An overloaded 'Knives Out' mystery

  A somber Catholic church in upstate New York provides a gloomy backdrop for writer/director Rian Johnson's third Knives Out movie, Wake Up Dead Man.

   Johnson, who also wrote the screenplay, immediately distinguishes his movie from its predecessors, introducing an unexpected character, a freshly ordained priest who's in trouble with his superiors.

  Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O'Connor) has anger-management issues. As punishment for socking a deacon, Father Jud is sentenced to clerical exile at the remote Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude parish.

    It's immediately clear that Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude has taken a bizarre turn. The church's crucifix has been removed from behind the altar, and its priest, Monsignor Jeffrey Wicks (Josh Brolin), quickly asserts himself as a power-hungry nut job.  Obsessive about confession, Wicks can't talk enough about his feverish bouts of masturbation.

   Wicks also preaches a gospel of fear. In his weekly sermons, he selects one parishioner for chastisement, gauging the success of his remarks by how quickly his intimidated victim heads for the door. 

    Although Wake Up Dead Man hosts strains of mordant comedy, it's also a mystery in which the characters become pawns in a game Johnson plays, one involving a tangled plot, excessive complications, and enough red herrings to stock a fishery.

    The parishioners, of course, become suspects after the mystery’s obligatory murder, which precedes the arrival of series savior Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), an ace sleuth who speaks with the lilting intonations of a southern gentleman.

     By the time Blanc arrives, a typically large gallery of actors has already elbowed its way into the proceedings: These include a doctor (Jeremy Renner), an attorney (Kerry Washington), a cellist (Cailee Spaeny) who no longer plays, a local politician (Daryl McCormack), and a struggling sci-fi author (Andrew Scott).

     We also meet the administrator (Glenn Close) in charge of the church’s business and the caretaker (Thomas Haden Church) who has pledged his devotion to her.

     In case the cast weren’t stuffed with enough names, Mila Kunis eventually turns up as a local sheriff who’s skeptical about Blanc’s deductive methods. 

      Fair to say, Johnson’s screenplay offers laughs throughout, and an able cast knows how to mine them, even when the targets loom large. 

      In a semi-serious turn, Johnson also gets some mileage out of the faith vs. reason tensions that develop between Jud and Blanc, who begin investigating the murder together.

     As the movie's most developed character, Jud valiantly tries to conquer his anger with love and compassion. He also struggles with guilt. A former boxer, he once killed a man in the ring.

      O’Connor gives a standout performance, although Johnson wisely provides Craig with a spotlight speech  during the movie’s finale. Blanc calls it his Damascus moment.

     Watching Wake Up Dead Man, you needn't go very far before bumping into another plot point. All of this rests on a foundation filled with plot and backstory, some of it involving a valuable jewel. 

      Call it a matter of taste, but I found some of the maneuvering tiresome, and the gaggle of idiosyncratic characters can become little more than pawns in a mystery game.

     Early on, Jeffrey Wright turns up as the sensible priest who assigns Father Jud to obscurity. Wright's appearance at the end reminded me how much I missed his presence and the character he plays.

     Johnson, who's often compared to Agatha Christie, clearly has mastered the form he has employed in a trilogy that began with Knives Out (2019) and continued with Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022).

     But clever as it can be, Johnson's latest sometimes drags through its two-hour and 24-minute run time, fighting headwinds created by the story's storm of complications.

    

      

       

      

'Endgame' delivers what fans expect

It takes three hours for this Marvel Comics series to reach its conclusion, but the movie mostly succeeds..

Watching Avengers: Endgame —- the last chapter in what seemed an endless series of movies that kicked off in 2008 with Iron Man — another title kept running through my head, Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye. It’s not that Chandler’s 1953 novel, made into a fine movie by director Robert Altman, resembles this Marvel Comics extravaganza in any way. It’s simply the title. At three hours in length, Marvel takes its time bringing this long-running series to a close. Judging by Endgame's sometimes melancholy tone, Marvel itself had a difficult time letting go.

Before we continue, I should tell you that this isn’t the end of Marvel comic movies or of every character who has graced the Avengers series. And, no, I’m not going to dwell on plot, partly because critics have been cautioned about including spoilers and partly because I’m not sure that the plot and its various twists make much difference. The general outline of the story already has been drawn; the last installment —- Infinity War —- pitted the Avengers against Thanos (James Brolin}, a super-villain. Even before the beginning of Endgame, Thanos had wiped out half of the universe's population.

This edition includes a robust cast of characters from the Marvel Universe, so many that all but the most avid Marvel fan would be wise to attend the movie with a scorecard. But if character development doesn’t entirely surpass action in Endgame, it at least stands on equal footing. There’s also a fair amount of humor in the work of directors Anthony and Joe Russo, the brothers who brought us 2018’s Infinity War.

About the movie's humor: Reviewers will mention it for good reason. Endgame doesn’t skimp on humor, much of it self-referential, some of it simply amusing. But this doesn’t mean you’ll be falling out of your seat; it does mean that the filmmakers understand that a three-hour journey can’t be made unless it provides a few laughs.

Endgame stands as a sequel to Infinity War although you probably needn’t have seen that movie to follow this one. Still, if you’re not plugged into the Marvel universe, I see no reason to start now. And, yes, I’m wary of movies that have helped turn popular entertainment into a comic-book-based smorgasbord. I’m also aware that there’s little point railing against an already-established victory. As far as the box office is concerned, these movies represent a Hollywood Olympus that most viewers are happy to revisit with a frequency that has enriched much of Marvel's empire.

As for Endgame, I’ll give you a few of the high points. First, Robert Downey Jr., whose work as Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, ignited the Avenger's flame. A distressed-looking Stark is seen early in Endgame; he’s on a space ship floating through the outer reaches of space or as he puts it, a thousand light years from the nearest 7-Eleven. Without offering any overly revealing explanations, suffice it to say that Downey gives a real performance; i.e., one in which Stark relates more to his human side than to his superhero self.

Joining Downey are a variety of other superheroes. These include Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, the anger-motivated muscle man who in this edition has found a way to blend his fury with the normal intelligence of his alter-ego Bruce Banner. Chris Hemsworth’s Thor makes a large impression, not only by wielding his mythic hammer but by displaying a new and expanded girth. Thor, we learn has become a beer-guzzling sloth complete with a potbelly. The newly debauched Thor adds welcome laughs.

We see more of Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) than I expected. Same goes for Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow. As I've said, bring a scorecard and you'll be able to check off every superhero arrival in the movie's bulging roster.

The Russo brothers try to give each of the main characters his or her due by introducing a plot conceit that allows the movie’s structure to be divided into a variety of mini-movies that include moments of genuine poignancy.

Let’s talk about the movie’s ending. Yes, it’s protracted but it’s also marked by a reasonably surprising undertow: Victories seldom come without an underlying sense of what has been lost in the fight. That's not to say that you'll be weeping uncontrollably. The Russos deftly engineer the finale in ways that are bound to elicit cheers from the faithful; they nicely balance moments of loss with the obligatory rush derived from superhero achievements.

But wait; there’s more. The climactic action is followed by a series of epilogues that are meant to tug at the heartstrings and which probably will accomplish this goal for many of the faithful.

Avengers: Endgame goes to great lengths to deliver what its fanbase expects: big battles with cosmic stakes, a bit of self-deprecation and a plethora of superheroes that are happily and reverentially showcased.

Looking for great comedy? 'Tag' isn't it

Grown men playing tag? They chase one another but have trouble catching laughs.

In 2013, The Wall Street Journal ran a diverting little article about a group of men from Spokane, Wash., who managed to stay in touch over decades by playing an annual, month-long game of tag.

Tag, a game that requires no equipment and which relies on speed and elusiveness, isn’t usually thought of as a competitive sport. But this group of long-time pals turned it into one — at least for four weeks a year. They drew up a contract specifying the rules of a game they played with stealth, subterfuge, cunning and an abiding commitment not to be the last man tagged, a status with which one of them had to live for an entire year before the game resumed.

Enter Hollywood and the idea that this amusing piffle of a story would make a good movie.

And it might have had director Jeff Tomsic displayed more interest in exploring the absurd side of male competitive drive, had he and his cohorts done a better job of getting the cast on the same page and had they not turned Tag into a movie that feels like a lukewarm bit of filler sandwiched between summer blockbusters.

The filmmakers seem to have made self-conscious attempts to alter the movie’s gender muscle flexing by having the wife (Isla Fisher) of one of the players (Ed Helms) accompany her husband as the game he plays the game. Moreover, the movie's Wall Street Journal reporter serves little purpose other than to make room for Annabelle Wallis, the actress who plays her.

Not that any of the male characters are particularly well-developed, either.

Helms portrays Hoagie, a man who suggests to another player -- a successful insurance company executive played by Jon Hamm -- that they team up to take down the reigning champion (Jeremy Renner). During the course of several decades, Renner's Jerry never has been tagged. As portrayed here, Jerry has ninja-like skills that are heightened by some quick editing, the sudden insertion of slo-mo trickery and an inexplicable ability to disappear.

Other players include a Denver-based stoner (Jake Johnson), a character who's introduced with a bong joke that would have seemed dated -- even had it turned up 50 years ago. Hannibal Buress signs on as a slightly nerdy gameplayer.

To keep the movie focused, the filmmakers assemble the players in Spokane, where Jerry is about to be married. Jerry hasn’t invited his buddies to the wedding because he knows they’ll show up anyway, using the nuptials as a long-awaited opportunity to bring down the champion.

Setting most of the movie in the players' hometown also gives the filmmakers an opportunity to throw in a bit of competition for an old high-school flame (Rashida Jones), a woman who attracts attention from both Hamm and Johnson’s characters.

All of this generates minimal chemistry. Granted the men are locked in fierce competition, but they seldom seem comfortable with one another, and Hamm, in particular, looks like a misfit addition to a misbegotten group that produces no stand-outs, except possibly for Fisher, who can be more underhanded than any of the male players. By rule, women are excluded from the game.

Renner does a convincing job as Jerry, but his intensely focused performance seems to belong in another movie.

Because the men are not playing in the confined space of a schoolyard but in the real world, they're forced to don lame disguises to sneak up one another or to engage in trickery, bribery and other forms of deceit that will allow them to approach their prey.

I went back and read the original Wall Street Journal article and a couple of follow-ups, all of which were more interesting than the resultant movie which can’t find its rhythm as a robust comedy with outlandish flourishes, including a far-fetched (and not especially funny) bit of action set in a wooded area.

The tag catchphrase — “you’re it" — might have given the movie stinging sharpness, but after laying out its premise, this over-amped effort does little to catch us unaware — and that includes a last-minute revelation that may have been added to create a bit of emotion without having done anything to earn it.

Trouble on a troubled reservation

In Wind River , an FBI agent and a tracker look into the mysterious death of a young woman.

There are so few movies with Native American characters that one is tempted to recommend Wind River solely on the basis of casting that includes many Native American actors. But in the hands of writer/director Taylor Sheridan, Wind River can't entirely balance concerns about terrible conditions on a Wyoming reservation with the genre demands of a thriller.

A subdued Jeremy Renner plays Cory Lambert, a Wyoming-based U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officer who becomes involved in investigating the murder of a Native American teenager, whose body he finds in a snow-covered field. The young woman has been shot and sexually violated.

Olsen's Jane Banner, a newly minted FBI agent, arrives in Wyoming to figure out exactly what happened to the dead girl (Kelsey Asbille), a resident of the grimly impoverished Wind River reservation.

The screenplay puts Cory in a difficult spot. He knows the terrain and he knew the dead girl. Unlike the outsider played by Olsen, Cory has long-standing relationships in the Native American community. He had been married to a woman from the Wind River Reservation (Julia Jones), but their relationship ended in divorce after the disappearance and death of their daughter.

Obviously, Cory can't look into the death of another young woman without confronting the burden of grief and guilt that he carries with him. He couldn't protect his daughter from the sometimes lethal hostilities directed toward Native American women.

Sheridan wrote the screenplays for two better movies -- Sicario and Hell or High Water. This time, he creates a story that wallows in the dour resolve of men accustomed to suppressing anger and pain. Many of the characters seem to have accepted injustice as part of the fabric of a world that, for them, long ago slipped beyond redemption.

Only the town's sheriff (Graham Greene) shows splashes of humor, but it's of the deadpan variety, and the movie's snowbound landscapes add to the feeling of emotional desolation.

A skilled tracker, Cory spends most of his time hunting animals that prey on sheep and cattle. He wears a snowsuit to protect him from lethally cold temperatures. (The movie actually was shot in Utah, so if you've been to Lander, Wyo., where some of the movie supposedly takes place, don't be surprised if you feel a bit disoriented.)
Scenes between Cory and his young son and those between Cory and his estranged wife add humanity, as do scenes in which Cory meets with the father (Gil Birmingham) of the dead teenager. Such moments suggest that Wind River might have been more affecting had it spent even more time with the dead girl's shattered family.

Olsen, so good in Martha Marcy May Marlene -- isn't able to bring much depth to a character who makes up half of a cliché; she plays novice cop to Renner's savvy frontiersman.

Sheridan shows some of the physical and emotional impoverishment of life on the reservation. Wintry atmospherics and pervasive gloom almost become characters in a story that ultimately succumbs to a burst of extreme violence.

This finale involves a flashback and a shoot-out that overwhelms some of the movie's earlier observational insights. A final title card about the disappearance of Native American women from reservations -- evidently a widespread a problem -- struck me as too little, too late, almost an apology for the violent crescendo that preceded it.

A 2012 New York Times article about the Wind River Reservation, provides a better feel for life on what the locals call "the res." The article notes that, at the time of its writing, those living in Wind River had a shorter life expectancy than the inhabitants of war-torn Iraq.

The story also attributes the following quote to a tribal advocate:

"This place has always had the gloom here. There has always been the horrendous murder. There has always been the white-Indian tension It's always been something."
To his credit, Sheridan captures some of that feeling, but in the end, the sound of gunfire drowns out the cries of characters whose lot in life seems to demand that they find ways to bear the unbearable.

Does anyone here speak alien?

Arrival ponders how to speak with beings from another world..

Arrival has the courage to be a sci-fi movie about the mind-bending effects of language, a heady theme presented with a welcome avoidance of apocalyptic special-effects.

The movie's main character is a linguist who finds herself in the middle of a frantic effort to understand the language of aliens who have parked 12 oval-shaped, 1,500-foot high vehicles on various portions of the globe.

Taken from author Ted Chiang's Story of Your Life, Arrival ponders the idea that language dominates perception. Fair enough, but what if we were encountering aliens? How would we grasp their written language if it were conveyed in odd looking symbols that resembled a cross between Christmas wreaths and an unidentified form of insect life?

Amy Adams plays Dr. Louise Banks, the academic charged with solving this puzzle. When we meet Dr. Banks, she's mired in grief for a daughter who recently died of cancer.

On what seems to be a normal morning, Dr. Banks arrives at her class only to find it almost empty. It quickly becomes apparent that Dr. Banks's students -- like everyone else on the planet -- have become transfixed by the arrival of alien crafts, a boon to the 24/7 news cycle, as if it needed one in the age of Trump.

An army colonel (Forest Whitaker) soon shows up to enlist Dr. Banks's help in talking to the aliens. The major question: Why have they arrived?

Dr. Banks insists that she can't tell anything from the colonel's recording of alien sounds; she needs direct contact with the aliens if she's to make sense of their language.

Director Denis Villeneuve (Sicario, Incendies) makes any number of smart choices, the most important of which involves early exposure to the aliens, octopus-like creatures referred to by earthlings as heptapods. Villeneuve seems less interested in how creatures from other worlds might look than in how we might talk to them.

To begin her work, Dr. Banks -- and others -- enter the craft and approach the aliens, who remain behind a transparent barrier. To reach the aliens, the anxious earthlings must walk through the vessel's tunnel-like approach where gravity goes topsy turvy. Eventually, the aliens emerge from a smokey haze.

The aliens communicate with deep sounds that evoke images of lonely whales or perhaps a wounded moose. They write by squirting inky figures from tentacles that splay and open like flowers. How exactly Dr. Banks determines how to read these figures isn't spelled out with much detail.

Effects aside, the movie depends heavily on Adams performance and on Villeneuve's willingness to avoid overstatement.

Adams gives Dr. Banks a sense of reserve that makes it clear that she's on a two-fold journey -- one having to do with communicating with the aliens; the other relating to coming to terms with grief. Accepting life means also accepting that all lives must end.

Dr. Banks works with a theoretical physicist (a subdued Jeremy Renner). Renner doesn't have much to do aside from occasionally asking Dr. Banks whether she's holding up under the strain of it all.

Jenner's Ian Donnelly doesn't know that Dr. Banks is having what are presented as unsettling flashbacks to moments she shared with her daughter; Villeneuve smartly hides the meaning of those flashbacks until the movie's intellectually trippy ending, which involves the way language influences our perception of time.

Simultaneously spectral and down-to-earth, Arrival casts a hypnotic spell, but that doesn't mean it achieves perfection.

In case the arrival of aliens on Earth weren't enough for one movie, the screenplay by Eric Heisserer adds a drearily familiar clash between scientists and the military.

A Chinese General (Tzi Ma) grows weary of trying to talk to the aliens and issues an ultimatum. Either leave in 24 hours or be attacked.

Can Dr. Banks discover the key to alien intentions before General Shang destroys the possibility for communication? Will the movie's resident CIA agent (Michael Stuhlbarg) stop Dr. Banks from finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict?

At its best, Arrival does what only movies can accomplish; it transports us into a reality that feels strange, unfamiliar and urgently important.

But it also can deflate such feelings with plot elements that undermine the movie's interest in the nature of time, the power of language and the gap between intellectual knowledge and emotional realization.

Still, those elements are there, and they make Arrival sci-fi with a difference: It's at least trying to be smart.

When a hero becomes the goat

A terrific Jeremy Renner plays a reporter who fights to get the story and then battles with the journalistic establishment in Kill the Messenger.

Though not entirely satisfying, Kill the Messenger has enough energy and intrigue to earn its place on a list of movie's that rightly give us pause.

In yet another electric performance, a terrific Jeremy Renner plays a newspaper reporter who rose and, then, fell with his story.

Renner's portrayal of mayor Carmine Polito in American Hustle was a small classic, and he's done fine, even scary, work in such tough-minded movies as The Town (2010) and The Hurt Locker (2008).

An actor of exceptional edge, Renner creates the impression that his characters could tilt in a hundred different directions. We're never entirely sure which way they'll jump.

In Kill the Messenger, Renner plays Gary Webb, a reporter for the San Jose Mercury who, in the 1990s, wrote a highly controversial story about Nicaraguan rebels who were smuggling drugs into the U.S. while the CIA apparently looked the other way.

Webb's story started strong and then got blurry: Major journalistic institutions -- notably The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times -- tried to poke holes in Webb's reporting. Even his own paper eventually said Webb had over-reached.

As shown in the movie, Webb persisted in his quest because he understood that the story, which tracked events that unfolded during the 1980s, had had devastating, on-the-ground impact: Drugs were being funneled into South Central Los Angeles, where a crack epidemic was ruining lives.

Director Michael Cuesta (L.I.E.) doesn't canonize Webb, who we learn had a devastating incident in his past, a tragic episode that caused him to leave the Cleveland Plain Dealer and head for California.

When Webb's story -- entitled Dark Alliance -- broke on the Internet, it pointed to a tarnished part of the recent American past and, subsequently, raised interesting questions about whether some in the journalistic establishment were being motivated by timidity and envy.

Although the movie encourages us to side with Webb, it doesn't entirely settle the issue of whether he dotted every "i'' and crossed all his "ts."

If it's a bit indecisive, pacing and intrigue keep the story humming, as does a large and powerful supporting cast.

A seductive Paz Vega plays Coral, a woman who pulls Webb into the story. Tim Blake Nelson portrays an attorney for a crack dealer (Michael Kenneth Williams) who knows the real story of how cocaine is reaching the ghetto, and Barry Pepper appears as a prosector who doesn't seem devoted to finding the truth.

We're also introduced to Webb's editors. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Webb's immediate supervisor, and Oliver Platt portrays the paper's editor. Andy Garcia has a nice, small turn as an imprisoned drug lord who becomes one of Webb's sources.

The movie supplements its main story by showing the toll Webb's work took on his family, notably on his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) and the older of his two sons (Lucas Hedges).

Unfortunately for Cuesta, this may be a case where the arc of the drama, derived from real events, diminishes its power: Triumph precedes a downward spiral. Webb's story trades victory for defeat, and winds up knocking the air out of itself.

Still, I wouldn't dismiss Kill the Messenger. We may not always be able to find our moorings in this complicated tale, but two things seem clear: Major institutions -- the government and the press -- can be tainted by self-interest. And no matter where you look, heroes probably will be in short supply.

'American Hustle' is the real deal

This is one movie that won't con you when it comes to enjoyment.

I don't know if American Hustle is the best movie of the year, but it's definitely one of the most enjoyable.

Director David O'Russell's exuberant foray into the world of con men and corruption was inspired by the real-life Abscam scandal of the 1970s. In that ugly chapter of recent American history, an FBI investigation -- aided by a con man -- led to a sting that resulted in the conviction of six congressman and a New Jersey senator.

If you're unfamiliar with Abscam, you needn't bother to look it up: The movie's link to real life events is a bit tenuous and ultimately unimportant: American Hustle is best seen as a movie about the spirit of the '70s, as well as a look at some of the more colorful characters the decade spawned.

American Hustle also features some of the year's best acting, much of it from actors who also appeared in Russell's equally enjoyable Silver Linings Playbook.
Christian Bale -- a reported 50 pounds overweight and sporting one of the worst hairpieces in the history of hairpieces (if there is such a thing) -- plays Irving Rosenfeld, a small-time chiseler who also runs a chain of dry cleaning stores in the Bronx.

At a party, Irving finds his a soulmate. She's Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), a former stripper who's able to pass herself off as an English woman of culture and distinction.

Sydney responds to Irving's love of Duke Ellington. Why not? If she gets Ellington, there's a good chance she'll get Irving, too. Irving quickly falls in love with Sydney: His spirits are buoyed by her ability to help him elevate his game. He begins to blossom -- and so does his criminal activity.

Of course, Irving isn't entirely free. He happens to be married to a busty woman (Jennifer Lawrence) who's constantly nagging him about one thing or another and with whom he shares an adopted son.

The usually intense Bale seems to be having fun for a change, and I'm not sure that Adams ever has had a better role. Her Sydney is attractive, smart and skillful at striking almost any pose.

Lawrence again proves that she's a terrific actress. Her Rosalyn is a bombshell who spills out of dresses in ways that seem as uncontrollable as her character's eruptive mind.

The plot heats up when Irving and Sydney are busted. Richie DiMaso -- an ambitious FBI agent played by a tightly permed Bradley Cooper -- offers to let this morally dubious duo walk if Irving and Sydney help him make four major busts. They agree, and the movie turns into a comic mystery about who actually might be getting conned.

Russell directs with a zest that seems to have filtered into Cooper's performance, which is full of lewd energies and cocky swagger. A subdued Louis C.K. offers counterpoint as Richie's far more conservative boss.

Russell allows Irving and Sydney to take turns narrating the movie, a stylistic ploy that adds to fun. Russell isn't interested in a Rashomon-like shift in perspectives: He's more interested in taking us inside the world of characters we alternately find appalling and lovable.

And that's the key to what Russell accomplishes: Irving has likable qualities. He can be boorish, but he's also capable of caring about people in ways that feel real. There's a sense of true, live-and-let-live tolerance about him.

To demonstrate this, the screenplay, by Russell and Eric Singer, shows Irving developing a real friendship with Carmine Politio (Jeremy Renner), a New Jersey mayor whose corruption stems from an apparently genuine desire to serve his constituents and create jobs. He wants money to rebuild Atlantic City, still a gambling mecca in waiting.

At one point, Carmine expresses his affection for Irving by giving him a microwave oven. Having never seen one before, the befuddled Irving refers to it as "a science oven."

Liberated from the world of munitions (The Hurt Locker) and action (Mission Impossible -- Ghost Protocol), Renner piles on a robust helping of good-fella charm.

Remember, Irving's no dope. His meeting with a genuine gangster (a late-picture cameo from Robert De Niro) confirms what he already knows: Irving recognizes that he's better at small cons than big ones. He understands his limitations.

At some point -- maybe about three-quarters of the way through -- the picture loses a bit of steam, and I found myself worrying that Russell might not be able to pull the whole thing together. I think he does, and -- in the process -- creates one of the few movies of 2013 that I was sorry to see end.

Running in Bourne's footsteps

Revamped with a new hero, the The Bourne Legacy is only semi-successful.

Goodbye Jason Bourne. Hello Aaron Cross.

Right there, you can see part of the problem with The Bourne Legacy, a semi-successful attempt to perpetuate a franchise with Jeremy Renner taking over for Matt Damon. Renner plays Cross, one of nine chemically enhanced Treadstone operatives. He's like Bourne, but he's not Bourne.

Damon's absence can't help but be felt because we've come to identify the Bourne movies with (here's a shocker) a character named Bourne.

In the hands of director Tony Gilroy, who co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Dan, The Bourne Legacy proceeds in fits and starts, possibly because it's forced to establish its Bourne bona fides with lots of references to its predecessors. (The movie takes place at roughly the same time as the end of The Bourne Ultimatum.)

Familiar from The Hurt Locker and more recently from Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Renner is an explosive actor. He looks and acts tough enough for a globe-hopping thriller, and in this outing he has a snub-nosed intensity that makes him a credible action hero -- if not a franchise figure.

We meet Cross while he's conducting a solo training exercise in Alaska. We quickly learn that he's a super-operative who can go one-on-one with a snarling wolf. We also discover that he's being hunted by his own super-secret agency, which -- thanks to threat of exposure and possible public outrage -- is being closed.

That means that Cross must be killed, a project that's being led by a retired Air Force Colonel played by Edward Norton, who -- like every other actor in the movie -- spends most of his time looking seriously grim. Norton's character is a proponent of the notion that some things are morally reprehensible but essential to U.S. security. In a dirty world, survival depends on playing dirty. That's where guys like Bourne and Cross come in.

The plot eventually contrives to bring a fleeing Cross into contact with a scientist (Rachel Weisz) who has been working on the project that develops the chemicals that give Treadstone agents their heightened powers. Cross and Weisz's Dr. Marta Shearing spend the rest of the movie trying not to be killed.

Blame recent events -- shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin -- but for me, the most disturbing scene in the movie involves a shooting in a lab. It's staged for maximum impact by Gilroy, who directed and wrote Michael Clayton and Duplicity. What makes the lab scene so horrific is that there's no hail of bullets: A gunman picks off his victims one by one, each shot ringing with chilling clarity.

Gilroy does a decent job with the rest of the action, but a lengthy motorcycle chase in Manilla -- the film's climax -- leans toward the outrageous and makes it clear that Gilroy and company are making a summer movie with a capital "S." The longer the chase went on, the more it smelled of pandering to me.

The movie's ending isn't especially satisfying, leaving one with the impression that the filmmakers have huffed, puffed and blown down a lot of houses without getting much of anywhere. The series, we suppose, is meant to continue.

Audiences should find enough action and exoticism in Bourne Legacy to give it box-office life, but I wonder whether future movies will continue to put the Bourne name into the title, will let Cross move forward under his own banner or will switch to one of the other agents that are running around the dangerous world that novelist Robert Ludlum imagined when he created the Bourne series.

The Cross Ultimatum? Doesn't sound right, does it?

A total comic-book extravaganza

The Avengers unites superheroes for a smashing good time.

The world as we know it faces grave danger. An external force from a distant galaxy is poised to plunge through a mysterious space portal and attack the Earth and all dwell upon it. There's hope, but also a problem. To save the world, a group of bickering superheroes must put aside their differences long enough to fight a common enemy.

That's pretty much all there is to the story of Marvel's The Avengers, but an outline of the plot doesn't say enough about what director Joss Whedon has accomplished with the first mega-movie of summer. To me, it seems as if Whedon hasn't so much directed a movie as he has organized a teeming and often entertaining cinema onslaught.

The Avengers boasts a large cast, a galaxy of terrific special effects, some particularly well used 3-D and enough explosive action to stock an entire summer's worth of movies.

All of this should come as good news to the millions who've been waiting for the much-hped movie that unites a variety of Marvel superheroes: Captain America (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth). This quartet of heroic overachievers receives support from Black Widow, a.k.a. Natalia Romanov (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner). All of these characters are brought together by S.H.I.E.L.D., the secret agency that's run by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson).

So what exactly happens? Well, a lot of noise and clamor as Thor's evil half brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) opens a portal that will allow an invading army to conquer the Earth. Fiercely played by Hiddleston, Loki embodies every known political evil: He believes that humans must be -- in his words -- "freed from freedom." If humans crave subjugation, Loki's just the man for the job.

Movies such as The Avengers really are elaborate collections of set pieces that have been carefully designed to raise pulse rates. If we're lucky -- as we are here -- the action will be assembled with witty flourish.

In an early scene, Black Widow dispatches a team of vicious Russian interrogators while tied to a chair. In another high point, The Hulk throws Loki around like a rag doll. The Hulk and Thor bump heads. Iron Man and Thor trade blows.

Each superhero's personality emerges as Whedon zooms through the movie's 2 1/2-hour length. Captain America's super-sheld, to cite one example, is matched by his super-sincerity. Downey, an established master of ironic detachment, throws around one-liners as Tony Stark before donning the Iron Man suit that allows him to fly and stave off attackers.

Credit Whedon for injecting humor into proceedings. When The Hulk springs into action, he's motivated with a single and bluntly effective word that, in different circumstances, might be worthy of a Mel Brooks' parody: "Smash!"

If you thought that in a post 9/11 world, you'd never see another movie that ravaged the Manhattan skyline, think again. The movie's lengthy finale -- a more intelligent and imaginative version of the kind of action we've seen in the Transformers movies -- takes a major bite out of the Big Apple.

Look, I know The Avengers is a comic-book fantasy and I know Manhattan hasn't escaped other movie attacks, but I still have trouble watching New York being destroyed. Call me a wimp if it makes you feel better, but that's how I see it.

There are moments when the superheroes are together in the S.H.I.E.L.D. control room when the pace flags, and Avengers could mark Jackson's least interesting performance ever. Until now, I've never seen him look as if he needed a wake-up call. Of all the superheroes, Iron Man and the Hulk struck me as the most fun, but there obviously are more from which to choose.

Enough. I enjoyed The Avengers, but I left the theater entirely unaffected by it. I think that's because I'm still a bit put off by the idea that this much money and effort has been funneled into comic-book escapism that provides the expected thrills but doesn't give us much to chew on.

But, hey, that's just me being me. For what it is, The Avengers definitely delivers the comic-book goods, and I suppose we ought to make room in our hearts for commercial movies that pile on excitement intstead of ripping us off.

This 'Mission' hits an action bull's-eye

A 'Mission Impossible' movie that pushes most of the right buttons.

Look, they don't call it Mission Impossible for nothing.

Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol -- the fourth in a series of Mission Impossible movies -- features action that's either physically impossible, highly unlikely or downright ridiculous.

But that's just what we want in a Mission Impossible movie, and director Brad Bird, best know for animated movies such as The Incredibles and Iron Giant, serves up a Mission edition that delivers the action-packed goods. Along with star Tom Cruise - and a worthy supporting cast - Bird ensures that this Mission flies through some of the year's most compelling action.

The movie's best set piece takes place on the glass wall of Dubai's Burj Khalifa, a 2,700-foot-high skyscraper. I'm squeamish about heights, so this tense bit of business was strictly a white-knuckle experience for me. Still, it's indicative of the kind of a crackerjack action Bird strings around a serviceable story about a lunatic general (Michael Nyqvist) who wants to start a nuclear war.

Joining Cruise's Ethan Hunt on a mission aimed at stopping nuclear Armageddon are Paula Patton (as a highly competent IMF agent); Simon Pegg (as the agent with tech skills) and Jeremy Renner (as an assistant to the IMF secretary played by Tom Wilkinson).

The screenplay wisely affords Renner -- scorchingly good in both The Hurt Locker -- an opportunity to show another side of himself. The rest of the crew is in equally good form.

Watch for Lea Seydoux, as a deadly blonde assassin, who ultimately winds up duking it out with Patton's character. And, hey, the gadgets and high-tech wonders are pretty impressive, too.

Cruise's main function here is to take a variety of beatings and keep on ticking. Whether he's scaling the walls of skyscrapers or leaping onto moving vehicles, Cruise portrays Ethan with old-pro efficiency. It's almost as if he understands that he's playing second fiddle to the action, and has no problem with it.

The screenplay, which tries for a bit of emotion with a backstory involving Ethan's late wife, doesn't skimp on locations, taking us to places as far flung as Moscow and Dubai. It also makes good use of the powerhouse presentation that IMAX offers. (The film will be released at non-IMAX theaters on Dec. 21.)

Despite its near-maniacal commitment to efficiency - cramming as much action into every scene as possible - Ghost Protocol knows it's also supposed to be fun, and it is. (It makes for an interesting contrast with this week's other franchise release, Sherlock Holmes. That movie seems to know its silly; this one is earnest in its approach, refusing to waste time putting tongue into cheek.

There are times when Ghost Protocol , like most action-heavy thrillers, threatens to wear out its welcome, but it never really does. This is one Mission fans should have no trouble accepting.

Ben Affleck goes to 'Town'

Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner as partners in crime.

Boston has been very, very good to Ben Affleck. The actor and sometime director jump-started his career with Good Will Hunting (1997), a Boston-based movie he co-wrote with Matt Damon. In 2007, Affleck directed Gone Baby Gone, a crime yarn set in the Boston area. With the volatile new thriller, The Town, Affleck returns to the Boston scene for more tough-talking crime.

Adapted from a novel by Chuck Hogan, The Town bristles with pungent dialog, hard-boiled acting and vivid characters from Boston's criminal class. The movie takes place mostly in the Boston neighborhood known as Charlestown. There - or so we're told at the movie's outset - bank robbery practically constitutes a family business.

Affleck portrays Doug McCray, a bank robber mired in a standard problem: McCray's had his fill of the criminal life, and wants to go straight. Too bad the neighborhood - embodied in a dangerous, loose cannon of a criminal played by Jeremy Renner - keeps pulling him back for one job after another.

Like many before him, McCray pins his hopes for redemption on a woman (Rebecca Hall). Hall's Claire Keesey works as an assistant manager at a bank McCray and his boys rob in the movie's gripping opening scene. They also kidnap Claire briefly. The robbers wear skeleton masks that make them look especially menacing, and that keep Claire from identifying her tormentors.

Worried that Claire may have picked up a clue or two, McCray establishes a relationship with her. He wants to make sure that she can't incriminate him or any of his felonious cohorts. Not surprisingly, McCray begins to fall for Claire, allowing himself -- maybe for the first time -- to imagine life away from the mean streets of Charlestown.

But escape from the past never proves easy, and the script - credited to Peter Craig, Affleck and Aaron Stockard - places plenty of obstacles in McCray's path: neighborhood loyalties; a reflexive hatred of cops and a bit of old-fashioned intimidation to mention only a few.

The Town boasts the kind of gritty authenticity that we've come to expect from good crime movies, all of it bolstered by fine work from Affleck's supporting cast.

Last seen defusing bombs in The Hurt Locker, Renner can scare the daylights out of you even when he's smiling. Jon Hamm (of TV's Mad Men) stretches a bit as an FBI agent, and Pete Postlethwaite has a nice turn as a florist who runs a small crime empire. Don't overlook Chris Cooper, who shows how much an actor can accomplish in very little time. He appears in one scene as McCray's imprisoned father.

No Boston-bred movie can (or should) escape Fenway Park - home to the city's beloved Red Sox -- and The Town is no exception. I won't say more except to note that the use of heavy artillery during the movie's finale tends to blow away what's best about The Town: the way it captures the tone and texture of life among the criminally inclined. There's enough firepower in the movie's final scenes to make you wonder whether you're in Boston or Baghdad.

By that time, though, you will have gotten what there is to get from The Town. The movie's real pleasure derives from thrust-and-parry dialog and from characters accustomed to living on a dangerous edges.

Affleck's performance also helps. He makes McCray intense, serious and street-wise. At its best, his movie follows suit.