DEATH OF TRADITIONAL CINEMA

THIS MEANS WAR starts fashionably enough, with an all-out action sequence off a Hong Kong skyscraper rooftop involving two suave CIA agents played by Captain Kirk and that guy who ate guys for breakfast in WARRIOR. They incidentally kill the brother of the bad guy, and the bad guy (Til Schweiger) obviously will be out for blood later on.  The film then becomes a race to win over a girl (Reese Witherspoon), with the previously mentioned plot fading in the background, only to resurface stupidly in a contrived moment in the climax. The agents utilize the CIA's toys in order to get ahead of one another in getting the girl. This would tell you a lot about how preposterous the situation is, where government resources are used for playtime, and their boss (Angela Bassett) who is amazingly oblivious to this fact.  Sixty percent of the movie would be dedicated to this tomfoolery among these grown men clearly not acting their age. When the guys aren't competing, we get a ru...

Basically it's a movie created for the fanbase. I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd anticipated, or at least as much as I enjoyed Kenneth Branagh's onscreen adaptation of THOR (my favorite of the recent Marvel movies). The story doesn't really get my interest until the second half, and to my surprise the seemingly quiet character manages to provide the most fun. The HULK deserves an award for best comedic and show-stopping performance. THE AVENGERS is a movie propelled by star power, but I have to admit that Joss Whedon does a good job of piecing together the stories of the superheroes, and uniting them against a common enemy. Robert Downey, Jr. is always charming to watch as Tony Stark; so are Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Chris Evans as Captain America. Meanwhile, Mark Ruffalo competently and most appropriately portrays the mild-mannered Bruce Banner, whereas Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johansson give fierceness to their characters Hawkeye and Black Widow, resp...