Avengers: Age of Ultron

While The Avengers (2012) smashed box office records, more importantly, writer/director Joss Whedon did the impossible by successfully integrating comic book superheroes the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor and Captain America from their own franchise movies into another one that saw them team-up with Black Widow and Hawkeye to stop a common threat. Whedon achieved this in an entertaining and exciting way that no one had done before. Burnt out from the endeavor and brought on essentially as a hired gun, he was understandably cautious of being courted to make the inevitable sequel. He was persuaded by being given more creative freedom, which included the addition of three new superheroes and a longstanding nemesis of the Avengers, the mad sentient robot Ultron. As a long-time comic book fan, Whedon understands that a team of formidable heroes needs to face a threat worthy of their abilities and what better one than a nearly indestructible robot and its army of drones. While it was a given that Age of Ultron (2015) would be a bigger and more action-packed follow-up to the original, would Whedon be able to juggle this large cast of characters without short-changing anyone and be able to instill the same amount of heart and humor amidst the CGI as he did with the first movie?

One of the good things about a movie like Age of Ultron is that Whedon has already established the Avengers as a team in the first movie and so he can jump right in as this one does with them already assembled in the Eastern European country of Sokovia taking down a Hydra base where Baron Wolfgang von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann) has been experimenting with Loki’s scepter, which has resulted in two powerful beings – the Maximoff twins Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) who have superhuman speed and can manipulate minds and project energy respectively.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) has created a squad of automated robots utilizing his Iron Man technology to do the work he doesn’t have the time for under the auspices of the Ultron program. His ultimate goal is to create an artificial intelligence for these robots so that they can carry out his global peace keeping mission. To achieve this, he and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) use Loki’s scepter without telling the other Avengers.

Back at the Avengers Tower, the team enjoys a little downtime and we get to see them banter with some of Whedon’s trademark entertaining dialogue. He also does a nice job of showing the dynamic between the group and certain members, like a nice bit where everyone tries in vain to lift Thor’s hammer. A crude form of the now sentient Ultron crashes the party (literally) and escapes, taking the scepter with him. He proceeds to assemble a massive army of robots to bring about the end of the human race. To make matters worse, he recruits the Maximoff twins, appealing to their anger towards the Avengers.

Whedon improves on the action sequences from The Avengers by upping the scale and intensity including a very memorable slugfest where Stark dons Hulkbuster armor to stop the rampaging green monster under Wanda’s influence. I like that during these battle scenes, Whedon shows our heroes saving people from the carnage while still engaging in the occasional witty banter – a staple from the comic books. In fact, we see the various Avengers going out of their way to save people, putting their very lives on the line because that is what superheroes do. As Whedon said in a recent interview, he wanted to “get back to what’s important, which is that the people you’re trying to protect are people … What a hero does is not just beat up the bad guy – a hero saves the people.”

One of the problems with many of the Marvel movies is that the villains tend to lack personality. Let’s face it, they all want basically the same thing – to either rule the world or destroy it. What makes them stand out is a distinctive personality and that comes in part from the screenplay and from casting. In a masterstroke, Whedon brought on board James Spader to portray Ultron. He’s an actor with an idiosyncratic personality, which the filmmaker utilizes so well throughout the movie as Spader gives a deliciously evil performance. This is even more impressive as he instills an entirely CGI character with a personality that resembles Tony Stark gone bad. Whedon makes a point of showing what motivates not only Ultron but also Pietro and Wanda. They all have deeply rooted grudges against Stark and the rest of the Avengers and for the latter two this comes from a deep, personal pain.

He also sets up the ideological battle between Stark and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), which foreshadows the upcoming Captain America: Civil War (2016). Rogers is upset that Stark went ahead and created a sentient robot without consulting the rest of the team or thinking about the ramifications of his actions while Stark, driven by his anxiety over almost dying at the hands of an alien race in The Avengers, wants to make sure that the Earth has an army of its own should another massive threat present itself. To this end, the climactic battle between the Avengers and Ultron and his army of robots could be seen as a slyly scathing critique of drone warfare while also being a pretty cool battle to watch.

Whedon has definitely learned a lot from the first Avengers movie – not just on a technical level, but also improving on its shortcomings, like making up for giving Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) the short shrift when he was brainwashed for most of it by showing us what he’s been up to since that one ended. By doing this, Whedon also gives Hawkeye a more personal stake in saving the world this time out. It is more than just that. Whedon manages to give all the heroes a crucial part to play in stopping Ultron. As he did with the first movie, Whedon achieves just the right rhythm of downtime between actions sequences that not only moves the story along, but also develops the characters and their relationships with each other in a way he wasn’t able to do in The Avengers. He even introduces the possibility of a romance between two of our heroes.

Whedon understands that it isn’t hard creating a movie where the heroes have to take on a villain bent on world destruction. It doesn’t mean a thing if we don’t care about the heroes and aren’t invested in what they have at stake. You have to make it personal for them and the filmmaker excels at this by taking the time to providing a motivating factor for each of the Avengers. It’s a tricky balancing act because we know that none of them can be killed off – they already have upcoming movies in their own franchises or someone else’s to appear in – but you can make the audience forget that temporarily by getting them invested in an compelling story filled with witty banter, snappy one-liners and passionate speeches from our heroes and the bad guy. While Age of Ultron is somewhat darker in tone than The Avengers – lacking that movie’s overall feelgood vibe, it is more ambitious in scope and scale and a richer experience.

SOURCES

Buchanan, Kyle. “How Avengers: Age of Ultron Nearly Killed Joss Whedon.” New York magazine. April 13, 2015.

Speed

When it comes to action movies you don’t have to reinvent the genre every time out. Audiences are hungry for engaging characters to root for, a dastardly villain to jeer and some exciting action set pieces to get their pulses racing. Speed (1994) does just that. While it certainly didn’t win any points for originality – it’s basically Die Hard (1988) on a bus – the movie is so effortlessly entertaining that its flaws seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Every time I watch Speed I get caught up in the action and marvel at the fantastic chemistry between its two leads – Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. And to think the former was considered something of a gamble at the time despite previously starring in the modestly successful cops and surfers action movie Point Break (1991). The latter was something of an unknown commodity herself, appearing previously in a string of forgettable supporting roles in movies like The Thing Called Love (1993) and Demolition Man (1993). The success of Speed changed both of their careers and how the media and the public at large perceived them.

When an explosion strands a group of people in an express elevator between the 29th and 30th floors in a high-rise office building in downtown Los Angeles, SWAT are called in to rescue these poor folks before the mad bomber (Dennis Hopper) blows the emergency brakes in 23 minutes unless he gets three million dollars. Leading the charge is Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves) and Harry Temple (Jeff Daniels), a young hotshot and a cynical veteran respectively, that are introduced hurtling through the air in their in the same kind of fashion as seen in early Tony Scott and Michael Bay action movies.

Jack and Harry have a tried and true dynamic that is familiar in these kinds of movies with the former being a cocky guy who thinks outside the box while the latter is an endless source of sarcastic remarks. They are also very good at their job, so much so that they manage to thwart the bomber in an excitingly tense sequence. It looks like the bomber blew himself up, but when a bus explodes near Jack’s favorite coffee shop (such a ‘90s staple), our intrepid hero is contacted by the bomber and told of a specific bus that has a bomb on it that will arm itself once it reaches 50 miles per hour and blow up if it then goes below that speed. Jack has to find it and then figure out a way to either disarm the bomb or get the passengers off without the bomber’s knowledge. He’s aided in this endeavor by Annie (Sandra Bullock), one of the bus passengers.

I like the little bits of business in the movie, like the attention paid to some of the bus passengers, most notably Alan Ruck’s good-natured yet annoyingly overly chatting tourist and how Annie comes up with a lame excuse, like gum on her seat, in order to move away from him without hurting his feelings. It is things, like that moment, that provide bits of insight into these characters and makes them more relatable. There are also moments of levity like Glenn Plummer’s understandably irked car owner providing a humorous commentary to Jack commandeering his vehicle and then driving like a maniac to catch the bus. These moments are used judiciously to help alleviate the tension at key junctures in the movie.

In 1994, Keanu Reeves was still known mostly for independent movies like River’s Edge (1986) and My Own Private Idaho (1991) and dabbling in studio fare like Parenthood (1989) and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). If there were any questions about his leading man credentials prior to Speed, they were quashed by the movie’s massive success. I like that De Bont makes a point of showing Jack thinking things through and figuring out that the bomber is in the building at the beginning of the movie. And so, the beauty of Speed is that it’s not just a battle of wills between Jack and the bomber, but also of wits. Reeves does a fine job in the thankless stereotypical action hero role. The actor doesn’t inject too much personality into the character beyond acting heroic, but comes to life in his scenes with Sandra Bullock who temporarily frees him from the constraints of his underwritten role and actually steals many of their scenes together. That being said, he excels at the physical stuff, building on the action chops he displayed in Point Break and anticipating the even loftier action movie notes he would hit with The Matrix films.

I like that Annie isn’t your typical damsel in distress and Sandra Bullock doesn’t play her that way. She takes the wheel of the bus after the driver is incapacitated and offers witty, witheringly sarcastic remarks, like when Jack asks her if she can drive it (“Oh sure, it’s just driving a really big Pinto.”). She engages in amusing, Joss Whedon-flavored banter with Jack, which helps break up the tension every so often. Annie is not an ultra-confident action heroine, but just someone trying to do the best they can under extraordinary circumstances. It is this appealing girl-next-door quality that audiences fell in love with and transformed Bullock into America’s sweetheart for a few years. With her adorable good looks and spunky charm, Bullock is very likeable as Jack’s foil. There is something inherently appealing about her that makes you like the actress. Annie not only shows resilience in the face of overwhelming danger, but also a vulnerability that is refreshing in an action movie and quite endearing.

It doesn’t hurt that Bullock has terrific chemistry with Reeves. It’s not something you can manufacture: it either exists or it doesn’t and the two actors play well off each other as Annie humanizes Jack. They make a good team working together to keep the bus moving while he tries to figure out how to get everyone off safely. It’s really only until the final showdown with the bomber that she’s reduced to a stereotypical damsel in distress role. The success of Speed paved the way for an ill-conceived sequel that Reeves wisely opted out of, leaving Bullock to try and recreate the magic of the first one with Jason Patric, whom she did not have good chemistry with like she did with Reeves, which can’t be stated enough.

Thanks to his memorable turn in Blue Velvet (1986), Dennis Hopper enjoyed a string villainous roles in several movies (see Super Mario Bros., Red Rock West, Waterworld, and so on) and he looks to be clearly relishing a mad bomber character that alternates between gleefully tormenting Jack and ranting about what he’s owed. Hopper’s baddie isn’t your typical movie psycho, but a guy with a specific agenda that gradually becomes apparent over the course of the movie.

Having learned from master action movie director John McTiernan where he was the cinematographer on Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October (1990), Jan de Bont shows considerable action chops on Speed, from the daring elevator rescue that kicks things off to the preposterous jump the bus makes over a large section of missing freeway. De Bont understands that what makes most top-notch action movies work is dynamic editing. Kinetic action is best conveyed with the right amount of editing so that when something dramatic is happening the movie often cuts to a reaction shot of someone, for example, to show how he or she are dealing with it. No matter how implausible the action if the actors sell it, we’ll believe it, much like the aforementioned bus jump.

Screenwriter Graham Yost had cut his teeth writing for television and found himself between jobs when he wrote the screenplay for Speed – then called Minimum Speed. He finally got a job writing for Full House when he got the call that his Speed script had sold. He soon quit the sitcom. Jan de Bont was developing a movie about skydiving at Paramount Pictures when he was shown the script for Speed. He liked the premise and wanted it to be his directorial debut, sticking with the project even when the studio put it in turnaround and it eventually migrated over to 20th Century Fox. However, he wasn’t the first choice to direct with the likes of John McTiernan and Walter Hill approached, but both of who turned the project down.

For the role of Jack Traven, the studio approached Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks and then Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson. Someone mentioned Keanu Reeves and Yost remembered that he was quite good in Parenthood. The actor was initially hesitant to do the movie after reading Yost’s script: “There were situations set up for one-liners and I felt it was forced – Die Hard mixed with some kind of screwball comedy.” Coming off Bernardo Bertolucci’s Little Buddha (1993), Reeves spent two months in the gym in order to look the part of a police officer. He immersed himself in the role, training with the actual LAPD SWAT, which inspired him to get a military-style haircut. This freaked out some studio executives who felt the look was a little extreme. He further immersed himself in the role by also picking out his character’s clothes. While Speed was in production, Reeves’ good friend and fellow actor River Phoenix died from a drug overdose. De Bont adjusted the shooting schedule so that Reeves had a chance to deal with it.

As originally written, Annie was an African-American paramedic and at some point, Halle Berry was approached but after reading the script she turned it down, "But in my defense, when I read the script the bus didn't leave the parking lot." Yost wanted someone funnier for the part and thought of Ellen DeGeneres. The studio wanted actresses like Meryl Streep and Kim Basinger, both of whom passed because they didn’t buy into the movie’s premise. The studio didn’t want Sandra Bullock and De Bont had fight for her: “I couldn’t see Julia Roberts driving this bus. I could not see several other actresses … I felt I needed an actress who you could believe would have taken the bus and Sandra had this kind of every day look – I mean that in a good way – in the way she dresses, the way she behaves, very casual.” De Bont brought Bullock in to audition with Reeves several times to not only convince the studio that she was right for the role, but to also develop a rapport between the two actors that would be readily evident in the final movie. At the very last moment, the studio relented and allowed him to cast her.

Everyone agreed that the script needed work. Early on, Yost had a big reveal that Harry was the movie's villain, betraying Jack and masterminding the entire scheme. “The idea of having him on the bomb squad lent him years of experience dismantling bombs, but also a certain obsession with their intense [danger].” It was one of the producers that suggested the villain be someone fascinated with bombs. A week before principal photography was to begin, De Bont brought in Joss Whedon, then a script doctor on films like The Quick and the Dead (1995) and Waterworld (1995), to do some revisions, which involved, according to Yost, rewriting almost all of the dialogue. He also cut back on some of Jack’s superficial humor and made him a more earnest character, tweaked the plot, like showing how Jack was able to track down Dennis Hopper’s bomber, and changed Alan Ruck’s character from a lawyer who is killed to a tourist. It was Whedon that gave Hopper's character more dialogue but had envisioned a different baddie than what the actor ultimately brought to the role: “I wrote a very straight forward, though a little off-center guy - don’t get me wrong, he’s blowing people up, he’s not okay - who is weirdly thoughtful." De Bont remembers, “I would call him early in the morning and say, ‘Joss, I need two lines for this.’ And then he’d call me back 10 minutes later. He’d come up with some great little sayings that were basically continuing the tension, while at the same time pushing some relief into it as well.”

De Bont came up with the action set pieces, like the 50-foot bus jump, that he had always wanted to see in a movie. It was accomplished by a stunt driver who actually performed the jump only with no missing roadway and, in the process, completely destroyed two buses. De Bont said, “I wanted to make sure he felt the reality of the situation as well." Initially, Reeves was hesitant do his own stuntwork but De Bont convinced him to do quite a bit of it, including the sequence where Jack rolls out from under the bus, and the moment where Jack jumps from the car to the bus. De Bont remembers, "I told him it was basically like stepping onto an escalator. You just move up!” Reeves said, “The shot in the film is a stunt man, but I got to do it once.”

Speed enjoyed mostly positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, “All of this is of course gloriously silly, a plundering of situations from the Indiana Jones and Die Hard movies all the way back to the Perils of Pauline, but so what? If it works, it works.” In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, “The summertime no-brainer needn’t be entirely without brains. It can be as savvy as Speed, the runaway-bus movie that delivers wall-to-wall action, a feat that’s never as easy as it seems.” The Los Angeles Times’ Kenneth Turan wrote, “Nothing Speed puts on screen, from fiery explosions to mayhem on the freeway, hasn’t been done many times before, but De Bont and company manage to make it feel fresh and exciting.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film an “A” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “It’s a pleasure to be in the hands of an action filmmaker who respects the audience. De Bont’s craftsmanship is so supple that even the triple ending feels justified, like the cataclysmic final stage of a Sega death match.” Finally, the Washington Post’s Hal Hinson praised Sandra Bullock’s performance: “If it weren’t for the smart-funny twist she gives to her lines – they’re the best in the film – the air on that bus would have been stifling.”

Like any good action movie thrill ride, Speed puts its characters through its paces by confronting them with one danger after another. What makes this movie so appealing is how Jack and Annie work together to figure out and overcome the obstacles that confront them. Not every problem is solved with a gun like in so many action movies from the 1980s. In fact, in Speed, guns are rendered useless, forcing Jack to be much more resourceful. If there isn’t much depth to these characters it’s because there doesn’t need to be. Speed has nothing more on its mind then to be an entertaining ride and on that level it works like gangbusters.

SOURCES

Bierly, Mandi. “Speed 20^th Anniversary: Screenwriter Graham Yost Looks Back on the ‘Bus Movie’ That Became a Classic.” Entertainment Weekly. June 10, 2014.

Calvario‍, Liz. "Halle Berry Shares Which Role She Almost Took From Sandra Bullock." Entertainment Tonight. April 30, 2019.

Duca, Lauren. Still Traveling At 50 MPH 20 Years Later: Why Speed Was The Pinnacle Of ‘90s Action Movies." The Huffington Post. June 9, 2014.

Gerosa, Melina. “Speed Racer.” Entertainment Weekly. June 10, 1994.

Kozak, Jim. “Serenity Now! An Interview with Joss Whedon.” In Focus. August/September 2005.

McCabe, Bob. “Speed.” Empire. June 1999.

Tapley, Kristopher. “Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves and Jan de Bont Look Back at Speed 20 Years Later. HitFix. June 10, 2014.

Serenity

In 2002, Joss Whedon was enjoying considerable success writing and directing episodes for three television shows that he created: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly. The latter was his new show and pet project – a funky hybrid of the science fiction and western genres. It concerned the misadventures of a small, rag-tag group of mercenaries operating on the fringes of the galaxy 500 years into the future. In other words, what if Han Solo decided not to join the Rebellion? It was a fantastic blend of Whedon’s trademark dry humor, moving drama and exciting action. Firefly lasted less than half a season before the network pulled the plug, Buffy ran its course and Angel was cancelled after a decent run. Fortunately, Firefly had accumulated a small, but dedicated following, much like the crew of the Serenity itself, which campaigned tirelessly to save the show. Whedon returned the favor by shopping it around to other studios and Universal agreed to resurrect the show in the form of a feature film called Serenity (2005).

Malcolm “Mal” Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) is an ex-soldier and captain of the Serenity, a small spacecraft with a handful of crew members who scavenge, smuggle and steal for profit. Along the way, they picked up a brother and sister, Simon (Sean Maher) and River Tam (Summer Glau). He is a doctor and she is some kind of secret weapon, a deadly sleeper assassin a la Laurence Harvey in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). She was created by the all-powerful Alliance that rules the galaxy with a benign façade to cover their ruthless methods. They want her back and send a deadly and very methodical assassin known only as the Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor) to retrieve her and eliminate anybody who gets in the way.

In the first minute or so, Whedon briefly establishes the universe in which this film takes place via voiceover narration and then cleverly twists the dialogue by revealing that it is being spoken by a teacher who works at an Alliance-run school. As long-time viewers of Firefly know, she is distorting history so that the Alliance is painted as the good guys while the “savage, outer planets” are portrayed as unenlightened. Worst of all, she’s feeding this propaganda to impressionable children – all except a young River Tam who questions authority and then a sudden slam cut to many years later when Simon helps her escape from an Alliance laboratory where she’s been poked and prodded like a lab rat.

It is then revealed that their escape is actually footage being watched by the Operative, a man with no rank or name, “who does not exist,” as he tells some Alliance flunky before killing him for letting River escape and unwittingly divulging secrets to her. As he tells the man, “secrets are not my concern. Keeping them is.” We are then introduced to the crew of the Serenity in a beautifully executed in one long, uninterrupted take as the camera follows Mal through the ship, interacting with its various inhabitants. We are now in the present as he takes a landing party to pull off a payroll heist on a planet. In the first 15 minutes of the film, Whedon brilliantly sets up the universe, the main characters that inhabit it, including the protagonists and the dysfunctional relationships between some of them, and the antagonist and his goal. This opening sets up that our heroes don’t fit the stereotypical definition as epitomized by the Han Solo-esque Mal, who appears to be out for himself, but cares for his crew and if push comes to shove would do anything for them.

Inspired by the dirty, grungy look of Alien (1979), Serenity also features a spacecraft that actually looks like our heroes live in it as opposed to the glossy, immaculate Enterprise of the Star Trek films. It is messy and always seems on the verge of breaking down, much like the Millennium Falcon. This is a great looking film shot by Clint Eastwood’s long-time cinematographer, Jack Green. He helps Whedon give the film a more cinematic look. Like he did with the series, Whedon bucks the typical trend of having sound in space — explosions, lasers blasting and spacecraft engines roaring — for a more realistic take by opting for a nicely understated score by David Newman.

Whedon has always been an excellent director of actors and reuniting his cast from the defunct show brings out the best in everyone concerned as this was a labor of love for all involved. It is like the show had never been cancelled as everyone slips effortlessly back into their respective roles. Nathan Fillion does a fantastic job as Mal, a character who is clearly cut from the same cloth as Han Solo, a selfish rogue who has lost his faith. He has all the charisma and charm of a young Harrison Ford only with more depth. With Serenity, the actor is really given a chance to strut his stuff. He does his usual snappy repartee with fellow crew members, chief among them Wash (Alan Tudyk), the ship’s pilot, and the lovably gruff, gun-toting strong man Jayne (Adam Baldwin). Fillion is also given a chance to show a dramatic side to Mal, like his conflicted feelings over keeping Simon and River – two wanted fugitives – on Serenity. He knows that they will continue to bring him trouble, but they have become a part of his tight-knit crew. Mal wrestles with this dilemma and talks to ex-crew member Shepherd Book (Ron Glass) about it. Book tells Mal that he has to look within himself, believe in himself. Whedon also continues Mal and Inara’s (Morena Baccarin) little dance around their romantic feelings for each other and how they refuse to act on it or publically acknowledge them. Lastly, Fillion demonstrates rather solid action chops in several action sequences, most impressively, his final showdown with the Operative.

As for the rest of the cast, Summer Glau elicits our sympathies as a young woman tormented by nightmares of the horrible experimentation that she was subjected to in the past. Sean Maher plays River’s concerned brother, torn between his promising career as a doctor and the devotion to his sibling. Adam Baldwin’s Jayne is the greedy, self-serving side of Han Solo as well as the ship’s muscle. The always watchable Alan Tudyk’s Wash is a stealth scene-stealer with his inexhaustible supply of one-liners and funny asides. Gina Torres plays Wash’s wife who was an ex-soldier that fought alongside Mal in the wars. Finally, Jewel Staite plays Kaylee, the ship’s mechanic and the heart and soul of the crew. She wears her emotions on her sleeve, which is a nice contrast to the stern Mal who tries to keep everything bottled up inside. One of the primary joys of Serenity is watching how all of these characters interact with each other as we laugh at their petty squabbling and feel sorrow when one of them is struck down.

It is a credit to Whedon’s skill as a writer that he is able to make you care about these characters even if you have not seen the show. He takes the time to show the dynamic between them and their motivations, which pays off later on when they are thrown into life-threatening situations because we have invested so much in them that it makes what happens so effective emotionally. There is a distinctive ebb and flow quality to the overall structure of the film. It never feels forced; rather there is a sense of urgency as early on he sets up what is at stake and then executes some genuine, white knuckle moments where you do not know what is going to happen next. There is even a moment late in the film where it seems like the entire crew of the Serenity is going to be killed off and this is rather refreshing because most films are so predictable that you know exactly who is going to be killed and who will not (i.e. the big name stars).

Whedon pulled off an impressive feat with Serenity. He made it accessible enough for people who have never seen the show and included all kinds of references and revelations for the fans, like finally showing and delving into the origins of the much-feared Reavers, a nasty band of cannibalistic humans who wander the galaxy, attacking anyone in their path and eating their victims alive. Devotees of Whedon will also notice several of his trademarks, like the ass-kicking female character. Following in the footsteps of Buffy Summers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, River, when triggered, becomes a one-woman wrecking machine, single-handedly beating up a cantina of ne’er do-wells. Like Buffy, she looks like a demure, wisp of a person who wouldn’t hurt a fly, but possesses incredible fighting skills, which Summer Glau demonstrates with the grace and dexterity of a ballet dancer.

The Operative is another in a long line of confident, cool and collected villains that populated Buffy the Vampire Slayer and continued on in The Avengers (2012) with Loki. The Operative is a fascinating character. He acts without emotion and believes totally in his cause. Chiwetel Ejiofor is an excellent actor and has the gravitas to convincingly play an ultra confident man who knows that he has deadly fighting skills, intelligence and unlimited resources to back him up. The Operative is also intriguingly self aware as he tells Mal at one point, “I’m a monster. What I do is evil. I have no illusions about it.” He strives for a world without sin and sees River, Mal, et al as obstacles that must be removed.

With a quarter of the budget of the last Star Wars movie, Whedon beats George Lucas at his own game by crafting a science fiction film that has the perfect balance of character development and plot, effortlessly blending science fiction with a horror edge. Serenity is a stronger, more cohesive work than the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Whedon’s plotting and structure is better, not being encumbered by a dense backstory and historical details that threaten to overwhelm the Lucas’ films. Serenity is superior in that it manages to introduce newcomers into the fold while simultaneously offering all kinds of character details, plot twists, and so on to satisfy hardcore fans. This is not an easy thing to do and Whedon pulls it off quite seamlessly. Serenity fuses the grungy aesthetic of Star Wars (1977) with the space western approach of the original Star Trek T.V. series and manages to make its own unique thing. Serenity is everything a space opera should be and proof that a smart, engaging popcorn movie is possible.

The Avengers

The Avengers (2012) is the culmination of an ambitious project that was carefully planned over several years and spans several films utilizing characters, both major and minor, from each. While the notion of a shared universe with characters from one franchise appearing in another is a relatively novel idea in film, it is nothing new in comic books where costumed superheroes cross-pollinate all the time and even contribute to a larger story (see Secret Wars II). With Iron Man (2008), Marvel Comics decided to do in film what they’ve been doing in comic books for decades. Its commercial success paved the way for subsequent adaptations of The Incredible Hulk (2008), Thor (2011) and Captain America (2011), each one featuring a scene that hinted at something bigger and it has finally arrived with The Avengers, which features heroes from all of these films banding together to form a super team of sorts.

The challenge that Marvel faced was to find a director that could successfully bring all of these wildly different heroes together and also handle the movie stars playing them. Up to that point, Marvel had employed journeymen studio directors like Jon Favreau (Iron Man 1 & 2), Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk) and Joe Johnston (Captain America). But with Kenneth Branagh directing Thor, it was the first time the company had hired someone with auteurist sensibilities since Ang Lee and his fascinatingly flawed yet ultimately ill fated take on the Hulk in 2003. And so the hiring of Joss Whedon to direct The Avengers surprised some. With only one feature film on his resume – the cult film darling Serenity (2005), and known mostly for his television work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its spin-off Angel and sci-fi western Firefly, there was some question if he could handle a $200+ million blockbluster populated with movie stars.

Whedon got his start as a screenwriter and honed his chops over the years on T.V. sitcoms and as a prolific and often uncredited script doctor (Speed, Twister, etc.), but more importantly were his hardcore comic book fan credentials, having actually written a brief run for The X-Men, so he knew how they worked in terms of dialogue, plotting and depicting visual action – perhaps the most important criteria for The Avengers gig. It was a calculated risk that appears to have paid off as the film is racking in impressive box office results and receiving strong critical response.

The Tesseract, a powerful energy source that was featured prominently in both Thor and Captain America, has activated itself and appears to be trying to open a portal to outer space. Sure enough, exiled Norse god Loki (Tom Hiddleston) arrives with the intention of using it to take control of Earth and enslave its inhabitants. To this end, he brainwashes brilliant physicist Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard) and S.H.I.E.L.D. (a top secret government organization) operative Clint Barton a.k.a. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) to help him do his bidding. This doesn’t sit too well with S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and he decides to enlist Earth’s mightiest heroes to stop Loki.

This includes Russian super spy Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. Black Widow (Scarlett Johannson) who quickly finishes her “interrogation” of Russian gangsters to approach Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), a philanthropic scientist now staying “off the grid” by working in the slums of India and trying hard not to unleash his Hulk persona, a being with superhuman strength that is off the charts. Captain America (Chris Evans) has been thawed out since being trapped in ice at the end of World War II and is still trying to sort things out with Fury’s help.  S.H.I.E.L.D. also approaches Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), interrupting his work on a clean energy source. Norse god of thunder Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and Loki’s adoptive brother, is the wild card, arriving out of no where to intervene when Iron Man and Captain America attempt to capture him resulting in an impressive skirmish. This all builds up to a spectacular climactic battle between Loki and an alien army that comes swarming out of the portal created by the Tesseract and the Avengers.

With the unfortunate exception of Jeremy Renner, the entire cast gets a chance to flex their acting chops the best they can between massive action set pieces. Mark Ruffalo, the third person to play Banner after Eric Bana and Edward Norton, really nails the human side of his character, playing him as slightly twitchy and paranoid drifter. He appears confident (because, hey, he can turn into the Hulk) yet distracted – a jumble of emotions. This is easily the best representation of the Hulk on film, both visually in terms of CGI and also how he’s portrayed – as a rampaging monster – the Mr. Hyde to Banner’s Dr. Jekyll. Not surprisingly, Robert Downey Jr. gets the lion’s share of the funny quips – he was born to spout Whedon’s witty dialogue. It is a nice return to form after the cluttered rush job that was Iron Man 2 (2010). Based on Whedon’s perchance for having prominent strong-willed female characters in his projects, Scarlett Johannson’s Black Widow gets a beefed up role and proves to be an integral part of the team. Not only does she show off a considerable physical prowess but she also holds her own against the likes of Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo. Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth carry on with their characters from their respective films without missing a beat, each adding their own unique flavor to the team. In particular, Evans does a good job when Captain America steps up and takes tactical control during the war in New York while Hemsworth has some nice moments with Tom Hiddleston as warring brothers who just happen to be gods.

The Avengers is chock full of eye candy for comic book fans, from the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier to actually seeing superheroes fight each other – something, oddly enough, you don’t see in most films but that happens all the time in the comics. It is pretty cool to see the likes of Thor, Iron Man and Captain America duke it out while engaging in playful superhero banter. Unlike the other Marvel films starting with and including Iron Man, Whedon creates a real sense of danger for our heroes. There’s a feeling that they might fail and this tension is thrilling because it is so rare in these kinds of films, except maybe The Dark Knight (2008). It also raises the stakes when Whedon’s film needs it because there is a real sense that the Avengers are fighting for something tangible. He gives them something personal to fight for than just the usual let’s save the world goal. This culminates in the climactic battle in New York City between Loki and his alien army and the Avengers in one thrilling sequence after another, each filled with large-scale slugfests. The choreography during this massive battle is top notch. There is never any confusion as to what is happening and where, which is quite refreshing. The end result is pure, unfiltered comic book geek nirvana.

The Avengers falls rather nicely within Whedon’s wheelhouse as it is all about a group of misfits that band together to save the world from a great evil, just like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and so on. It doesn’t get any more disparate than a Norse god, a billionaire playboy, a World War II super soldier, a brilliant scientist, and two spies. Like much of the aforementioned work, the heroes in The Avengers bicker and fight amongst themselves but when the need to step up for the greater good arises, they put their differences aside and make a stand together. Loki continues in the tradition of eloquent Whedon villains who are incredibly confident because, well, in his case he wields great power and knows it. However, Loki isn’t just out to rule the world. For him, there is a personal component – he seeks vengeance for the slights he feels were incurred in Thor. This film is a great way to kick off the summer blockbuster season and is a potent reminder of what a filmmaker who knows how comic book works can do if given the chance. The result is a smart, witty film that is a throwback to entertaining, crowd-pleasing comic book adaptations like Superman (1978) and Batman (1989).

Titan A.E.

Anticipation was high for Titan A.E. on the eve of its release in June 2000. Scripted by Ben Edlund, Joss Whedon (the creative braintrust that would go on to make the Firefly television show) and John August, and directed by maverick former Disney animator Don Bluth (The Secret of NIMH) and Gary Goldman (An American Tail), it was a space opera in the tradition of the Star Wars films. Titan A.E. ambitiously combined hand-drawn animation with computer-generated imagery and was touted as the first major motion picture to be projected digitally. Unfortunately, the film was badly marketed with the general public unsure if it was intended for children or for an older science fiction audience. It didn’t help that at the time Bluth stated in an HBO First Look special that his film wasn’t a cutesy kiddie musical but rather a non-stop action film. Titan A.E. received mixed critical reviews and flopped badly at the box office, resulting in the closing Fox Animation Studios. It was also the last feature film Bluth and Goldman would helm. It’s a shame really, as the film features gorgeously rendered animation, engaging characters and an engrossing story.


It is 3028 and humanity is working on the Titan project, a groundbreaking experiment that promises to unlock our full potential. However, an energy-based alien race known as the Drej feel threatened by this project and proceed to destroy Earth in order to stop it. Professor Sam Tucker (Ron Perlman) is an important scientist with the project and as the aliens attack, he puts his five-year-old son Cale on a spacecraft that barely manages to escape. Unfortunately, Sam isn’t so lucky. It’s a pretty ballsy move to begin the film with the destruction of the Earth and the death of the protagonist’s father. It sends a strong message that this isn’t going to be some wishy-washy children’s animated film. It’s a spectacular sequence that basically says all bets are off in this film. Titan A.E. flashes forward 15 years later and Cale (Matt Damon) has grown up and is working as a mechanic on a salvage station in outer space. He’s bit of a reckless screw-up lacking direction in his life.

During one of his lunch breaks, Cale is saved from being beaten up by two aliens by a fellow human named Korso (Bill Pullman), who offers him a chance to join a very dangerous mission. Korso worked with Cale’s father on the Titan project and wants to find the spacecraft in order to unlock its secrets. The Drej arrive and Cale and Korso narrowly escape in an exciting action sequence that ends with them being shot into outer space. Cale joins Korso and his crew – his pilot Akima (Drew Barrymore), the alien first mate Preed (Nathan Lane), the gruff weapons expert Stith (Janeane Garofalo), and Gune (John Leguizamo), the ship’s eccentric scientist. There are brief lulls between exciting action sequences as the Drej relentlessly pursue our heroes.

The first Star Wars film is an obvious influence on Titan A.E. with Cale as the young, brash Luke Skywalker-esque pilot, Korso as the sarcastic Han Solo-type rogue, and Akima, a tough, Princess Leia-esque heroine with Stith as the Chewbacca surrogate. In some respects, Titan A.E. also feels like a warm-up for Firefly as writers Joss Whedon and Ben Edlund were beginning to work out the archetypes of the crew of the Serenity with the motley crew in this film. Korso anticipates Jayne, Akima contains elements of Kaylee, and Cale exhibits a few characteristics of Malcolm Reynolds. Not to mention, the enigmatic and ruthless Drej predict the equally mysterious and vicious Reavers in Firefly.

The voice casting is excellent with Matt Damon’s youthful sounding voice perfect for the energetic Cale, Bill Pullman’s weathered voice is ideally suited for the grizzled, veteran warrior Korso, and Drew Barrymore’s expressive voice helps bring the feisty Akima to life. The mix of hand-drawn animation and CGI is impressively rendered as they combine to create some eye-popping visuals, helping realize the film’s epic scope. It is fluid and rich in detail – there is so much to look at in each and every frame. Titan A.E. features a galaxy populated with exotic planets, like Sesharrim with its brown hydrogen trees and red sky where our heroes encounter a bat-like race known as Gaoul. This is contrasted with the cool, metallic blue of the Drej homeworld that resembles a funky hybrid of the computer world from Tron (1982) and the Borg mothership from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Producer David Kirschner first brought what would become known as Titan A.E. to 20th Century Fox as a live-action film, “a sort of Treasure Island in outer space.” It was in development for more than five years and originally known as Planet Ice. It was initially conceived as a live-action feature but Fox decided it would be more interesting and less expensive to produce as an animated film. Known for creating successful animated films like An American Tail (1986), The Land Before Time (1988), and Anastasia (1997), Don Bluth and Gary Goldman saw this project as quite a departure in terms of look, subject matter and target audience. Once they came on board in 1998, it was re-titled Titan A.E.

At the time, Fox was determined to compete with Disney in the feature animation field by spending millions of dollars on groundbreaking CGI technology and told Bluth and Goldman to make a film that featured innovative visuals and effects. The first thing the two men did was redesign the entire film. According to Goldman, the film was originally going to be 40% CG but ended up closer to 90%. He wanted to get a 3-D look while still maintaining a cartoon feel. He and Bluth were aware that their target audience – adolescent boys – were generally not into animated films and decided to adopt a darker, moodier color palette.

In another effort to appeal to teenage boys, the studio enlisted Grammy award winning producer/songwriter Glen Ballard who populated the soundtrack with contemporary bands like Lit, Jamiroquai and Luscious Jackson to complement composer Graeme Revell’s electronic music score. The $55 million film was a risky venture for the animation department of Fox whose fate rested on its success or failure. However, a year before the film was finished, Fox laid off 300 out of 380 of its animation staff members leaving very few people to make the film. An early test screening in Orange County went well with several teenagers comparing Titan A.E. favorably with Star Wars. However, Bill Mechanic, head of Fox, left the studio and Fox Feature Animation was shut down. Bluth and Goldman left and Titan A.E. died a quick death at the box office.

Titan A.E. was the first Hollywood film to be digitally transmitted across the United States over the Internet and then digitally projected into cinemas. The film was pummeled by critics that, with a few exceptions, slammed it as being a Star Wars rip-off. The New York Times’ Stephen Holden wrote, “Titan A.E. tries to pack so much into 90 minutes that the characters don't have enough screen time to engage our emotions. Cale and Akima in particular have all the depth of television spinoffs of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. This is not to say that Titan A.E. isn't entertaining in its breezy, mild-mannered way, only that its mythology and characters barely resonate.” In his review for the Globe and Mail, Liam Lacey wrote, “Think of it as Noah's Ark, with a few plot changes inspired by the Space Invaders video game.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “C” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “The traditional cartoon elements of Titan A.E., both the story and visuals, are unutterably bland. Cale has been conceived as the sort of blond Matt Damon action figure you'd expect to get with a Happy Meal.” In his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, “This story's relatively lofty ideas about saving the human race, and its endless twists and turns, are going to soar over the heads of many young audiences—and probably bore them, too. The scenario and special effects are too lackluster for slightly older, sensation-hungry kids, presumably the target audience. And the humor is far too lame for the parents in the audience. Which makes Titan a must-see for . . . almost no one.” USA Today gave the film two and a half out of four stars and Mike Clark called it, “visually impressive but woefully dumbed-down.”

However, Roger Ebert gave the film three and half out of four stars and wrote, “One test for any movie is when you forget it's a movie and simply surf along on the narrative. That can happen as easily with animation as live action, and it happens here. The movie works as adventure, as the Star Wars pictures do.” In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote, “Titan A.E.'s rudimentary narration does work up a certain amount of propulsion. But it's not the story that's the story here, it's the film's bravura visual look.”

Titan A.E. is about the survival of the human race and what it means to be human with Cale learning to appreciate his heritage. Along the way he grows and falls in love. The film is also a rousing action/adventure tale with a vivid color scheme, larger than life characters that must face a seemingly undefeatable foe. Admittedly, Titan A.E. isn’t reinventing the wheel in terms of originality but it also isn’t trying to, instead delivering an entertaining ride on that level it certainly succeeds.

SOURCES

Dawson, Angela. “Fox Hoping for Titanic Results from Titan A.E.” BPI Entertainment News Wire. June 7, 2000.

Lauria, Larry. “A Chat with Don Bluth and Gary Goldman.” Animation World Magazine. June 2000.

Lauria, Larry. “A Conversation with the New Don Bluth.” Animation World Magazine. September 2000.

Lyman, Rick. “Beaming Soon to a Theater Near You.” Toronto Star. June 6, 2000.

Portman, Jamie. “The Star Wars of Animation.” Ottawa Citizen. June 9, 2000.

Sheehan, Henry. “Titan Creators Seek New Frontiers.” Orange County Register. June 18, 2000.

Stack, Peter. “Sci-Fi Adventure Titan A.E. Breaks New Ground.” San Francisco Chronicle. June 4, 2000.