Thor: The Dark World

Thor, to me, was the weakest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. One reason for this was it played too much like a culture clash comedy. Humor’s been an appealing element of the Marvel films, but it had a little too much in that department. But the biggest flaw was that it felt like little more than a primer for The Avengers. The title hero (Chris Hemsworth) and his villainous brother Loki’s (Tom Hiddleston) story didn’t really get going until near the end of Thor, and played out in The Avengers. That might have been necessary from a storytelling standpoint, but it made the thunder god’s debut seem like the movie equivalent of a comic book tie-in issue, which the rest of the Marvel heroes’ own pictures were not.

There were other problems with the movie, but these were the two that really sunk the whole thing for me. Thor: The Dark World fixes the big problems, at least, and is a substantial improvement over its predecessor.

Set some time after The Avengers, the movie catches up with our hero just after bringing peace to the Nine Realms (I’m not sure what that means, but it has to do with Norse mythology). But back on Earth, Thor’s love interest Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) becomes possessed by a destructive force with the power to engulf the universe in darkness. Her find awakens the evil Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), leader of the Dark Elves and an ancient enemy of Asgard, who renews his war against Thor’s home realm. To stop him, Thor and his companions are forced to team up with Loki, who's imprisoned for his attempted invasion of Earth.

It doesn’t fix everything, and some of the same foibles from the first one carried over. There’s still the loaded, bombastic dialogue that basically spells out the whole plot for us, and some of the same wooden and one-note characters. And on top of the plastic-looking Viking armor, we also get bad makeup jobs for Eccleston and his second-in-command Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. As in “the worst we’ve seen from Star Trek” bad (probably why all the other Dark Elves wear identical masks). But most of all, it’s just hard to buy the inherent ridiculousness of the whole storyline. I realize it’s rather finicky to believe and go along with some fantastical hero stories but criticize this one for being too dopey. Yet, here I am. The extensive but not-so serious mythological plot and aesthetic emits a low-grade Tolkien vibe that's hard to shake off (maybe I’m spoiled by Peter Jackson’s movies and can’t help but instinctively compare all fantasy fare to them).

But as I said, the most major problems were rectified. The humor is still plentiful, coming from the main cast as well as supporting players like Kat Dennings and Stellan Skarsgård (as well a few great—and I do mean great—cameos). This time it’s actually funny, not intrusive (or I just expected it this time and was more forgiving), even when it turns the final climactic showdown into a goofy zigzagging action piece. Speaking of which, there actually are action scenes, which Thor lacked, and as good as any we’ve gotten from Marvel so far.

Most importantly, this is Thor’s movie, not a buildup for something else. Beyond the cheesy epic grandeur and greater Marvel mythology, it’s at its heart a self-contained little adventure yarn that’s a lot of fun. That much is enough, but it even gives us some interesting character evolution. At least it does for Loki, who over three movies has gone from merely a powerful smartass to a more interesting and ambiguous baddie. He’s definitely the most interesting one in the picture (poor Thor, merely a promotional primer in his first title and upstaged in his second), and I hope Hiddleston still plays a role in the Marvel film canon going forward.

Despite being a sequel, Thor: The Dark World is the first real full Thor picture, the one the character deserved. Better late than never.

South Park, "Ginger Cow"

This episode has a pretty lofty target for commentary: the religious conflict in the Middle East. But the satire has all the effectiveness of stepping to the plate against a Major League pitcher with a toothpick. Which is to say, none whatsoever.

It all starts when the title creature (a cow with a red afro and freckle-like spots) appears in South Park. It’s really a trick pulled by Cartman, but Christians, Muslims, and Jews around the world take it as a sign, and end all conflict over Israel. Kyle knows the truth and becomes something of a depraved martyr (looking, intentional or not, a lot like the David Blaine cultists in the still-banned episode “Super Best Friends”) to keep it a secret.

Before I go on, I have a small confession to make: I’ve never really been a fan of the episode “Ginger Kids” or the running joke in the series that stemmed from it. I know, the joke seems to have transcended the program and entered the mainstream (you could call it a meme, but I’d argue it entered pop culture before memes really exploded online), but I just never really thought it was all that funny. But the whole Ginger Cow prophecy is actually clever and funny, both as a plot device and an extension of the joke. However, it appears they came up with this plot point and couldn’t find anywhere to really go with it.

The episode’s recurring dirty gag—a fart joke that’s crude enough but kind of tame by the standards of the last few seasons—fails to work as an effective piece of satire. And yes, the show can make great allegory out of the sexual and scatological on its best days. But this wasn’t one of those days.

One scene in which the three major religions negotiate how they can kill each other had me thinking the episode was going to make some statement on the recent debate over what weapons can be used in Syria. Turns out I was thinking too hard; after that scene, all the three faiths do is attend a Van Halen concert, which feels a lot like Trey Parker and Matt Stone ran out of ideas and just threw in some songs they heard on the radio so the episode would make its deadline. I kept waiting and waiting for some great, stinging plot twist to come from all this. The ending we got was ironic and somewhat amusing compared to the rest of the episode, though still rather toothless.

Said fart joke was funny for a little while, at least (it helps that one scene features Mr. Mackey, who for whatever reason always gets me). And having Kyle translate Israeli rabbis (who are actually speaking English in heavy accents) was one of those moments where the show gets so politically incorrect that you can’t help but laugh, despite feeling a little bad about it. But overall, a few light chuckles is all we got here. It’s too bad this episode wasn’t the one that got delayed; maybe with another week, they could have fleshed out a much better narrative to go along with the Ginger Cow idea.

Ender's Game

Looking for a light, fun sci-fi action adventure with lots and lots of space battles and visual effects? Well, Ender’s Game is not the film you’re looking for. That’s not to say there isn’t any of that in the movie, but there’s more going on here. Darker stuff, actually, despite all the flashy visuals and sparkly clean future aesthetic on display.

Adapted from the multiple award-winning 1985 novel by Orson Scott Card, the movie takes place in the far future, 50 years after humanity repelled an invasion by an insect-like race called the Formics. Afterward, the world powers of the International Fleet began training the best and brightest (not to mention most brutal) children to lead the fight against this enemy. After all this is described in a short prologue, the story follows title character Andrew “Ender” Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a shy outcast child with brilliant skills in war games, as he travels to battle school (on a giant space station orbiting Earth) and is groomed to become a commander. He thrives at the school’s battle drills and simulations, but will his conscience get in the way of his abilities to lead a real battle?

That appears to be the main thematic question, and the tone is so heavily militaristic that it seemingly leans decisively toward one side of the moral spectrum of violence and warfare. Card’s book is recommended reading for the U.S. Marines, and though I haven’t read it, it’s easy to see why from what made it to the screen. The battle school is run like a boot camp, but with less grueling physical drills and more strategic study. Yet the outcome of breaking down the participants and molding them into hardened fighters is the same. Butterfield credibly gets molded from meek but brilliant to ruthless, all the more effective because his ruthlessness is so understated that he even still seems nice and personable. The people in charge—played by acclaimed actors Viola Davis, Ben Kingsley, and Harrison Ford (unrecognizable from his usual righteous hero roles, and the closest thing to an antagonist in the picture)—are effectively sinister faces of the military machine. The fact that they’re all adults while the students are just kids is a pretty on-the-nose metaphor for loss of childhood innocence. We don’t get to know most of the students very well, but that might just be the point, emphasizing the dehumanization aspect.

It could have been a lot more disturbing in this exploration, but the movie doesn’t quite cross that threshold. There are two reasons for this, I believe. First, it’s a science fiction story where the enemies are aliens (and buggy ones at that), so though these themes still work, they’re categorically less potent than if it were about killing other humans. Second, the film is aiming for the teen young adult demographic, not looking to tell a complex psychological story. So while the plot’s meditation on militarism and violence is always apparent, it's still possible to push it aside.

Should you do that, you’re left with a well made and entertaining movie with a likable young cast. Director Gavin Hood manages to make the action exciting, even though it mostly consists of training exercises and battles that are apparently simulated. The special effects vary from good to just adequate, but this works because it highlights the aspect that all the battles are games. Some of the younger actors are obviously less experienced, but most do pretty well.

The only real flaw is that it’s clearly meant to be the first film in a franchise (the novel already has several sequels), and it feels as if the underlying implication is that the best is yet to come. Seeing Ender’s training but no real battles is like playing through the tutorial part of a video game and not getting to play any of the levels. Plus, the ending takes a turn that’s a bit confusing, knowingly so to implore the audience to come back for the next entry. But after this solid first entry, I won’t mind coming back again.

South Park, "Taming Strange"

So, the most stinging barb against the glitchy Obamacare website comes not from any politician, pundit, reporter, or even the general public, but South Park. And it’s by far the funniest piece of comedy on the topic since the site’s bungled launch (besting even fellow Comedy Central stalwarts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, whose jokes about it have been as tired as the non-comedy media covering it ad nauseam).

Putting the allegorical stand-in program in the hands of guidance counselor Mr. Mackey, the show’s mumbling pinnacle of educational ineptitude, made for a funny gag from the get-go. It almost seemed like just a throwaway joke at first, a little timely touch they squeezed in to date the episode in the now. But it keeps up alongside the main plot—that being Kyle’s adopted Canadian brother Ike hitting early puberty—and instead of getting repeated to the point that the joke is killed, it’s written into the main story. And it comes together superbly.

So does the rest of the episode, taking on Miley Cyrus’ overexposure by way of a certain kids show (though both are more caught in the crossfire while HealthCare.gov is the primary target), while also continuing the show's strange, humorous running depiction of Canadians. Other episodes have likewise combined so many elements, and have been funny if a bit nebulous as a whole. But the way this one connects all the elements into a flawlessly cohesive narrative is brilliant. This is probably the best written episode, as well as the most culturally aware and sharp one, since “Best Friends Forever,” the 2005 Emmy-winner that substituted Kenny for Terri Schiavo.

Even if the Obamacare website snafu similarly turns out to be only a minor political footnote, this episode could have more staying power than “Best Friends Forever” because it might be even funnier. The points about digital bureaucracy are made in typical unsubtle South Park fashion, depicting people of importance and power as fast-talking, hysterically incompetent fools. But the bread and butter is the toilet humor, which is equally rich (I forgot to mention a great takedown of Tom Brady that’s randomly thrown into the fray; not as mean as what they had him drink last year, but still disgustingly hilarious). Yet in spite of a reputation for grossing us out by depicting dirty things directly, the show surprisingly decides to hold back in this one, and lets its plot points involving a cuddly children’s character doing naughty things happen offscreen. And it actually benefits the joke that way.

The Counselor

The Counselor lost me when Cameron Diaz had sex with a car.

No, that’s not a typo or a joke. That actually happens in the movie. Such contact with an inanimate object didn’t surprise me in a certain other release this weekend, but I did not expect it from something with this much top-level talent involved.

Indeed, just by the people on both sides of the camera alone, The Counselor seems like a movie that can’t fail. It’s written by the guy who wrote No Country for Old Men. Its director is Ridley Scott, who I don’t have to elaborate on to film buffs (for those I do need to, his résumé includes Alien, Gladiator, and Black Hawk Down, to name a few). And the cast is the kind most productions would only dream of.

Like No Country, scribe Cormac McCarthy contemporizes the Western genre, spinning a bleak, violent yarn set amidst the drug trade on the U.S.-Mexico border. Michael Fassbender plays the protagonist, a lawyer only referred to as “The Counselor” (playing off the Western trope of the nameless lead character, perhaps). He’s got it pretty good, with a nice house, expensive clothes, and a beautiful fiancé (Penélope Cruz). But stupidly, he decides to get involved in the drug trafficking via one of his clients (Javier Bardem), a hard-living drug lord, to make a big payday. Things go south for him and everyone around him very quickly.

McCarthy’s works as an author are relatively sparse in their prose, with minimal dialogue that’s blended into the text instead of separated by quotation marks. In film adaptations, the characterization is instead more in the characters’ faces and actions, as well as the desolate but picturesque scenery that sets the mood. But here, in his first produced original screenplay, the writer goes heavy on the dialogue. Lots of it. There’s some pretty scenery and a few bursts of bloody violence, but much more time is spent on the main players talking away. A lot of it is quite compelling, delivered with great poise and energy by the cast, and speaking volumes about their characters.

But it gets to a point where there’s too much dialogue, where the endless chatter pushes so much of the major events off screen that it’s hard to tell what’s going on. There are also some not-so-good exchanges, the nadir of which is the car scene I already described. It doesn’t show the action too explicitly, but it's clear enough, and intercut with graphic narration from Bardem that borders on aroused and horrified. It’s so sophomoric, so crass, so unsexy and unnecessary that it’s actually hilarious to witness in a bad way (unfortunate, because otherwise, Diaz’s character goes from looking like merely an exotic sex kitten at first to the most interesting one in the picture).

That kind of says it all about the movie: flashy visuals and stylized, testosterone-fueled dialogue is the focus, and the plot is secondary. Which is too bad, because the story turns out to be a well-crafted spider web of double-crosses and confusion that’s fun to solve. At least, until you actually solve it; when I did (at least I think I’ve got it figured out), I realized the narrative forgot about the title character completely. It’s never quite made clear what exactly Fassbender’s role in the whole criminal plot was. He willingly enters the drug trade, but he acts like a meek bystander the second half of the movie, crying and unraveling like a victim in an anti-drug PSA. Not exactly a compelling protagonist.

In all, the film is like an amateurish attempt to emulate Quentin Tarantino—with tons of dialogue and gratuitous excess just for the hell of it and recycled archetypes we’ve seen before—that somehow managed to lure several big stars. That’d be bad enough from any hackneyed filmmaker, but from longtime masters of their craft like Scott and McCarthy, it’s especially disappointing.

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa

There’s not a whole lot to say about a movie like this. Films consisting solely of practical jokes have no plot to speak of except prank setups, no acting save for the people in on the joke keeping a straight face. So really, it just comes down to whether or not the pranks are funny.

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa actually does have a small plot: dirty old man Irving Zisman (really Jackass ringleader Johnny Knoxville in makeup) traveling across the country to take his grandson (Jackson Nicoll) to live with his father. But like Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat, this is just a way to tie together sequences of the two pulling real pranks (some physical, some bodily or scatological, some just conversational, all very juvenile) on unsuspecting bystanders. It’s actually significantly less structured and produced than Borat, as the scenes setting up and carrying on the story are also pranks.

And most of it is very funny. A few sequences go on a bit too long, a few reactions are a little less outrageous that the film was clearly hoping for, and at least one scene involving a charity biker gang falls completely flat (not because of any offensiveness, but due to the reactions simply not being that funny). But the majority of the time, I was laughing. This is as much due to the reactions as the people eliciting them. Knoxville has all but perfected his provocateur skills, and knows how to make a situation funny when he’s not getting his desired response. Nicoll isn’t quite as good on his own as his veteran counterpart, but together the two have some hilarious scenes. And thankfully, the movie doesn’t go to some of the more the painful and disgusting lengths (or depths maybe?) that Jackass is known for.

One complaint is that some of the better gags were already revealed in the previews, and are still funny onscreen but not as much as they would have been seeing them for the first time (the exception being an extended sequence with a giant plaster penguin, which for some reason gets funnier the longer it goes and stupider it gets). I also had the thought cross my mind that, in the era of YouTube and online short series, the concept of many pranks strung together into a movie seems a little obsolete. But these little gripes come off as just fishing for something to criticize. I’ll do no more of that, and just admit I had a good, stupid time.

South Park, "Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers"

Due to events beyond the series’ control, they had more time than their usual six-day schedule to work on this episode. We’ll never know exactly how or if that extra week altered the final product (I entertained the idea that the intro, specially tailored for this episode, might have been added in the extra time). But if there were any changes, they were nothing too spectacular, as this one’s pretty average.

The plot all but ignores the usual gang and focuses on South Park’s four sparsely-seen goth kids (I’d list their names, but since they appear so rarely on the show, not to mention the fact I can’t even remember them after just watching them, I don’t feel like there’s much of a point; the show itself doesn’t even seem that interested in their background). Three of them find out to their horror that one went away to a rehabilitation camp and came back an emo kid, in an Invasion of the Body Snatchers-like plot for emos to take over the world. Since the world at large can’t tell the difference between the two cliques, the goths must do the unthinkable (in their eyes) to fight the emo influence: team up with the vampire kids they crossed paths with before.

All in all, “average” is a pretty apt description. I mean, I laughed at a number of the gags, but not exceptionally hard at any.  And the whole concept didn’t strike me as terribly funny. I think it’s because emo has been around for a while, so they're targeting old news. Then again, there have been several episodes I didn’t find particularly funny on my first viewing, but they ended up growing on me after watching them again. “The Ungroundable,” the last goth-centric storyline, was such an episode, so I won’t rule out coming around on this one, too.

Except for the twist ending, which I won’t give away, but I will say is 1) not funny, 2) very dumb, and 3) was a plot point already used on The Simpsons. Yes, I know the show long ago wrote off stealing from the show as no big deal, but that doesn’t make the joke any less tired, especially when it wasn’t even that funny when The Simpsons did it.