AVENGERS: ENDGAME

For years the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been teasing the awesome power of the Infinity Stones, the Infinity Gauntlet, and the mad titan Thanos' mission to wipe out half the life in the universe -- and seeing that happen in Avengers: Infinity War.  So what happens next?  The conclusion of this saga in the epic Avengers: Endgame.

Following the events of the last movie, the remaining Avengers quickly track down Thanos (Josh Brolin), only to discover that he's destroyed the Infinity Stones.  We then jump ahead five years.  Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is providing counseling to those who remain, while the Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) is locked away trying to find a way to reverse Thanos' deed.  The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) has found a way to merge Bruce Banner's mind with his green-skinned ego, while Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has let himself go.  Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) has started a family with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), while Hawkeye/Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) lost his whole family and takes his anger out by killing criminals.  Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) is working with just about everyone.  And Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) is helping other planets deal with the same thing that happened on Earth.

Then Ant-Man/Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) shows up.  He's been trapped in the quantum realm -- but while five years passed for the rest of the world, for him it's been five hours.  Time works differently there, so he and the Avengers make a plan: Use the realm to go back in time, get the Infinity Stones before they were destroyed, and reverse Thanos' mass genocide.  But they only have enough Pym particles for one trip to the past and back -- and tampering with time has unforseen consequences...

There's a lot Endgame tackles -- and it does it very well for the most part.  We get to see new sides of characters we've known for decades, and the time travel element allows us to go back to many of the earlier movies, from revisiting characters who've died to characters running into their past selves.  There's plenty of humor spread throughout the movie, but it doesn't diminish the high stakes of saving half the life in the universe.  And yes, there's an epic battle, final deaths, and saying goodbye to staples of the MCU.

While Avengers: Endgame isn't perfect -- there are at least two paradoxes that go unexplained -- it is a very satisfying wrap-up to the storylines of the MCU.  I can certainly understand why the audience cheered during the movie.  This movie is exciting, nostalgic, and very satisfying.

Overall grade: A-
Reviewed by James Lynch

ANT-MAN AND THE WASP

While some Marvel movies can be pretty intense, the last Ant-Man movie was a lighter caper film.  Ant-Man and the Wasp continues that tradition, as assorted characters race and battle to get hold of the same item.

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is just a few days from finishing his house arrest, he's got a new security business going, and he's ready to stay out of trouble.  Unfortunately, his dreams about Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) lead Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) to conclude that Janet is still alive in the quantum realm -- and they need Scott's help to bring her back to this world.  So they break Scott out of his home, covering for him and telling him it'll be taken care of quickly.

Of course, it's not nearly that simple.  Hank and Hope's plan revolves around their lab, which is in a building that can br shrunk to the size of carry-on luggage.  This is hunted by Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), a woman who can become intangible and needs the lab to cure herself by extracting the energy from Janet -- which could kill Janet.  The lab is also pursued by Sonny (Walter Goggins), a businessman who's promised to sell the lab to some disreputable people.  So soon Scott has become Ant-Man, Hope is the new Wasp, and they're shrinking and enlarging things while fighting the enemies and working together.

Ant-Man and the Wasp is fun.  The movie is more comedy than action, but the action sequences still work pretty well.  There's some nice romantic chemistry between Scott and Hope, and the Ghost is one of the more sympathetic villains of the Marvel universe.  This works well as summer escapism -- and fits in nicely with the Marvel universe.

Overall grade: B+
Reviewed by James Lynch

ANT-MAN

While Marvel has enjoyed great cinematic success with its well-known characters, their Guardians of the Galaxy film did well with much lesser-known characters and a sillier feel.  Now Marvel is trying the same with Ant-Man, a superhero movie that's part action, part comedy, part training montage, and part heist.

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is a thief and electrical engineer who just got out of jail for a, er, noble theft.  He wants to take care of his daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Forston), but his ex-wife Maggie (Judy Greer) wants him to get a job, get a place to live, and pay child support first.  And Maggie's fiancee Paxton (Bobby Cannavale) is a detective who thinks Scott is no good.


Scott can't get a job with his criminal record, so he eventually joins his criminal buddies Luis (Michael Pena), Dave (T.I.), and Kurt (David Dastmalchian) on what's supposed to be a perfect job.  After Scott overcomes a number of obstacles, all he finds is "a motorcycle suit" and a helmet.  When he gets curious and tries the suit on, he shrinks down to the size of an ant!  He also hears a voice in the helmet.

The suit is the creation of Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), who had been the Ant-Man earlier in his life.  Hank created the "Pym particles" that can shrink or enlarge matter -- and he's worried because businessman Darren Cross (Corey Stall) is on the verge of duplicating the Pym particle and using them to power a lethal armor called Yellowjacket -- which Cross will then sell as a weapon.  Hank needs Scott to break in, destroy the data, and steal the Yellowjacket.  Hank trains Scott in using the suit to manage his size, as well as controlling ants and throwing discs that shrink or enlarge what they hit.  And Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), Hank's daughter is training Scott to fight despite wanting to go on the mission herself.  She's also pretending to work with Cross -- and has issues with her father, since he never told her what really happened to her mother.

Ant-Man is a lighter superhero movie.  There are plenty of special effects (mainly when we see the ants seem like large beasts) and action (especially at the end), but there's more planning and training through the movie.  Paul Rudd is best known as a comic actor, and he's an excellent choice to helm this movie; Scott Lang's fellow criminals are almost all comic relief.  Ant-Man isn't perfect -- it follows a very straightforward story line, with relatively few surprises -- but it's a simple, likable summer movie.

Overall grade: B

Reviewed by James Lynch

ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES

They got the band, er, news team, back together!  Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues brings almost all of the original cast from the first movie -- and several of the jokes -- for more relentless stupidity that's often pretty funny.

Anchorman 2 is about the ups and downs of Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell), the dim-wittes, self-important television newsman, in 1980.  The movie stars with Ron in the dumps, as his wife Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) gets a lead anchor position while Ron gets fired; they also separate, with Veronica getting their 7-year-old son Walter (Judah Nelson).

Ron is down in the dumps until he gets an offer from producer Freddie Shapp (Dylan Baker) to join the new 24-hour news network GNN.  Ron agrees, reassembling his old news team: investigative reporter and would-be ladies' man Brian Fontana (Paul Rudd); sportscaster who knows nothing about sports and everything about racism Champ Kind (David Koechner); and thoroughly idiotic weatherman Brick Tamland (Steve Carell, stealing every scene he's in just like in the first movie).  Together they plan to take cable news and New York by storm.

There are obstacles and new characters, of course.  Jack Lime (James Marsden) is the pretty-boy anchor who's an immediate rival to Ron.  Linda Jackson (Meagan Good) is Ron's new boss who is put off by his racism (when he first meets her he can't stop saying "black") but falls for him anyway.  Kench Allenby (Josh Lawson) is the Australian owner of GNN who wants to kill a story that could hurt his Koala Airlines.  And Chani (Kristen Wiig) is Brick's intellectual equal and love interest.  Along the way there's a bottle-fed baby shark, the world's worst blind man, a near-catfight, and the invention of the news people want to hear instead of the news they need to hear.

Anchorman 2 follows very closely in the footsteps of the original (and towards the end, the sequel has many of the same jokes as the original).  Will Ferrell's Ron Burgundy may make a journey of self-discovery, but he spends most of the movie blurting out inappropriate things, and occasionally making an accurate comment on how ridiculous something is.  The cast is good, but they haven't really changed anything since the first movie.  And even though the sequel moves the action from the 1970s to the 1980s, the only change in time is in the soundtrack music.  There are plenty of funny moments in Anchorman 2, from the big battle at the end to Ferrell's over-the-top character; but in the end, Anchorman 2 sticks a little too closely to the original.

Overall grade: B-
Reviewed by James Lynch

WANDERLUST

With the current economic problems and debates over the downsides of big business, this might be the time for a reflection of the non-mateiral, communal, peace and love values of the hippie generation. Too bad you won't find any of that in Wanderlust, a pretty aimless comedy.

George (Paul Rudd) and Linda (Jennifer Aniston) are a fairly typical New York married couple who run into horrible luck: Right after buying a "micro-loft" ("It's a studio apartment!"), George's job is shut down by the F.B.I. and Linda's documentary is rejected by HBO. And the real estate agent who pushed them to buy their micro-loft tells them it's already worth far less than what they paid for it. So they head to Atlanta, where George can get a job working for his truly obnoxious brother Rick (Ken Marino). On the way to Rick's, George and Linda wind up at a hippie commune ("It's not a commune. It's an intentional community") called Elysium, where the odd-but-fun people share everything and live with nature. After leaving, George gets sick of his brother pretty quickly, so he and Linda decide to go live at Elysium.

Unfortunately, George gets pretty tired of Elysium pretty fast, from the lack of any doors or privacy (as shown in the picture below) to the vegan lifestyle to the nudist author (Joe Lo Trugglio) who's always reading George parts of his novel. It doesn't help that Seth (Justin Theroux), the de facto leader of the commune, seems to be showing up George every chance he gets. And to make things yet worse, Linda loves it there! Then there's the issue of free love, which seesm fine for Linda and Seth but not for George and the beautiful Eva (Malin Ackerman). And then there's the evil corporation out to steal the commune's land, the burned-out hippie (Alan Alda) who can't find the deed, and lots of oddball characters and gross-out jokes.

Wanderlust was written by Ken Marino and David Wain, who both have substantial experience with sketch and improvised comedy -- and it shows. The most interesting thing about this movie is matching the actors with their previous sketch/improv shows (from The State to Key and Peele to Mad TV; there's even a talk show hosted by the three stars of Stella). Unfortunately, the movie itself feels oddly artificial, like an excuse for little comedy bits instead of any coherence or development. Most of the humor is poking fun at the nice weirdos in the commune, and it's very lowbrow humor -- from numerous dick jokes to Rudd's painful delivery of "good" seduction lines in a mirror. Most of the actors here have done pretty good work before, but Wanderlust feels like its title: too content to wander aimlessly than to make anything really coherent or good. This movie has some funny moments, but the whole movie is far less than the sum of its cast.

Overall grade: C-

Reviewed by James Lynch

ROLE MODELS

What happens when two immature, self-centered people wind up as mentors to today's youth? Role Models is the latest crude comedy with heart in which the worst possible role models have to spend time with some peoblematic kids.

Danny (Paul Rudd) and Wheeler (Seann William Scott) are buddies who make a living travelling to high schools promoting Minotaur energy drink ("taste the beast!") and telling kids to stay off drugs. Wheeler is happy, dressing as a Minotaur and having lots of casual sex. Danny, already depressed about pushing energy drink for ten years, feels worse when his girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks) breaks up with him. Danny drives the Minotaur mobile onto a school statue, and to avoid jail the two guys have to do 150 hours of community service.

Danny and Wheeler are forced into Building Wings, a mentoring program run by ex-addict Gayle (Jane Lynch). Danny gets to spend time with Augie Farks (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, best known as McLovin from Superbad), an uber-geeky teenager who wears a cape and is obsessed with L.A.I.R.E., a live-action roleplaying medieval fantasy world. Wheeler gets Ronne (Bobb'e Thompson), a little kid who curses constantly and is obsessed with breasts.

There's nothing really new in Role Models, but it still manages to be lots of fun. Except for the somewhat sentimental ending, the movie never loses its sense of crude fun: Danny and Wheeler shouldn't be mentors to anyone, and their kids are handfuls unto themselves. There's a terrific supporting cast here -- Jane Lynch is hilarious as the unstable helper, Kerri-Kenney-Silver as Augie's mom who always seems sweet but never stops putting him down, and lots of silly folks at the big L.A.I.R.E. battle -- and the leads are very good in their roles. Director and co-writer David Wain strikes the right balance between making his protagonists likeable and jerks.

Role Models is a funny little comedy. (The dvd has standard extras: deleted scenes, interviews, and behind-the-scenes looks at making the world of L.A.I.R.E.) If you're not easily offended and want to spend a few hours laughing, check out these two models of bad behavior.

Overall grade: B
Reviewed by James Lynch

I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007)

I Could Never Be Your Woman is another entry into the ever popular romantic comedy genre. It stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd. The key to a good romantic comedy is there needs to be something keeping the lovers apart, and in this case it is their age. Once the film gets underway, we learn that Pfeiffer's character, Rosie, a television screenwriter, is over forty years old. Rudd plays Adam, a twenty something actor that is playing a high school student on her TV show. Clearly age is keeping them apart, and that is the stumbling block.

Juxtaposed on top of this is Rosie's teenage daughter, Izzie (Saoirse Ronan) who is tossing her Barbie dolls for teenagehood as the film progresses. While the relationship between the adults seems artificial, she is the one strong performance in this film (not counting the Henry Winkler cameo, gotta love "The Fonz").

Adding to the wackiness, and artificialness is Tracey Ullman, who gets tossed into far too many scenes as Mother Nature. It doesn't add anything to the story, and rather serves to distract as she wanders onto a Hollywood backlot. I think some type of narration or voice over would have worked much better than to have her in the middle of a scenes where she clearly didn't belong.

Cutting to the chase, I Could Never Be Your Woman is a lackluster film, and easy to skip. Think of it as "I Could Never Be Your Film;" the few catchy one liners can't save this film from mediocrity.

Overall Grade: C

Reviewed by Jonas