Lincoln

Lincoln (2012)

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Screenplay by Tony Kushner

Based on the book, "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Tommy Lee Jones, John Hawkes, Jackie Earl Haley, Tim Blake Nelson, Lee Pace and Joseph Cross

There was trepidation in watching Steven Spielberg's latest movie. Another year, another biopic for gimmee gimmee lotsa Oscars. It is played out and stale. The movie was nomianted for 12 Oscars, which is eight too much in my opinion. You can possibly tell there was not love out for this movie.

It seems that Spielberg and company wanted to take an atypical biopic like Capote (hated it) or Milk (meh). Make it a one word title, specifically the last name and try to focus on one specific time in the insert historical person here's life and spit it out to the American public. Here, the film focuses on the last four months of Lincoln's (Day-Lewis) life as he tireously tries to get the thirteenth amendment passed and signed into law. That's it. That the whole movie in a nutshell.

The movie is like watching long drawn out version of The West Wing with a bunch of filler to over-stuff it. The boring back and forth about a piece of legislation. The movie did not focus on Lincoln that much. It was all about the damn amendment. It should have been called The Thirteenth Amendment. This is no way downgrading what the piece of legislation has done to my ancestors and many others, but nobody wants to hear a bunch of stuffy men talk about legislation for over two hours. It grows tiresome after ten minutes.

A movie having a 86 Metacrtic would have been at least enjoyable. There was some dozing moments on my end. Everybody is touting that DDL will be the first actor ever to win three Best Actor Oscars. What's so special about this performance? It was laid flat. No nuisance. No gravitas. It was a dead fish. His performance in There Will Be Blood was leaps and bounds better than his Lincoln lite he put on.

The only person worth mention is the brilliant performance of Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, the Pennsylvanian Representative that fought for most of his life to get slavery abolished in the country. Whenever he was onscreen, nobody was in the room. He has an intensity that few could master. Bravo, TLJ.

Sally Field on the other hand was cartoonish in her portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln. It felt like she was in a different movie. Like she was in a soap opera the way she was speaking. It was reminiscent of Soapdish (which she was in) and not in a good way.

My expectations were very low of this movie and it did not exceed them in the slight bit. There is something that bothered me, when the credit were rolling, did anybody catch the obvious lens flare? Really, Mr. Spielberg? you wanted to do this movie for the last decade when Liam Neeson was attached to play Lincoln. This is what you came up with. Back to drawing board, sir.

My Rating

Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Directed by Joe Johnston

Written by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely

Based on comic book, "Captain America" by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

Stars: Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan, Dominic Cooper, Stanley Tucci, Neal MacDonaugh, Derek Luke, Kenneth Choi, JJ Feild, Bruno Ricci, Toby Jones, and Tommy Lee Jones

As I previously stated in my Avengers review, I did not see The First Avenger to prepare myself for the movie. There were some things about the film that I had questions that were answered by watching this film. I know the general lore of Captain America and his journey. I can say for certainty that this movie is better than Thor.

There was some hesitation about letting lead actor Chris Evans take over the role of Steve Rodgers, because he previously played a Marvel superhero as The Human Torch in the Fantastic Four films.

The setting of the film follows almost exactly were the comics left off. Rodgers was a skinny kid that possibly weighed 110 pounds soaking wet when he is repeatedly rejected by the Army in the middle of WWII. His childhood friend, Bucky (Stan) tries to dissuade him from joining the army. A chance encounter from Dr. Abraham Erskine (Tucci) changes his life forever. Erskine recruits him to a top secret operation to create a new breed of super soldiers to fight the Nazis. Most importantly to help stop the tyrannical Red Skull (Weaving) and his HYDRA army from taking over the world.

For me, I wish that Marvel would have concentrated more on these "origin" movies as well as The Avengers. I think that Iron Man 2, Thor and this movie all suffer from having to tell the back story of the characters that are going to make up this superhero team. It seems the quality of film suffers, because it has to be filler to see how this component of the Avengers came from.

There were some aspects of this movie that I didn't like, but that would be spoilers for people who are not familiar with the lore of Captain America. Chris Evans was fine here. He was not bad or good. I thought that the character presented on screen was brave and stupid. When Steve becomes Captain America, he doesn't listen to reason that his actions has consequences. Steve is supposed to be this tragic hero, but comes across as being over-confident to a point where you want something to happen to him. The action scenes were okay. Nothing remarkable here.

I have to stay Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel Chester Phillips was great. He was chewing the scene with his one-liners. Weaving was solid as Red Skull. Steve's sidekick, Bucky was very charismatic on screen. The love interest for Steve, Peggy Carter, played by Hayley Atwell was strange. I wondered if she was interested in him before he got taller and buffer. What if he stayed the scrawny toothpick?

I had a couple of issues with the plot. How comes the shield is supposed to be indestructible, but the shield has wear and tear on it? Would you think that a massive faculty like HYDRA would have been trounced by  a lone man in a loud red, white and blue getup? I didn't understand how the hell the Terraset ended up in a lockbox in Norway? If Steve Rogers meets Iron Man's father who built the device that made him, did he acknowledge that in The Avengers? I could be nitpicking. Somebody help me out.

My Rating