FREE GUY****

FREE GUY is an absolutely hilarious, heartwarming, fast-paced, action-adventure film that perfectly entertains the family. If I've docked it a point, it's only because the plot and concept are highly derivative of films like THE MATRIX and THE TRUMAN SHOW, albeit repackaged in a fun zany mix all of its own.

Ryan Reynolds is typically superb as a guy named Guy who lives a mediocre banal life in Free City. Except what's pretty obvious to us, but not to him, is that he's a Non Playable Character in a computer game, whose only job is to be in the background as real life kids rob banks and smoke strangers in a Grand Theft Auto style shoot-em-up game. The twist is that his AI character comes to consciousness when he meets Jodie Comer's player, because some old code had pre-programmed him to search for love. Somehow, Guy manages to steal a real player's powers and realises that a) he's in a game and b) he has agency! But unlike fucked up real world people, he decides to play as the good guy, rather than as a criminal, levelling up with breakneck speed and attracting a real world following of fans who just can't get enough of "blue shirt guy".

Meanwhile back in the real world, the true baddie turns about to be Taika Waititi's pretentious egotistical video game developer Antwon, who I read as based on the decades old British satirical show NATHAN BARLEY.  Turns out Antwon bilked Jodie Comer's character out of some of her original code, as well as her best friend Keys (Joe Keery) and now they have to team up with Guy to stop him.

The resulting film is full of fun and imagination and I loved how it not to subtly criticised the way in which real world people play video games to indulge their worst imagined vices. What does it say about us that the nicest and kindest character in the film is an AI?! I also loved the way the ending respected the bounds of the concept that had been set up and gave all the main characters an ending that actually seemed fulfilling. So kudos to all involved, not least director Shawn Levy (STANGER THINGS) and writers Matt Lieberman (SCOOB!) and Zak Penn (READY PLAYER ONE).

FREE GUY is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 115 minutes. The film played Locarno 2021 and was released on Netflix earlier this year.

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE - that ole Whedon magic!

Joss Whedon's Avengers Assemble is about as good as it gets for a superhero blockbuster movie.  The action set pieces are thrilling; the emotional stakes are high; and in Robert Downey Junior, Whedon has found the perfect avatar for his trademark pop-culture savvy wit.  The movie itself is the logical culmination of all those marvel adaptations we've seen in recent years, from the less successful (Hulks inter alia) to the commercially successful (Jon Favreau's Iron Man) to the hammy (Thor) to the more emotionally satisfying (Captain America.) 

In this flick, the MacGuffin is the tesseract: a blue cube that apparently unleashes untold energy that can be used for good or ill.  When Thor's resentful brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) comes to earth, wanting to use the tesseract to bring in an alien army, it's up to Samuel L Jackson's slippery government agent to unite the superheroes and save the world.   

Whedon does a masterful job of handling a wide cast of characters, of whom the audiences have different levels of familiarity.  He uses a prologue to set up Loki's theft of the MacGuffin then quickly moves to a couple of scenes that set up the new characters of the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansen)  and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and re-establish Dr Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo).  From there we're into the meat of the story:  whether the Avengers can put aside their personality differences and learn to work together. This take us through spectacular action set pieces in a flying aircraft carrier/ supherhero lair and an alien obliteration of midtown Manhattan. 

For me, the brilliance of Whedon isn't just the witty dialogue, although that sure goes a long way to lighten up a movie that's basically about macho blokes beating each other up.  His genius is that he can crack jokes while simultaneously giving characters emotional doth and complexity in a few short scenes.  This is particularly true of the way in which he depicts Bruce Banner as a deeply sympathetic, borderline suicidal genius struggling with "the other man".  What's amazing is that Whedon/Ruffalo's Banner is simultaneously the most emotionally interesting and realistic character but also the one that generates the biggest belly laughs. His scenes in the final battle where he thumps Thor and throws Loki around like so much confetti are absolute crowd-pleasers. 

And that brings me to the final reason why Whedon has made the best summer blockbuster I've seen in a long time: he knows how to direct action!  Too many modern films have action sequences so frenetic that it's hard for the viewer to keep pace with the choreography of what's actually happening.  I'd blame Michael Bay, but I think among the better quality filmmakers, the desire to imitate Paul Greengrass' Bourne films is also to blame.  Whedon gives us all the loud bangs and crashes but never, never, let's us lose sit of the bugger picture. He keeps us engaged at every turn. And that's what makes AVENGERS ASSEMBLE a superhero movie with wit, heart and exhilarating action.  I can't wait for the next installment. 

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE AKA THE AVENGERS is on global release. The running time is 143 minutes. The US rating is PG-13 but parents be warned: there's a sneaky quim joke!

Ali D comments on THE INCREDIBLE HULK...

THE INCREDIBLE HULK - yet another disappointing summer blockbuster

I've been known to read a comic or two in my time but I never cared much for HULK. The story was just too thin: repressed scientist's arrogance backfires when his own gamma bomb explodes, irradiates him, turning him into his suppressed alter-ego - a seething, angry giant. I mean, that's pretty much it. Yes, there's a weak romance with fellow scientist Betty Ross, and yes, the Hulk is hunted down by her father General Ross, and yes there's an even more fucked up mutant enemy, The Abomination........But Hulk never had the psychological complexity of Batman or the sheer exuberant fun of Tony Stark.

Zak Penn and Ed Norton's script for the new HULK feature shoots itself in the foot by collapsing the whole origin story into the opening credits. What this means is that all we have left for the two hour run-time is the following.....

Bruce Banner hides out in Brazil.

Bruce Banner gets chased by US military: turns into Hulk.

Bruce Banner hides out in Culver City.

Bruce Banner gets chased by US military: turns into Hulk.

Bruce Banner hides out in New York City.

Bruce Banner gets chased by US military: turns into Hulk.

Bruce Banner hides out in Canada.........

This is not very interesting. It's especially not interesting because the ludicrously over-worked CGI Hulk looks nothing like Ed Norton. So, even though Norton gives a sympathetic turn as Banner, I didn't care what happened to him as Hulk. Contrast this with Peter Jackson's KING KONG. Thanks to deft motion capture and some lovely scenes between Kong and Ann Darrow I really cared when Kong was being attacked by the military.

But let's end on a positive note. This movie is not a complete failure. Tim Roth chews up the scenery and actually has some fun as Hulk's enemy, Emile Blonsky. Louis Leterrier puts in some stunning aerial photography of the Brazilian favelas and he certainly knows better than Jon Favreau how to direct an action scene. And the movie nicely sets us up for an AVENGERS movie, wherein the dull mediocrity of THE INCREDIBLE HULK will hopefully be leavened by the far from perfect but still much more entertaining spirit of IRON MAN.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK opens this weekend in the UK, the US, Australia, Greece, Hungary, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Brazil, Estonia, Finland, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Turkey. It opens next weekend in Egypt, Italy, Argentina, the Netehrlands, Iceland and Spain. It opens on June 26th in Belgium and Denmark; on July 3rd in Israel; on July 10th in Germany; on July 23rd in France and on August 1st in Japan.