloved space heroes for the 21st century. The Guardians of the Galaxy are the bunch of assholes we want watching our backs as our friends and makeshift family. May they save the galaxy over and over in multiple sequels (and maybe in a team up with the Avengers - fingers crossed!) while rocking out to Star-Lord's awesome mix tapes.

Batman: Assault on Arkham

BATMAN: ASSAULT ON ARKHAM

** SPOILERS **

Set in the continuity of the best-selling and excellent Batman: Arkham video game series, it's good to be bad in Batman: Assault on Arkham. Except no, it really isn't. It's horrible. For in the DC Universe, if you're a B-list or C-list supervillain, you may just have the unfortunate distinction of being suddenly drugged and unwillingly drafted into the Suicide Squad. The Batman himself is largely relegated to the shadows as the Suicide Squad takes center stage in Assault on Arkham. Coerced by fearsome super spy Amanda Waller (depicted here in all her preferred pre-New 52 glory as a heavy set black woman deserving of her nickname "The Wall," and not a svelte super model as in current continuity), the Suicide Squad are comprised of not-exactly household name arch criminals like Captain Boomerang, King Shark, the Black Spider, and Killer Frost. The most famous name in the Squad is Harley Quinn, in full loveable psycho mode. Even moreso than Batman, master assassin Deadshot emerges as the true star of Assault on Arkham, an honorable killer and loving but deadbeat dad burdened with trying to corral this gathering of psychos.

Under penalty of having their heads literally blown clean off their bodies via a nano bomb implanted in their necks, the Suicide Squad's mission is to break into Gotham's Arkham Asylum and steal the Riddler's cane, which houses a thumb drive containing the identities of every past and future member of the Suicide Squad. If that sounds exactly like the plot of the first Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible, it's because it is. One guesses the Suicide Squad never saw Mission: Impossible.* As one would predict from this gaggle of do-badders, things go FUBAR right from the get-go. Complicating matters is the Batman, hunting for a dirty bomb belonging to the Joker that will demolish Gotham in a nuclear holocaust, and the Joker himself, on the loose and working out his sordid relationship issues with Harley Quinn. Double crosses and gruesome deaths galore is the viewer's reward in this envelope-pushing PG-13 cartoon, along with a surprising amount of curse words and quite a bit of eyebrow-raising nudity from both Harley Quinn and Killer Frost. The voice work is uniformly excellent, with Kevin Conroy returning as the voice of Batman, Troy Baker nicely invoking Mark Hamill as the Joker, Hynden Walch delighting as Harley Quinn, and Neal McDonough delivering a cool, unflappable Deadshot. The quality of DC Animated movies has been touch and go in the post-Bruce Timm/Paul Dini years, but the brutal, ultraviolent, uncomfortably funny and even more uncomfortably sexy Batman: Assault on Arkham blows away recent entries like Justice League: War.

* There are some great Easter Egg homages to Batman Returns and The Dark Knight for the sharp-eyed.

#Batman #AssaultonArkham counts: Harley Quinn nude: 2 Killer Frost nude: 1 Sex scenes: 1 "Shit!" said: 2 Batman shocks someone's nuts: 1
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) July 31, 2014

Lucy

LUCY

** SPOILERS **

In Luc Besson's bloody, bizarre, blisteringly entertaining Lucy, a gloriously game and thoroughly committed Scarlett Johansson stars as the title character, an American ex-pat living in Taipei. Lucy had the misfortune of dating (for a week) a skeevy drug trafficker who handcuffs her to a mysterious briefcase and marches her into a skyscraper owned by Chinese gangsters, lead by Min-sik Choi as the fearsomely perspiring Mr. Jang. In short order, Lucy is terrorized, battered, victimized, and forced to become a drug mule. Lucy has the contents of said briefcase sewn into her abdomen -- blue drugs called CPH4, which a surgeon explains is like "an atomic bomb" to a growing fetus. To the full-grown Lucy, it's certainly that, and much more. After being physically assaulted yet again, the bag of CPH4 bursts inside her and flows into her bloodstream, allowing her to unlock 100% of her brain capacity, gradually giving her godlike powers like matter transference, telekinesis, clairvoyance, and even time travel. If that's not impressive enough, she learns to speak Chinese in an hour and gives a car chase as breakneck as Steve McQueen despite never having driven before.

As Lucy adjusts to her astounding newfound abilities, she emerges as equal parts superhero, action heroine, and metaphysics philosopher. Lucy gives us a Jake the Explainer character in the form of Morgan Freeman, a professor in Paris who just happens to be lecturing on the theoretical potential of a human being reaching 100% brain capacity at the very same time that very event is occurring in Taipei. What are the odds? Once able to manipulate radio waves and broadcast signals, Lucy contacts Freeman, mainly so she can have someone to vocalize what's happening to her. Lucy doesn't need Freeman, per se, but who better for a girl going through changes to talk to than Morgan Freeman? All throughout Lucy's rapid evolution, Besson aims squarely at the audience's noses with constant cutaways to animals and nature (we even learn the first hominid was named "Lucy.") Besson's science is questionable at best, but scientific accuracy is hardly the point of Lucy.

In the best scene in Lucy, during a touching phone call to her mother, Lucy intriguingly tries to convey the myriad sensations of her increasing brain capacity, as she laments both her mortality and her humanity slipping away. Besson truly goes for broke in the third act as Lucy achieves 100% brain capacity and invokes dozens of Marvel and DC Comics characters with her abilities, including a ballsy time travel sequence where Lucy essentially becomes Metron of the New Gods. Despite the presence of Chinese gangsters, Interpol cops, and ultra-violent shoot outs, it seems as if Besson is attempting to direct his own version of Cosmos: A Space-time Odyssey, but he isn't. With Lucy, Besson is delivering a viscera-soaked, visually trippy, action-packed, science fiction tour de force of heady ideas that only Lucy herself seems to fully comprehend. Amusingly, Lucy's conclusion could even be interpreted as Lucy being an unintentional prequel to Her, which also stars Scarlett Johansson's milky voice. At the end of Watchmen, Dr. Manhattan left Earth for worlds unknown. If he'd stuck around, he would have met his match in Lucy.

Complaining about the factually flawed science in #LucyMovie misses the point. It's science *fiction.* Do you complain about the X-Men?
— John Orquiola (@BackoftheHead) July 30, 2014

Edge of Tomorrow

EDGE OF TOMORROW

** SPOILERS **

Edge of Tomorrow, though burdened with an awkward title*, is the best summer movie surprise of 2014. (Maybe they should have called it The Fault in Our Tom?) The fault in our hero, Tom Cruise, on the outset of Edge of Tomorrow is that he's a craven coward. Cannily inverting what we expect from him as a tight-jawed action hero, Cruise opens Edge of Tomorrow with a bona fide yellow streak down his back. Unfortunately for Cruise, a PR officer for the united Earth military currently losing a war against mechanical alien invaders called Mimics, his cowardice irritates general Brendan Gleeson so much that Gleeson kicks him into the front lines to fight the aliens and very likely die. Die Cruise does, hilariously. And, to his chagrin, over and over and over again.

For you see, and it takes Cruise a while for this to dawn on him, he's caught in a Groundhog Day scenario, forced to relive the same day repeatedly, by virtue of somehow absorbing the power of an alien he managed to kill. This alien power is Edge of Tomorrow's version of unlimited lives in a video game (up up, down down, left right left right, B A). Cruise, who is gifted with an excellent memory and a capacity to learn (very slowly at first - he's a lousy gamer on the outset), gradually realizes what's happening to him with the help of Emily Blunt, the only other human who previously held the same power. Cruise is in very top form; quite frankly, no one is more adept at coolly delivering complex exposition. Edge of Tomorrow plays Cruise's unlimited lives and multiple gory deaths for great laughs, until he finally improves his game enough to be a capable warrior. Edge of Tomorrow seamlessly shifts from unlikely comedy to a taut, sci-fi actioner as Cruise, Blunt and their team of roughnecks in cybernetic battle suits, get good enough to take on the aliens to save the world. Though he may have started as a sucky noob, Tom Cruise is welcome on my Halo team any time.

*The Japanese title, All You Need Is Kill, kicks ass.

Pompeii

POMPEII

** SPOILERS **

Jon Snow Vs. The Volcano

Pompeii is a cross between Romeo and Juliet, Gladiator, and The Day After Tomorrow, in which the love story of a rich Pompeiian girl and a studly gladiator slave is rudely interrupted by, in this order, Jack Bauer and an apolcalyptic volcanic eruption that annihilates life in the picturesque Italian coastal town of Pompeii. Kit Harrington (Jon Snow from Game of Thrones) is the gladiator, the lone survivor of a Celtic tribe of horse whisperers decimated by Roman legions lead by Kiefer Sutherland in Britannia. Harrington grew up to become a formidable gladiator prized by his fat Roman slave master and sent to Pompeii to main event their annual festival's gladiator games against the reigning champion Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Mr. Eko from Lost now mega buff and playing the Djimon Hounsou role from Gladiator). Along the way, handsome Harrington caught the eye of wealthy, willfull Emily Browning, who unfortunately is the apple of Sutherland's eye. Sutherland is now a powerful senator perpetually amused by doing whatever evil thing crosses his mind every second.

Somehow, Pompeii manages to be a movie about the famed volcanic destruction of that town while never actually identifying said volcano. In Pompeii, Mt. Vesuvius is only referred to as "the mountain." The mountain also plays by the tried and true movie rules laid down by the shark from Jaws and more recently, Godzilla, by only making fleeting and ominous appearances for most of the movie before finally getting some action in the third act. The mountain does thoughtfully pause its eruptions and raining of fireballs from the sky to accommodate romantic plot points and sword fights by the leads. By the time the mountain all out blows its stack, the romantic triangle between Harrington, Browning, and Sutherland has sparked copious amounts of swordplay, violence, and murders. Then the volcano destroys everyone else Sutherland and Harrington didn't kill. Harrington, called "the Celt" or "slave" by everyone in the movie, also closely guards his real name; Browning never even finds out what her buff intended's name is (Milo). Pompeii, if nothing else, should have riffed from Casablanca and included the line that the problems of two kids don't amount to a hill of beans in this world, especially when that hill of beans is a volcano wiping out everyone and everything in Pompeii.