The Dark Knight Rises: one must admire the courage to tell a story that keeps the atmosphere so dread, almost drab. It is, however, the right way to tell the right story for these characters; Batman is a character born in tragedy, and respecting that is the right move. The cast is uniformly great. Technically, the film is a marvel (yeah, I know); the exception is the sound design, as either due to the sound mix or the voice filters […]

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: action, super hero

‎The Amazing Spider-Man: reasonably entertaining, with a capable cast, attractive production values. The issue lies on the question “is yet another origin story needed, this early”, and the answer is “no”. In particular, the villain here is essentially the same as in the previous films, cut from the same cloth. Therefore, the film feels simply too familiar, a reheated version of something else that wasn’t really all that great to start with.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: action, super hero

The Avengers: mindless fun, but oh boy, what fun it is. Not needing to spend much time to introduce characters (even because they are set in stone, unchangeable throughout), time is spent introducing and developing chemistry instead, which makes for nice one-liners. The levity here and there shows that Joss Whedon does not take the material too seriously, a common issue in the genre.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: action, super hero

Captain America: The First Avenger: the end of the (minor) superhero summer comes with some relief. But, a bigger relief was the fact that this one actually seems more sincere, which is a good (and usually missing) virtue. The effects are good, the acting decent enough. Disappointing is the fact that of all them, this is the one that deserves the most a direct sequel (which is not happening. Apparently I was wrong about this.)

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: action, super hero

Green Lantern: excessive exposition (the price of having a somewhat minor superhero, I suppose), clunky story, uninteresting characters in general. Even the villains, usually a staple in the genre, are quite boring. But visually it’s not that bad. Doesn’t save the day, particularly because the use made of the interesting powers are quite sparse.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: action, super hero

X-Men: First Class: a decent entry to the series, better than it deserved after the last two, in fact. It’s good to see that they kept some thematic unity with the first two movies. The cast choice was inspired; so was the use of less known characters, making the reboot less tired than it could be.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: action, super hero

Thor: neither bad not good, just plain. This is riskless cinema. We know there can be character in super-hero movies, but someone forgot to tell the writers for this one. Warm beggining to the super-hero summer. Also, I need to remember myself to ignore the 3D showing as much as I can. It’s usually there for gimmicks only, and the film loses its visual edges due to the darker feeling.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: action, super hero

Iron Man 2: dumb fun. Fun, but dumb. You know what I mean. RDJ was still good, but the first one was better for being such a surprise.

Categories: Film reviews • Tags: action, super hero