Mini Reviews: Cowboys & Aliens, Captain America, Harry Potter, Horrible Bosses & Transformers

Cowboys & Aliens is the best sort of fun popcorn fare.  The film has many of the hallmarks of a traditional western: the sage preacher (Clancy Brown), the saloon keeper (Sam Rockwell) just trying to make a living in a tough town, the evil cattle baron (Harrison Ford) and his henchmen, the out-gunned but good sheriff (Keith Carradine) trying to serve justice at his own peril, and the noble outlaw (Daniel Craig).  All that’s missing is the hooker with the heart of gold.  Rather than forming a posse to go get the guys who robbed the town bank or something similar, they form one to go after the extra-terrestrials who’ve blown up their town and abducted their loved ones, with the reluctant help of amnesiac Jake (Craig), who happens to have a laser-beam shooting weapon strapped to his wrist.

As ridiculous as it sounds, the film totally works.  The premise is made believable by solid performances, writing, costuming, set design, and alien effects.  And no doubt the direction of Jon Favreau. It’s cool seeing Harrison Ford as a gruff bad guy for once, although his character is revealed to have hidden depths (more so than is often allowed for in the all-star summer blockbuster).  In fact the entire cast is a movie geek’s dream (or maybe the dream of a geek who likes movies), cherry-picked from some of our best-loved films, with the stunningly beautiful Olivia Wilde thrown in for good measure.  There are so many protagonists that development is given in quick snippets and reserved for only a couple of characters, but again, it all seems to work.  And most importantly, it entertains.

Captain America is one of the more impressive comic book hero movies to come out lately (and a damn sight better than the previous straight to video attempt).  Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is the fabled 90-pound weakling who wants to serve his country during WWII but keeps getting rejected by the military.  A scientist (Stanley Tucci) gives him a chance by enlisting him in a military experiment involving a super serum, making him…taller, among other things.

There are some flaws, like Rogers’s sudden ability to fight an entire enemy compound without much real training (the cliché training montage would have been welcome in this case), and a bad guy who, while definitely evil and scary looking, is not as formidable as he could have been.  There is also a very noticeable moment when our hero is swinging on a chain or rope and then he’s suddenly on the ground, as if a few seconds of film were missing (I would have thought it was a splice if not for the fact that it was digitally projected).

But Captain America is a lot of fun and well worth seeing, especially for the comic movie aficionado.  The film has a first-rate cast including the likes of Tommy Lee Jones, Toby Jones, Hugo Weaving, and Tucci (always a boon to any film).  Evans and Hayley Atwell (who plays Captain Carter) are likable and have good chemistry.  And despite being the obligatory love interest, Carter is an intelligent and interesting character in and of herself.  The costume and set design are top notch (with impressive 1940s period detail), the dialogue is sharp, the action is nearly non-stop, and the plot isn’t as ridiculous as one would expect.  See it if you have a chance, and be sure to stay through the end of the credits for a preview of things to come.

The final chapter in the Harry Potter saga marks the end of an era and serves as a fitting conclusion to the series.  If you’ve seen the others, you know the score.  Three young wizards, no longer in training at this point, go up against the evilest bad guy ever, Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes).  I won’t give spoilers, but this wraps up the major story lines from the previous movies, including some major back story on Professor Snape (Alan Rickman).  Everyone involved does an admirable job and there are great performances all around.

My one major complaint is that everything happens so quickly.  Deathly Hallows: Part 1 was slow and atmospheric (in a good way), and this one moves at the speed of light (or at least sound) in comparison.  I actually had to see it twice to decipher some of the things that flashed by the first time, and there are several major characters with only a line or two.  So perhaps a longer run-time would have been preferable in order to make the pace less jarring.

But that said, everything it does show is entertaining, illuminating, and sometimes scary, making the film an enjoyable ride.  The very end is a bit saccharine compared to the more somber parts of the movie (i.e. the rest of the film), but it does give a glimpse of the future that isn’t entirely unwelcome.  I’ll definitely watch again (and hope for an extended edition, or at least some deleted scenes).  And now that the series is complete, I can finish the books to fill in the gaps, and join the ranks of those who complain about how they didn’t get so-and-so or such-and-such into the movies.  Or instead, I can get the forthcoming boxed set and enjoy the films all over again for the well-done interpretations that they are.

Horrible Bosses is a very funny, if implausible, movie.  Three friends (Jason Bateman, P.J. Byrne, and Jason Sudeikis) compare notes about their horrible (and worsening) work situations, all brought on by selfish, unreasonable, and even sadistic bosses.  At some point things simultaneously get so bad for all of them that they consider homicide as a viable option, and end up hiring a “murder consultant” (Jamie Foxx in a small but memorable role), who suggests they swap murders. As in Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (which the premise of this film recalls), this leads predictably to a downward spiral from which you have no idea how our heroes will extract themselves.  But unlike that classic film noir (and the Patricia Highsmith novel on which it was based), this is a comedy and you know things can’t end too badly.

Sometimes the characters act a little stupidly (one more than the others), but if they didn’t, they wouldn’t get into the situation that the movie requires.  Both the good guys and the bad guys are fun to watch.  Colin Farrell is hilariously over the top and nearly unrecognizable as the coked-up son of a good boss (Donald Sutherland), Jennifer Aniston is more overtly sexual than we’ve seen her before, and Kevin Spacey is as great as ever, and pretty scary at times (sort of reprising his Swimming With Sharks persona, but with a bit more bite). This one is nearly up there with The Hangover and Bridesmaids.  See it if you like dark, laugh-out-loud comedies.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is better than the previous two, for certain, but that doesn’t exactly make it a good movie.  It’s not that I don’t get the appeal of Transformers: cool shape-shifting sentient robots from outer space, the good (the Autobots) fighting the bad (the Decepticons) to protect the human race and fight the good fight.  And many of us have fond memories of the robots in disguise from childhood (the song is forever stuck in my head, and I so wanted those toys).  Unfortunately, the movies, while displaying some cool visuals, have not otherwise been very well executed.  But this installment is fairly entertaining if you can ignore, or at least forgive, all of the stupidity.  The fact that this is purportedly the one with a script (in Shia LaBeouf’s words) shows, and even the ever-present silly elements are more palatable this time around.

This sequel has many of the same issues as the previous two films.  Characters do things that no rational human being (or Autobot or Decepticon) would do, and have over the top reactions to any number of situations.  The military strategy, or lack thereof, is baffling, like in the first film where the soldiers immediately follow the kid Sam’s lead (LaBeouf) because he seems to know something about the Transformers, or in this one where I swear they run up a tall building only to parachute out of the upper windows toward some Decepticons, who of course notice and start shooting at them.  What possible strategic advantage is there to floating slowly downward toward armed baddies?  And it was the second parachuting-in-the-city scene (the first was cooler and not quite so nonsensical).

It is a movie (and series) where the story serves the visuals.  Things happen to carry us from point A to point B and to create spectacles rather than because they would or could actually happen.  And the kicker is that the whole plan of the Decepticons would be physically/scientifically impossible.  I won’t say what the exact event is for spoiler reasons, but my immediate thought was, “Wouldn’t that just destroy the planet?”  The whole thing could have been solved by a proximity shift, but as it stands, it is doomed to end up on some bad-science-in-movies websites.  Perhaps anything rational wouldn’t have made as nice of a special effect.

The characters are all characters (in the histrionic sense).  There is John Malkovich as the eccentric company head who hires Sam when no one else will, John Tuturro reprising his role as clownish ex-agent Simmons, his heavily accented assistant Alan Tudyk (who actually has some amusing moments), Frances McDormand as the harsh stuffed-shirt at the head of the Autobot project, and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, whose job seems to be to walk up the stairs in bikini briefs and look pouty as things explode behind her in slow-mo (despite this, she was kind of charming when she spoke, and it would be nice to see her in a role other than “eye candy”).  Oh, and Leonard Nimoy is in it (in voice, anyway), prompting several Star Trek references.

Again, the bad elements aren’t quite as bad as previously.  The dialogue is more bearable (not great, but not as often groan-inducing), Bumble Bee never leaks on anyone, and the stereotype-bots from the second film are mercifully nowhere to be seen.  The Transformer fight scenes are still as good as ever.  And in this case, they manage to throw in some surprisingly graphic robot gore.  You feel more like our metal protags can get hurt, although the movie does introduce some characters only to dispose of them, which makes for less audience investment in their fates (those poor red-shirt Autobots).  If you are a fan of the series, you will probably like Transformers: Dark of the Moon.  If you are not, I’m not sure it will convert you, but it might be diverting enough if you want to see large robots blow each other’s brains out.