The Avengers in Theaters Now

Wow. Go see The Avengers in the theater now! Friday was its first day out. If you liked Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America, you will love this one even more. If you haven't seen those movies, watch them before you see this to give yourself a little more context on the characters.

This movie, while having some great conflict and action, is also laugh-out-loud funny. And with a cast of seven main actors, it's amazing how well the movie holds together and how fully each character is portrayed. Balancing such a cast can't be easy, but every character is well-represented and matters. It would have been easy to have Black Widow and Hawkeye be only supporting characters, but no, this movie makes them stand out as much as the others we are more familiar with (speaking as someone who knows these characters from movies alone and not from comic books). Even The Hulk is fabulous. Now, I know nothing about The Hulk, but he seems like a pretty boring brute of a superhero. I realize now that what is intriguing about him is his shy Dr. Banner personality, but this movie makes both sides cool.

The basic premise of the movie is this: Thor's adopted brother Loki has come to Earth to use the power of the Tesseract (the blue energy cube last seen in Captain America) to rule humanity. Nick Fury calls in six superheroes to form a team called The Avengers to save the world. As one superhero puts it, where you fail to protect, you avenge. The problem is these guys aren't team players. Each is used to being the top dog in the situations they've faced, so before they get to the big battle, they duke it out like animals vying for supremacy. It's pretty interesting to see who does or doesn't come out on top.

In case you've been living on the moon (or comic books and superheroes just aren't your thing), this is the cast: Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Captain America, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. Joss Whedon directs. Some of the secondary characters from previous movies reprise their roles.

The Avengers is wholesome family fun, providing your kids are old enough to watch sci-fi battle action. It's PG-13 and clean.

I can't really say anything more without spoiling. You just need to see this one yourself, and if you can, see it while it's still in the theater, just because...why not? It's worth it. And stay past the initial credits (before the black screen credits) to see footage of a new baddie for a future movie. By the way, if you see The Avengers in Kendallville (maybe other places, too), you get the added bonus of watching the latest trailers for The Dark Knight Rises and Brave.

You Again (on DVD)

Just a short review here, but I wanted to showcase this movie, chick flick though it is, for its morality! There's no reason to cover your eyes or ears in You Again, rated PG. Plus, it's fun and funny and surprisingly full of renowned actors, including Kristen Bell (lead role), Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver, Victor Garber, Betty White, Kristin Chenoweth, and just a few others you might recognize.

The movie is a bit cliched. (Spoilers here!) How many times are we going to see someone's rehearsal dinner ruined by a horrible video? And then there's the main focus of the movie: girl gets picked on in high school, grows up and becomes beautiful, and returns home to find her brother marrying her nemesis. But the movie also plays with its cliches. By the movie's end, three generations of women have been forced to reunite with their nemeses, hence the title.

The movie tugged at my emotions, making me angry at the injustices done to Marni, ill at ease when she fought back, angry again that everyone kept telling her it was all in the past and she should just get on with her life, happy with how things turned out in the end.

If you're looking for a laugh and a little light, clean entertainment, You Again is just right.

Easy A on DVD

You're probably already wondering why a morality-conscious viewer like me would watch a movie about a girl who pretends to sleep with the entire school to boost everyone's reputation and create one of her own. To protect all the innocent and guilty involved in this possibly questionable decision of mine, let's just skip the how's and get into what the movie was all about.

Emma Stone plays the opinionated-and-not-afraid-to-voice-it Olive as she gives, in her own words, "the rumor-filled totally FALSE account of how I RUINED my flawless reputation." One lie to a friend has the whole gossipy school believing Olive isn't a virgin anymore. When another friend asks her to pretend to sleep with him so that people stop picking on him for being gay, she agrees to help out, and he sends her a gift afterward. Thus begins her descent as all the dorks, nerds, and losers in the school begin paying her to let them pretend to sleep with her. All Olive has to do is act the part, and since her best friend has joined the protesters, including the not-so-Jesus-loving Jesus Freaks out to take Olive down, Olive retaliates by sewing big red A's over the breast of her newly-acquired-for-the-purpose wardrobe of lacy corsets, which she wears with jeans to school.

Obviously, The Scarlet Letter is an influence in this movie.

Emma Stone is hilarious in the role, and her parents, played by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson, are the embodiment of cool, fun-loving, caring but not smothering parents as they let Olive figure out this phase of her life and offer encouragement without freaking out on her. This only works, of course, with parents who are confident in the daughter they have raised, and it serves to accentuate their daughter's morality in a movie about being a slut.

There's true romance to be found in the whole mess of Olive's life though, and the boy is a real keeper, not put off by Olive's big show, knowing the girl she really is. Altogether there are great characters played by great actors, and the movie would be, well, great...but it's pushed a little too far.

This movie compares to the book I just reviewed, Nightshade, in that the concept was intriguing and had redeeming value, but the execution contained just a little too much of all the wrong parts. After all, the lead role wears corsets throughout the movie. There's minor nudity near the beginning of the film. The language is sometimes crude with the B-word and S-word liberally sprinkled throughout. The humor is sometimes crass, for instance when Olive and her gay friend are moaning and grunting together to make people outside the door think they are doing it. A teacher has sex and lets Olive take the rap for it when Olive offers to, but later the teacher won't help Olive clear her name. If the movie was all about these things, I would steer you far, far clear. Even so, I don't recommend it to just anyone. I have a hard time recommending it at all, even with its redeeming value, but the themes are worth talking about and the end message is almost worth it all. Olive ends up in tears, when everyone hates her and she begins to hate herself, understandably. I appreciated what the movie had to say about gossip and self-sacrifice and even about morality.

It's still a secular movie, so it's not going to say that Olive stayed a virgin until her marriage, although even Olive suggests that possibility. I can forgive the movie its bad raps on the Church, and I think that should send a message to Christians (but, of course, no Christian will admit to watching this movie as it might damage reputation). I don't think we should act like sluttiness is okay, but we should leave the judging to God and accept the person, warts and all. Okay, done preaching.

So, how should I end this post? Easy, simple advice: don't watch the movie. Addendum: if you want to have some interesting discussion with a mature group, preview this movie and then share at your discretion. Two stars for crass content. Four stars out of five for themes and execution.