Phase 2 Revisited: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

In which I revisit a previously explored topic with fresh eyes and an open mind.

You had to have seen this coming, right?  I'm right in the middle of reviewing all of Marvel's Phase 2 right around the 4th of July.  You had to have known that I couldn't have passed up such a perfect opportunity to bring up everybody's favorite star-spangled superhero.  It would have been as if the movie didn't make a point to come out on BluRay on September 11th.

Captain Rogers has been busy since the Avengers saved New York from the Chitauri invasion.  He’s been working as a covert S.H.I.E.L.D. operative with Black Widow, leading the agency’s counter-terrorism strike force and making the world a safer place for democracy.  But when Nick Fury stumbles upon a secret that could shake the world to its foundations, he’s assassinated for it.  Now Steve and Natasha are on the run from both S.H.I.E.L.D. and a cybernetic assassin known only as The Winter Soldier as they attempt to solve a mystery that’s sixty-eight years in the making.

Although it might not be immediately evident, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a direct indictment of post-9/11 politics.  In the wake of a public attack on New York City by foreign operatives (ie September 11^th), S.H.I.E.L.D. (ie the US Government) creates a fleet of next-gen helicarriers to preemptively and unilaterally deal with national security threats (ie the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) and curtail civil liberties (ie The Patriot Act).  Captain America, the living embodiment of an idealized America, is not surprisingly unhappy with this, arguing that “this isn’t freedom.  This is fear.”

The mid-movie plot twist – that Hydra, the Nazi splinter-faction that we thoughtwas defeated by Rogers in 1945, is not only still operating well into the 21^st century, but has infiltrated the United States government at its highest levels and is now essentially running the show – brings this point home in bluntest way possible: America is being run by the same fascists ideologies that we fought against in World War II.   It’s like George H. W. Bush slapping the backside of George Jr.’s head because he raised him better than this.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier deals more directly with Rogers’ post-war disillusionment than any other MCU film to date.  While he “thought that [he] could throw [him]self back in, follow orders [and], serve,” he realizes that “it’s just not the same.”  He tours the Captain America Museum, trying to make sense of the myth he’s become and the life that he’s lost: a girlfriend who moved on in his absence and a best friend who never came home at all.  He sits in on VA support groups, where a younger generation of soldiers also struggle with reintegrating into civilian life.  When he visits an infirmed Peggy Carter, who admits that while he “saved the world[,] we rather mucked it up,” we are forced to watch his heart break when he has to explain to her once again why he’s still alive after nearly seventy years due to her Alzheimer’s.

The real sucker punch for him, however, is that Bucky – the childhood friend whose death in World War II he still blames himself for – is not only alive, but has been brainwashed by Hydra into becoming The Winter Soldier: the assassin who not only took out Nick Fury, but JFK and Howard and Maria Stark (Tony Stark’s parents).  Rather than falling into Watchmen’s apathetic despair – shouting “what happened to the American Dream?  It came true!  You’re lookin’ at it.” – Rogers pulls himself up by his bootstraps, trades in his sleek, covert uniform for his star-spangled getup from The First Avenger and vows to bring his friend back from Hydra’s control: a microcosm of the socio-political conflict of the film.

But the real kicker – the one that’s surprisingly easy to miss – is the connection between Cap's moral stance in when confronted with issues of government transparency and Edward Snowden.  When he finds out that Hydra's running the show, Cap' doesn't side with the government (you know, because he's Captain America).  He doesn't try to rebuild S.H.I.E.L.D. (and, implicitly, the moral infrastructure of the United States) like Fury wants him to.  He dumps all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s databases onto the internet and lets the rest of the country sort it out: forcing hard truths and moral transparency on the world simply because it's the right thing to do.

In a rare turn for sequels, Captain America: The Winter Soldier succeeds at surpassing its predecessor: maintaining The First Avenger’s virtues while culling the chaff.  Hayley Atwell is just as convincing as a frail old woman as she is as a capable young agent.   Despite already possessing a surprisingly deep filmography, Anthony Mackie gives a remarkable breakout performance that’s bound to finally earn him his cinematic due.  Samuel L. Jackson is badass enough as Nick Fury that it’s easy to forget that he’s pushing sixty-six years-old himself.  Chris Evans continues to channel The Greatest Generation’s determined idealism into Steve Rogers while Scarlett Johansson plays the facile superspy with such skill that I still can’t figure out why we haven’t gotten a solo Black Widow film yet.

Contrary to the utterly forgettable and somewhat bumbling Armin Zola that we got in the first film, the Zola of The Winter Soldier is chillingly to-the-point.  Alexander Pierce is the intelligent, charismatic, real-world villain that Marvel has always lacked.  And The Winter Soldier – America’s longest-serving POW – is so complicated, nuanced and tragic a character that it hardly serves to simply call him a villain.  With one film, Markus, McFeely and the Russos solved “The Marvel Problem:” forgettable, if functional, villains that merely serve to further the narrative and give the film’s Avenger of choice somebody to punch.

Whereas The First Avenger’s climax was disappointingly cut short by the untimely disappearance of The Red Skull, The Winter Soldier’s much more personal apex is carried through to the thoroughly satisfying conclusion that its predecessor lacked.  While the first film wanted for the expected post-credit scene that had already become Marvel’s signature flourish, The Winter Soldier has two: one mid-credit and one truly post-credit, each with its own implicit ramifications for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Rogers’ and Natasha’s playful, back-and-forth banter – ranging from trying to set Steve up with coworkers and the best way to go on the run – is just the kind of levity that the grounded seriousness of the first film didn’t allow for.

Anthony and Joe Russo, whose directorial credits until now consisted of TV show episodes, TV movies and the ill-conceived You, Me and Dupree, emerge from The Winter Soldier as latter-day Dario Argentos.  Their restless camerawork, combined with Henry Jackman’s riveting score and the iconic shrieks that herald Bucky’s presence, give the film a frenzied, unrelenting energy all of its own.  While Joe Johnston occasionally gave in to over-direction, the Russos are contented to sit back and let the strength of the cast and writing move the scenes forward when that will suffice.

Whereas The First Avenger was a sprawling World War II epic, The Winter Soldier is a gritty, Nolan-esque spy thriller where everyone is suspect and nobody is innocent.  It is a masterpiece of post-9/11 paranoia and 21^st Century realism.  It delivers on the promise of The Avengers: that Phase 2 can continue to produce interesting, nuanced films beyond Phase 1’s origin stories.  This film, in short, combines the best features of superheroic action and Nixon-era espionage.

Rating: 10/10

Buy on BluRay:  Yes!

So what did you think about the politics of Captain America: The Winter Soldier?  Did you agree or disagree with them?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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Lady's Choice: Magic Mike

Guess who's taking over!

With Magic Mike XXL  drawing in women for it's long weekend release, I decided to take a look at the first Magic Mike (2012). Now I got Brian to watch this movie with me by agreeing to watch 21 Jumpstreet (2012). It was like we were having an exchange of Channing Tatum movies. Between the two I preferred Magic Mike. Staring most notably Channing Tatum as Mike "Magic Mike" Lane and Matthew McConaughey as Dallas (Mike's boss and male stripper), Magic Mike made $167.2 million in the box office with a budget of only $7 million.

The movie opens up with club MC Dallas getting a crowd of women all riled up for some male strippers or male entertainers that are about to come out. It then goes to Mike Lane, aka Magic Mike, waking up and giving the audience a nice shot of butt as he starts his day. Mike's dream is to start his own business: Mike's Custom Furniture. Mike works construction during the day, where he meets Adam. He gives Adam a ride after Adam's car  won't start. Adam lives with his sister Brooke, who is upset that Adam won't get a job and stick to it. Brooke has a boyfriend who works insurance. At dinner, Adam gets up, leaves, and see Mike in the crowd. Mike gets him into the club, saying that Adam owes him.

Unknown to Adam, Mike is there to spread word about the male strip show down the street called Xquisite. Mike gets Adam, now known as "The Kid," a job working props. Dallas starts the show, which starts out with a version of "It's Raining Men," see the picture to the right. The rest of the night is a progression of each of the men, Mike, Tito, Tarzan, Dallas, Ken, and Richie. When Tarzan can't perform, Mike pushes Adam on stage, since he owes him. The rest of show goes off without a hitch. Dallas offers him a job at Xquisite, with Mike in charge of getting him stage ready.

Adam's sister confronts him about his box filled with stuff for work and shaving his legs. She then proceeds to find out where her brother and Mike works. She instructions him to take care of her brother. We also see Mike struggle to get his furniture business up and running. As time progresses, Mike and Brooke get closer while Adam gets addicted to the life that Dallas an the other strippers lead, though many have dreams aside from being strippers. This leads to Mike having to bail out Adam several times and having to make a few big life changing decisions.

When I first saw this movie advertised, the only thought in my mind was that it was women's porn that could be shown in theaters. So, it was quite sometime before I saw it in that movie exchange with Brian. In a lot of ways, I was wrong. Yes, there are lots of good looking men taking their clothes off. However, there is also a lot of plot. From Mike wanting to get his furniture business off the ground to his relationship with those around him, especially Brooke and Adam, the movie strikes a good balance between the plot and the stripping. The plot will progress then Mike and Adam go to strip at a sorority house. Sometimes it was painful to watch Adam, not the stripping part but the choices that he makes are not the best.

I think that Brian puts it best that while it has a good plot the movie only feels like half of a movie. We see the big choices being made and then nothing. End of movie. No strong conclusion to what happens to those that follow Dallas, to Adam, even to Mike. That feeling of it being half finished is why I rated it as low as I did. I was hoping that Magic Mike XXL would be the second half of that story or at least provide some sort of conclusion, but that is for another time.

As for the music, I could take it or leave it, but it serves its purpose. The choreography is fantastic. From both the group dances to the individual ones, every move is on point. Re-watching Magic Mike, I could also see the different styles of each man, including Tarzan who doesn't really do a lot of dancing due to his bad knees. The camera angles and variety of shots also help to illustrate the difference between Mike and Adam's job and the "rest" of their lives. It also includes a nice through the floor shots of the dancing. I fully believe that Channing Tatum's background as a stripper and being a dance heavy movies like Step Up helped this movie out quite a bit.

In the end, this movie isn't a heavy one or one that is just this side of not being a porn. Magic Mike is fun. Even Brian liked it. They also did a lot with the talent and the budget they had to work with. So, when I found out about Magic Mike XXL, I was excited. But you're gonna have to wait for another time for my thoughts on the sequel.

Rating:  7.5/10

Buy on BluRay:  For a fun filled time? Yes.

So what did you think of Magic Mike?  Will you be seeing Magic Mike XXL?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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Phase 2 Revisited: Guardians of the Galaxy

In which I revisit a previously explored topic with fresh eyes and an open mind.

On what is already the worst day of his young life – when his frail, sickly mother dies after a protracted
battle with cancer – young Peter Quill is abducted by alien mercenaries lead by the coldly sentimental
Yondu.  But rather than being turned over to the man who hired them to abduct him in the first place
(option #1) or eating him (option #2), they adopt him and train him in the life of ravaging: thieving for
hire.

Twenty-six years later, Peter – who now goes by the moniker “Star Lord” – is entrusted with retrieving a mysterious orb from a dead planet for a high-end merchant, which he immediately tries to sell by himself.  Outraged, Yondu puts a price on Quill’s head, which bounty hunters Rocket (an anthropomorphic raccoon) and Groot (a sapient tree) aim to collect.  Meanwhile, the green-skinned Gamora (daughter of the meta-antagonist Thanos) seeks to steal the orb for herself, causing all four of them to be imprisoned with Drax the Destroyer (a gray-skinned brawler whose family was murdered by Ronan the Accuser, Gamora’s boss).

Their plan is simple: team up, sell the orb, split the cash and go their separate ways.  But when they
discover what the orb really is – one of the fabled infinity stones forged in the crucible of the Big Bang
– they realize that must safeguard it from Yondu, Ronan and Thanos, or risk the destruction of the
entire Galaxy.

Guardians of the Galaxy‘s success is just as perplexing as it is estimable.  Before the film’s release, the comic that it’s based on was an obscurity among even hard-core Marvel fans.  Despite Marvel’s galactic stories being richly populated, the “Cosmic Avengers'” inherent disconnect from their terrestrial-based compatriots left them without the same built-in fan base that IronMan and The Incredible Hulk brought with them to theaters.  Star Lord simply lacked the inherent brand recognition of Captain America.

But despite being unashamedly steeped in enigmatic obscurities, the glib characters, operatic setting and slick narrative are immediately familiar to audiences that grew up with Star Wars, Star Trek and Firefly.  Despite being a genetically modified raccoon and his “personal houseplant / muscle,” Rocket and Groot are immediately recognizable as this film’s Han and Chewie.

Star Lord plays out like an immature take on Malcolm Reynolds, while Gamora is like a rough amalgamation of Jayne and River Tam.  Even Drax embodies the  “one man armies” that defined action films in the 1980s.  Despite their impossibly tangled and storied pasts, each character fits into a very specific genre archetype, which the film’s own marketing was quick to highlight: “a thief, two thugs, an assassin and a maniac.”

The film likewise highlights Marvel’s uncanny knack for choosing the right talent for the tasks that
they need to complete, even when contrary to precedent and even logic.  The film is helmed by James
Gunn, whose biggest accomplishments to date were penning the two live-action Scooby-Doo movies
and directing the moderately well-received Slither.  While he had briefly touched on science fiction
films in his career, it was nothing even remotely analogous to the scope and depth of this obscure little
franchise that could.

They chose the fat guy from Parks and Recreations to headline the film, Vin Diesel to voice a space age Ent who can only say “I” and “am” and “Groot” (and only in that exact order) and Bradley Cooper – one of the most recognizable actors working today – as the voice of a CG raccoon.  The casting choice that should have failed most spectacularly is Dave Bautista, given the fate of other wrestlers-cum-actors before him.

But, as always seems to be the case with Marvel, every decision that they made, no matter how questionable, turned out to be the correct one.  James Gunn has proven to be an incredibly talented writer-director who is able to perfectly blend action and comedy with subtle hints of drama.  The entire cast, down to genre favorites Zoe Saldana and Karen Gillan, perfectly embody the characters that they portray.

Even Vin Diesel, with only three (and, later, five) words at his disposal, is able to uniquely intone each one to convey his intended meaning.  This inexplicably functional film was able to turn “we are Groot” into the transcendent message of an otherwise tongue-and-cheek action /sci-fi film and made a simple-minded brawler petting a grieving raccoon into the most touching scene from any film this year.

That being said, Guardians of the Galaxy is not without its flaws.  Despite its sizable run-time (clocking in at just over two hours), the film felt occasionally rushed between action scenes.  In particular, the non-combat scenes in Knowhere felt like they could have used some additional time to breathe and develop.  We see Rocket and Drax’s drunken confrontation, and the dramatic rant that follows, but not the build-up to it.  Rocket makes such a big deal about being called a rodent (or, conversely, vermin) that I would have liked to see the one time that it causes him to snap in-camera, not as a cut-away from Quill putting the moves on Gamora.

The climactic showdown between Ronan and the Guardians was unnecessarily set-up by The Collector
in his drawn-out exposition about the Infinity Stones.  While the scene was certainly necessary for both
this film’s and Infinity Wars Part 1 and Part 2‘s plots, it over-explained the hands-holding climax that
would have been fine on its own.

Similarly, the ending – where (spoiler alert) Star Lord turned out to only be half-human, whose alien physiology innately allowed him to resist the Stone’s destructive influence long enough to allow him to defeat Ronan – was a shade too Dues Ex Machina for my tastes.  I understand that it’s something that originates from the comics and will invariably come into play in Guardians of the Galaxy sequels, but it simply did not work for this particular film, at least in the way that it was presented as an after-the-fact explanation as things were wrapping up.

While neither my favorite film of the year nor even my favorite Marvel film of the year (both honors are currently held by Captain America: The Winter Soldier), Guardians of the Galaxy is certainly the most memorable film to come out in 2014.  It’s an exquisite action / sci-fi film that everybody can enjoy, even those who are adamantly set against comic book and superhero-based films.

Rating:  9/10

Buy on BluRay:  Yes

So which was your favorite Guardian of the Galaxy?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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Throwback Thursday: Why Terminator Genisys' Twist Could Be the Best Thing to Ever Happen to the Franchise

In which I revisit old articles from Filmquisition and Unreality.

Before we get into this, I want to make it as clear as possible that this is going to be a spoiler soaked discussion of Terminator Genisys.  Granted, every so-called spoiler’s straight from the official trailer, but if you were somehow able to avoid it until now, this is your chance to bow out and be none the wiser before its July release.

A new Terminator Genisys trailer hit the internet earlier this week and, by God, was it a doozy.  Rather than save its game-changing reveal for its release, Skydance Productions (a division of Paramount) spoiled the movie’s big twist smack dab in the middle of its marketing campaign.  John Connor – champion of mankind – has betrayed humanity.  Throwing his lot in with the machines, he’s transformed himself into some kind of next gen Terminator and gone back in time to do what Skynet never could: kill his mother before he ever had a chance to be born.

And although the Internet is rightly embroiled at the thought of spoiling such a massive twist in a franchise built around the inherent heroic destiny of John Connor before anybody’s had the chance to see it, I couldn’t help but gush over just how awesome that twist actually was.  It’s everything that I’veever wanted to see inthe franchise come to fruition.

I’ve argued for this basic setup before: “if your central premise is something as wibbly-wobbly as time travel, why not bend the franchise back in on itself?”  Why not take its relatively simple premise of traveling back in time to destroy your unborn enemy (and conversely to save your unborn savior) and transform it into a temporal ouroboros: traveling back in time over and over again, mucking about with timelines and histories until the linear course of events warps into something grotesque and altogether unrecognizable?

While it is a leap in logic for the series, it’s no more farfetched than sending your father back in time to impregnate your mother with you.  John Connor was never a well-adjusted, model citizen.  He was the son of a teenaged mother whose father died before he was born.  Fearing the machines’ uprising, Sarah Connor’s admittedly well-meaning parenting robbed him of a stable home environment.  They moved constantly from place to place, going anywhere Sarah could learn something that might help John in the war to come.  And when you start to think about the kinds of people who would have the kinds of skills she was seeking out, it’s not hard to guess what kind of effect hardcore survivalists and likely domestic terrorists would have on him.

By the time he was 10, his mother had been incarcerated in a mental hospital and he wasn’t allowed to see her.  He was shipped off to uncaring foster parents and quickly accrued a fairly impressive police record using the skills that she had taught him.  After the events of Judgment Day, he lost the only real father-figure he had ever known (the T-800) and because his mother was still an escaped mental patient, they packed up once again and lived on the run.

His mother only survived another 6 years after that, 3 of which was spent battling leukemia.  Afterwards, he became a paranoid drifter: working odd jobs, stealing pet medication and living off the grid.  Terminator Salvation saw him develop into a disobedient officer within the human resistance that was all too willing to oppose his superiors if he thought that it would serve the greater good.

Is it really all that surprising that this habitually abandoned and systematically abused character would end up turning on a humanity that he had never truly been a part of except in opposition to extinction?  Is it really inconceivable that the machines could broker a deal with him, or that he would be so resentful of the mess that his life had become as a direct result of his mother’s poor parenting that he would be willing to kill her and erase himself from the annals of history altogether?

And don’t get me wrong.  I do not for one second think that the script’s main concerns were narrative.  It’s an obvious attempt to reboot a decades old franchise that’s finally caught up to itself.  This is the Days of Future Past of Terminator movies: one last temporal ride to unravel the franchise’s tangled continuity and justify as many more time-traveling sequels as they can squeeze out of the franchise before doing it all over again.

The thing is, though, that I simply don’t care.  Greed might not always be good, but it’s the only reason why we’re getting what’s shaping up to be the best film of the franchise (or at least as close as anything’s come to dethroning Judgment Day in that regard).  The twist, although poorly revealed through marketing, is intelligent, unexpected and yet completely plausible given the character’s broken childhood and the time twisting nature of the series.  I can only hope that the movie itself lives up to that promise.

So are you looking forward to seeing Terminator Genisys in theaters this weekend?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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Lady's Choice: Inside Out

Guess who's taking over!

Since Brian's schedule is a little out of whack right now, I though that I'd help by doing an extra blog post. And since Brian and I saw Ted 2 and Inside Out the other night , I thought we could split the new movies (plus I just did a top Pixar list). Besides he is much better suited to handle Ted 2. Inside Out is Pixar's latest creation and made over $90 million during its opening weekend. It was also released with a short film Lava. Now, we saw this with some little kids in front of us, and they were confused at first. I'm not sure if they liked it, but I know that I liked it. 

Lava is a musical about a volcano that is surrounded by various couples (two whales, two birds, etc.). He sings a song for someone to love. He sings until his lava goes out, aka becomes dormant. Under the waves is a girl volcano who has heard his song and erupts out of the ocean. Her eruption though causes him to sink beneath the ocean. That is until he hears her sing her version of the song. Lava erupts, and the two volcanoes end up being together. It was a really touching short film. 

As for Inside Out, on the surface it looks kind of like this:

When I first saw the trailer, I was extremely skeptical and thought that Pixar might have stretched too far; however, I can assure everyone that they have not. Pixar has created a story about growing up and all the emotions that go along with that. So of course they start with birth. Joy was the first emotion in Riley's head. Then came the rest: Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness. Each with their own job to help Riley grow up, and Joy was their leader. Joy explains to the audience that as Riley grows up core memories are made, and all of them are yellow (aka happy/Joy).

Each of the core memories link to islands of Riley's personality, from Goofball Island to Hokey Island to Family Island. They have also all been created in Minnesota, where Riley was born and has lived all 11 years of her live. This all changes suddenly when her father gets relocated to San Fransisco. Ask anyone, and they'll tell you that moving halfway across the country to a new city can be extremely difficult for any child. Through Joy's eyes this is made worse when Sadness starts to turn happy memories sad when she touches them.


When Riley tries to make the best of things, Joy tries to get everyone ready for the first day of school. Everything seems to go well until, as Fear predicts, the teacher calls on Riley. While telling the class about herself, Riley starts to cry because Sadness touches the console, creating a new sad core memory. Joy tries to stop the sad memory from becoming part of the core, causing all the core memories plus Joy and Sadness to be sucked up the tube to long term memory.

As Joy and Sadness try to return to Headquarters with the core memories, the three that remain to control Riley's emotions (Fear, Anger and Disgust) are not able to keep Riley her normal happy self. Also without the core memories, Riley begins to make decisions that lead to her personality islands disappearing. Joy must learn that life isn't always happy and to accept the new Riley. Same way that Riley has to adjust to being in a new place, even if that takes her the whole movie. In the end, the headquarters of Riley start to look different since the beginning of the movie.

Not to be punny or anything, but this movie is full of feels, both Human and actual Feelings. Like many of the Pixar movies, it is all about a change that most children and adults can relate to. It's about growing and up and learning that you don't have to be the same person all the time. Life is full of emotions that make up who we are. This movie really takes me back to my own childhood and the emotions and trials that I had growing up, which is a big draw for the adults of the movie. It's a different way to think about parts of our childhoods, and for the children, it is a lesson about what they are going through or will go through.Joy and Sadness also have learn that they need each other and that Riley needs both of them equally in  life.  Joy had the most to learn about Sadness, saying in the beginning that she wasn't even sure what Sadness did.

The CG for Inside Out is stunning, which is something that I have come to expect from Pixar. Each feeling and each human are distinct, from Riley and her parents to how Joy and Sadness glow different colors. The beauty in this CG is the attention to detail. It's harder to get realistic looking blonde hair compared to other colors, and Riley's hair looks convincing. The "insides" get the same type of treatment from the imaginary friend made of cotton candy to the glitter in feelings' hairs.

Overall, this is another fantastic film from Pixar. From the story to the visuals to the overall pacing of the movie,  time flew by while watching this movie. I was sad that it was over so quickly and that I didn't put it on my most anticipated for this year. Good job, Pixar.

Rating:  9/10

Buy on BluRay:  A feelings-filled YES!

So what did you think of Inside Out?  Was it as good as other Pixar movies?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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The Weekend Review: Ted 2

In which I review a selection of last weekend's entertainment.

Ted 2 - the awaited sequel to Seth MacFarlane's 2012 comedy about a kid whose teddy bear comes to life - hit theaters this last weekend to surprisingly little fanfare.  It fell direly short of industry expectations and Ted 3 is doubtlessly not in the immediate future for MacFarlane's host of loyal fans.

Following marital difficulties with Tami-Lynn, Ted concludes that the only way to save his marriage is to have a child with her.  Being unable to impregnate her himself, however, he needs to find a sperm donor, the search for which dregs up the fact that, according to the United States government, Ted is not a person.  Having lost his job, rights and even his marriage, Ted and Johnny sue the government to restore his civil rights and personhood.

I'm skeptical of comedies as a rule, but never more so than in the weeks preceding the first Ted's release in 2012.  Now, I trusted Seth MacFarlane to make me laugh - his track record with Family Guy and American Dad was impeccable - but the movie itself just looked so incredibly stupid.  Combine that with it being his first movie - and live-action to boot - and going to see it ended up being a pretty hard sell.

But, to MacFarlane's credit, Ted proved to be downright hilarious.  It was clever, funny and even surprisingly emotional.  While it certainly had its share of issues - the same as any movie - it ended up being one of the most enjoyable and memorable movies of 2012.

The sequel... not quite so much.  Don't worry, it's still hilarious.  The various plot points of hunting for a sperm donor and suing the government are wrought with comedic strife that MacFarlane expertly navigates.  The problem's that this movie faces have far more to do with structure than content.

Somewhere between the first movie and the sequel, MacFarlane lost Mila Kunis.  Being a integral part of the movie's cast, her presence had to be explained away.  But rather than just keeping her off camera, they wrote her out entirely.  In the last three years, her character and Johnny got married and divorced, forcing a cheapened story arc on Johnny about getting back into the dating scene.

Amanda Seyfried's Samantha, while a worthy effort, inherently fails to measure up to Mila's Lori.  She's a plot-necessitated character that fails to challenge the status quo of the movie's headliners (Lori's greatest strength in the first movie).  Sure, you get some funny bits about a dick-shaped bong and a stellar acoustic number from her, but she fails to bring anything substantive to the film.

And for as sound as the first, and even second, acts were, the third act is a mess of tangled plot points and unnecessary narratives.  Donnie - Ted's stalker from the first film - returns with a Hasbro-backed plan to sabotage the bear's court case so that he's declared property, and thus far more susceptible to theft, so that Hasbro can dissect and mass produce sapient teddy bears.

You see the problem there, right?  Ted's quest for personhood is already far more interesting - not to mention grockable - than the plot line that supposedly informs it.  It recycles the previous movie's villain for some third act stakes-raising that ultimately feels like a tired retread of a much better movie.  That's not even mentioning how confusing and downright stupid it sounds on the face of it.

That's not even mentioning how half of the movie feels like it's been left on the cutting room floor.  In one scene, Ted crashes a car into a barn, stranding him, Johnny and Sam in a pot field overnight.  Great pains are taken to set up the field's owner - including dredging up a shotgun and guitar - who is never shown.  Judging by the movie's trailers, this was supposed to end in some kind of car chase, but just feels like a half-baked setup to a payoff that ultimately never happened.

Now, none of this is to say that Ted 2 is a bad movie.  On the contrary, it's a gut-bustingly funny one that fans of MacFarlane, Family Guy and the first Ted are bound to love.  It's a solid, if sloppily written, comedy that Becky told me to stop laughing so loudly during on at least one occasion.  Just don't expect it to be as good as the first.

So what did you think about Ted 2?  Was it as funny as the first Ted?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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The Weekend Report: Ted 2 Falls Short of Predictions

In which I run down the big winners (and losers) at the box office this weekend.

Although the box office rankings for this last weekend look exactly as they were expected to, the actual numbers attached to the movies in question were actually pretty off.  More accurately, the numbers attached to Ted 2, Seth MacFarlane's sequel to the Family Guy-esque movie about a child who wishes his teddy bear to life, were far lower than predicted.

This might just be that Ted 2 is retroactively a worse movie than we initially gave it credit for (it's not).  It might be that Seth MacFarlane doesn't have as many fans as everybody thought (again, it's not).  It might just be that more people were interested in seeing genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok and feelings run rampant in a little girl's head than an R-rated comedy about a foul-mouthed teddy bear (probably closer to the point).

Whatever the reason, Ted 2 under-performed in a very serious way.  While it can hardly have been said to have bombed, it likely isn't going to encourage Universal executives to greenlight Ted 3 any time soon, regardless of how gut-bustingly hilarious it actually turned out to be.

Despite its relatively narrow appeal, Max did a lot better than a lot of people were expecting it to.  My local theater kept selling out its showings throughout the weekend (even if it was being shown in some of the smaller theaters).  A combination of strong word of mouth, patriotic dressings so near the Fourth of July and a strong-looking coming of age story about a boy and his dog kept it on track for a solid opening weekend.

And from what I've heard, it's actually a really good movie.  Some have even gone so far as to say that it's one of the best movies about the post-9/11 military conflicts to date (and that coming from a guy who hated American Sniper).

Box Office Ranking:

1) Jurassic World -  $54.2m
2)  Inside Out - $52.1m

3) Ted 2 - $33m
4) Max - $12.2m
5) Spy - $7.8m
6)  San Andreas - $5.2m
7)  Dope - $2.8m
8)  Insidious: Chapter 3 - $2m
9)  Mad Max: Fury Road - $1.7m
10)  Avengers: Age of Ultron - $1.6m

So what movie did you see in theaters this last weekend?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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