Film

Marks the spot

X-Men: Days of Future Past

The X-Men franchise goes the time travel route made popular by James Cameron’s Terminator movies and the J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot. In X-Men: Days of Future Past, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) partakes of a unique form of time tripping, and the results are the best in the series since X-Men 2. Another big contributor to the awesomeness of the latest installment is the return of Bryan Singer to the director’s chair. Singer piloted the first two X-Men films, and he has a nice command of the characters in their old and younger incarnations. It’s good to have him back. The film starts in the future, where the likes of Professor X (Patrick Stewart), Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Wolverine have been reduced to hiding out in a dark, apocalyptic world where their enemy is a vicious robotic force called the Sentinels. Things are looking really bad for the mutants. Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) has perfected a form of time travel to mess with the Sentinels. It involves time traveling in one’s own mind back to a particular point in one’s memory when the fabrics of time can be messed with. She can only send somebody back a few minutes or so due to brain trauma, but then it strikes the X-Men that Wolverine has those instant healing powers. So Wolverine travels back to the early '70s, before the Sentinels go into production, and before Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) commits a murder that will doom the future. It’s a nice chance to see the Wolverine with his bone claws again and, of

course, an opportunity to combine the two X-Men casts. Most of the action takes place in the past, so the X-Men: First Class cast gets most of the screen time. That means more of the terrific Michael Fassbender’s take on Magneto, who is being held in a prison underneath the Pentagon for allegedly having something to do with an infamous by Bob Grimm magic bullet. James McAvoy actually steals the show as young Xavier/Professor X, who bgrimm@ has found a solution for his crippled legs, newsreview.com though it has a bad side effect. Peter Dinklage has a pivotal role as 4 the creator of the Sentinels, and Dinklage always adds a level of class to any project. The film also allows for a funny take on Richard Nixon (Mark Camacho), who finds himself in the middle of a mutant public relations fiasco. Lawrence gets plenty of screen time as the young Mystique, but we never see Rebecca Romijn as the older Mystique. We do get a brief, brief glimpse of Anna Paquin’s Rogue, but her pivotal scenes wound up on the cutting room floor, according to Singer. There’s more Storm in this movie than anybody really needs, and that means there’s more than 30 seconds of Halle Berry in the film. A welcome new addition to the cast is Evan Peters as the speedy Quicksilver. One of the film’s best sequences involves how the world looks to Quicksilver as he rearranges a gunfight with his fingertips in half a second. We see it in slow motion, with much comedic detail. It’s a brilliant moment. This film basically allows the controllers of the X-Men universe to jettison X-Men: The Last Stand, a film made by the muchabhorred Brett Ratner and one that was not a favorite with fans. I didn’t hate that movie, but it stands alongside the mediocre X-Men Origins: Wolverine as the weakest movies in the series. As with Star Trek, the whole system has been reconfigured with X-Men, and all options are wide open for future films. We can still get X-Men modern day stories, we can get X-Men in the past—it’s an open book. Any chance they can use the whole time travel thing on the Matrix movies, and fix those screwed-up sequels? Ω

Did you notice the way the light shines an X across his face? It's very subtle.

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excellent 2 The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Director Marc Webb mucks it up big time with this, his second go-round featuring Andrew Garfield in spandex, cracking wise and shooting webs. While Webb proves himself adept at drama and romance—Garfield and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy are kind of adorable—he botches the action elements and tries to juggle too many villains. This movie features a goofy villain called Electro (Jamie Foxx), the Green Goblin (Dane Dehaan) and the robotic Rhino (Paul Giamatti). Electro gets the majority of the villain screen time, an unfortunate circumstance given that his baddie is the least interesting of the three. DeHaan, an actor I can safely say I can’t stand, makes one really, really miss James Franco as Harry Osborn. DeHaan always speaks as if he just digs his own voice, even if it sounds like he has a sinus infection. His generally annoying presence isn’t the total blame for this film’s mishandling of the Green Goblin. The blame mostly lies with Webb and his makeup folks, who come up with something tragically bad for Goblin’s looks. He basically has oily hair that looks like he hasn’t showered in a while and a horrific combination skin problem. Too many villains, hackneyed action, and DeHaan make this a pretty bad time for comic book fans.

1Blended Maybe I’m crazy, but there is still part of me that believes Adam Sandler will wake up one day and proclaim, in his Sandler angry voice, “Alright already, enough with keeping my no-talent friends working and employed. I can just give them money. It’s time to make decent, funny movies again! Stay home Dennis Dugan! Screw you Frank Coraci! Maybe Paul Thomas Anderson will put me in a movie again? Flibberdy-Doo!” Sandler’s latest collaboration with director Coraci, who actually made some of the better Sandler films back in the day with The Waterboy and The Wedding Singer, just might be Sandler’s worst movie yet, and that’s saying a lot. He plays a widower who has a terrible first date with a woman (Drew Barrymore) at Hooters. One thing leads to another, and the two wind up on a vacation together in Africa with all of their kids. (You read that right.) This leads to rhino-humping jokes, ostrich riding and Terry Crews making an ass of himself. I had a real bad time with this thing. It caused major, jaw-clenching tension, and I think I may’ve cracked a molar. It’s the sort of racist and sexist movie that you watch in complete disbelief, wondering how such a monstrosity could ever get past the “Hey, why don’t we send Adam and Drew to Africa. It’ll be so funny!” stage. Everybody involved should be embarrassed about this.

3The Double Director Richard Ayoade pays nice visual homage to the likes of David Lynch and Terry Gilliam with this, an adaptation of the 1846 novella by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Jesse Eisenberg plays Simon, an employee at a bleak office, where he’s unnoticed by coworkers, and hapless in his pursuit of Hannah (Mia Wasikowska) who works in the copy room. When his exact double, a new employee named James, shows up, he’s everything Simon wants to be. Brash, confident. and great with the ladies, James mentors Simon for a while, but things go bad quickly. Eisenberg is given the task of creating two genuinely different personalities that look exactly alike, even down to their bland choice of tan clothing. He isn’t given the benefit of a pencil mustache or a top hat for the evil twin. He accomplishes the feat, mainly, in the cadence of his voice. James rolls off sentences with no hesitations, while Simon is prone to stammering. Wasikowska, who can be a drab actress, is good here, as she was in some of her better efforts like Stoker and The Kids are All Right. The Double stands as proof that Ayoade is a formidable director, who manages a distinct vision even when he’s taking bits and pieces from other directors. He doesn’t have a follow-up to this on his slate as of yet. I hope that changes soon. It also stands as proof that Eisenberg being cast as Lex Luthor in Batman vs. Superman might wind up being a very cool move. (Available for rent on Amazon.com, VOD and iTunes during a limited theatrical release.) 4 Godzilla This movie tramples the other Godzilla movies underfoot like Godzilla trampling a water tower with cheesy dolls meant to be humans hanging on it. Director Gareth Edwards captures that summer blockbuster vibe of yesteryear, when building suspense and perhaps just a touch of human drama took precedent over wall-to-wall CGI fireworks. He also manages to capture some of that old school Toho Godzilla goofiness to go with the film’s mostly serious tone. Even though this film’s Godzilla is CGI, there are some monster gestures that have a nice man-in-suit quality to them. It’s pretty obvious that Edwards is saluting the all time blockbuster king, Mr. Steven Spielberg, with this movie. Bryan Cranston and Aaron Taylor-Johnson play a father and son team with a last name of Brody, just like Roy Scheider’s character in Jaws. Many of the initial Godzilla shots include glimpses of those jagged Godzilla back points cutting through the surface of the ocean like a shark’s dorsal fin. Cranston’s slightly crazed, obsessed, gloriously overacting scientist dad rings of Richard Dreyfuss’s mashed potato sculpting kook in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Everything builds up to a huge fight between Godzilla and some other monsters in San Francisco, and the city takes a major ass kicking. This is bound to be one of the summer movie season’s more exciting movies, and it beckons to be seen on an IMAX screen. When Godzilla roars, it peels the skin off of your face.

5The Grand Budapest Hotel Writer-director Wes Anderson does it again with another wholly unique, beautiful, quirky movie that could’ve only been made by him. In a performance that must be remembered come awards time, Ralph Fiennes is magically hilarious as M. Gustave, the concierge at the infamous fictional hotel named in the film’s title. Gustave has a penchant for older woman, much older woman, and his life takes a drastic turn when he is suspected in the murder of an elderly lover (Tilda Swinton in super heavy makeup). Stolen art, scary train rides and a high speed chase on skis ensue, with Anderson even employing stop motion animation at times, as he did with Fantastic Mr. Fox. Supporting performances by Jeff Goldblum, Adrien Brody, Jude Law, F. Murray Abraham, Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Saoirse Ronan and many more make this a can’t miss film. There’s something so joyous and fun about the way Anderson makes movies. This is a remarkable, tremendously enjoyable achievement.

4Neighbors Mac and Kelly (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne), are happily adjusting to their new roles as parents to a baby daughter in a quiet suburban neighborhood. While in the midst of adjusting to their new sleep and sex schedules, a fraternity moves in next door. They don’t panic, figuring they are still cool enough to get along with college kids. An initial meeting with frat president Teddy (Zac Efron) goes well, and they even wind up joining the fray, baby monitor in hand, for a drugged-out, booze-drenched party, further establishing themselves as those possibly cool neighbors who just might be able to handle a party house next door. Mac and Teddy even develop a brotherly camaraderie, suggesting that if Mac were just a few years younger, he might’ve been a worthy frat brother. They even talk about getting walkie-talkies to communicate between their houses. They bond. The honeymoon doesn’t last for long. When a weeknight party keeps the baby up, Mac and Kelly transform from party happy neighbors into sleep-deprived malcontents, and they call the cops. Teddy takes this as a stab in the back from his new friends, and all out war is waged. There will be no walkie-talkies for Mac and Teddy. Rogen, Efron and Byrne are hilarious here, in a movie that has some great new jokes, along with making some old jokes funny again. Dave Franco and Lisa Kudrow get good laughs in supporting roles.