Review: Avengers: Infinity War

Avengers:  Infinity War

So, part 1 of the big Marvel Universe Cinematic Event has finished, and damn does it give you a sucker punch.  No one is safe, the stakes have never been higher, and the ever-present threat of Thanos keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout the experience.

Credit to the entire team for this movie, it is beautiful to look at, even when going to worlds that are not 'pretty,' there is enormous amounts of care and detail put into each location, and it really makes it feel like a cinematic universe rather than a movie franchise.

Performances across the board are great, and special mention must be given to Josh Brolin as Thanos, joining the very short list of good Marvel villains (the others being Loki, Killmonger, and Zemo) - and part of what makes him work so well is that he thinks he is the hero.  There is a tendency to make the villains Evil rather than characters with legitimate motivations - though they have used the revenge angle many times - so having this understated performance for a genocidal alien was a change of pace that the movies desperately needed.

There are quite a few cameos scattered throughout the film (one in particular surprised the Hell out of me) and no part of the story feels rushed - just urgent.  No scene is wasted, and it's the rare 2+ hour movie that I wish was longer.

Not much more to go into - not without going into spoilers - but I am very anxious to see the next part of this movie.

8.5 out of 10

Movie Review: A Quiet Place

A Quiet Place

Well, apparently we need all of the comedians to start directing horror films.  First we had Jordan Peele and Get Out (my favorite film from 2017), and now John Krasinski comes out with A Quiet Place, a great creature feature that sets itself apart with a premise that demands near-silence from all of the characters in the movie.

Set sometime in either 2020 or 2021, we are slightly over a year into some sort of not-quite-apocalypse that has forced the world to go silent, as monsters now roam the Earth killing anything that makes a sound.  The movie focuses on a family living in a farmhouse on the outskirts of a town, and how they have adjusted to a world where any noise can get them killed.

Krasinski (starring, writing, and directing this movie) does an incredible job with his world building, down to minor details like having the family use leaves for plates to avoid any sort of scraping sound.  You can tell enormous amounts of thought were put into how any tiny bit of noise can pull in the monsters and how to change their behavior to compensate for this fact.  Felt game pieces for Monopoly, sandy paths, and even some ingenious planning for the arrival of a baby all come together to create a tangible world that these characters are living in.

The performances are across-the-board great.  Krasinski and Emily Blunt both do amazing things with their facial expressions in various scenes.  Blunt, in particular, does an amazing job of portraying someone who is almost always tense but still going about their everyday life - a tightrope act of a performance.  Millicent Simmonds portrays the deaf daughter, and does a spectacular job throughout - displaying a guilt that never truly leaves her that creates tension with Krasinski.  Noah Jupe, the son that finishes out the quartet also does a good job.

The movies does so many things right.  Casting someone who is actually deaf (Simmonds) warmed me to the movie right out the gate.  They explain just enough about the creatures to give them threat, but not so much that they lose their mystery.  The world is obviously larger than what the family experiences, but they aren't privy to information that a random family in the outskirts of the world wouldn't have access to.  And at 95 minutes in length, the movie doesn't overstay its welcome.

While one has typically had to go to the recent wave of Parable Horror movies (The Witch, It Follows, Get Out, The Babadook, to name a few) to get a solid, well-made horror flick, Krasinski manages to breathe fresh life into mainstream horror films with this film.

I'd pay to go to a sequel.  8.5 out of 10