Review #1,395: 'Monkey Shines' (1988)

Only the very best directors can take a flimsy story and make the most out of it, and this is precisely the case with Monkey Shines, adapted by George A. Romero from the novel by Michael Stewart. Of course, Romero is best known for Night of the Living Dead and it's spectacularly gory follow-up Dawn of the Dead, but Monkey Shines actually takes a surprisingly careful, reserved approach to this tale of a killer monkey, and takes the time to slowly develop the relationship between the central character and his simian helper. The film begins with Allan, played by Jason Beghe, a former track champion who clearly takes his workout routines incredibly seriously, packing his back pack with rocks and leaving the house for a morning jog with the sun barely risen. His active lifestyle is quickly cut short when he is hit by a bus, and wakes up days later as a quadriplegic.

When he returns home assisted by a mouth-operated wheelchair, his friends and family have all gathered to welcome him but nothing will ever be the same again. His shallow girlfriend Linda (Janine Turner), who fears her life will now be dominated by looking after her partner, has shacked up with Allan's unbearably smug surgeon Dr. Wiseman (Stanley Tucci with a head of hair), and his scientist best friend Geoffrey Fisher (John Pankow) is a junkie who shows up late for the welcome party. But Fisher, who has been experimenting on Capuchins by injecting them with human brain tissue, may have the solution to Allan's problems. After consulting with Melanie Parker (Kate McNeil) - an expert in assigning quadriplegics with monkey helpers - Fisher supplies Allan with his star pupil, 'Ella' (who is actually voiced by Frank Welker). The two hit it off immediately, and the bond between them becomes so strong that Ella can seemingly predict Allan's needs before he even asks (or points his laser pen).

Ella doesn't solve all of Allan's problems however, and Allan still vents his frustration at his uncaring nurse and her annoying bird, as well as his overbearing mother (Joyce Van Patten), who insists on sticking her nose in where it's not wanted. What follows would sound preposterous on paper, but Romero keeps the story engrossing and oddly believable by refusing to give into excess. The delightful exploding heads and exposed innards of his zombie movies simply wouldn't work here, although the film does offer a violent and shocking ending. This is on a similar low key to Romero's vampire masterpiece Martin, and the director's keen eye for character building leaves us fully invested in the man-and-monkey relationship, despite the bloody trail left in their wake. There's a truly great 90 minute film here, but Monkey Shines runs at just shy of two hours, occasionally losing focus to shift the action to Fisher's strained relationship with his boss (Stephen Root) or Allan's mother's insistence on moving in, both sub-plots that don't really lead anywhere and stretch the film out longer than it needs to be. But with Romero's passing just last year, Monkey Shines is a great reminder that the horror icon didn't only deliver in the zombie genre.


Directed by: George A. Romero
Starring: Jason Beghe, John Pankow, Kate McNeil, Joyce Van Patten, Christine Forrest, Stephen Root, Stanley Tucci, Janine Turner
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,251: 'Transformers: The Last Knight' (2017)

A few years ago, after the Shia LaBeouf-starring Transformers trilogy came to a close with Dark of the Moon, Michael Bay made the welcome announcement that he was to leave the franchise he'd been working on day-in day-out for the past 5 years, causing critics - and film buffs forcing themselves to endure such cinematic waste - to rejoice in the process. This, of course, wasn't true, as he came back to the series to helm Age of Extinction in 2014, this time starring the considerably buffer frame of Mark Wahlberg. I don't remember much of what happened - other than incoherent special effects bashing each other and blowing things up - but there was certainly no extinction, and whatever happened in that film inspired Bay to explore new stories in the Transformers universe. And so here we are with number five - The Last Knight.

He's tricked us before into believing that we were finally moving into a world free of Bay's Transformers movies, so there's no reason to believe his new claims that The Last Knight will indeed be his last foray into the stories of the Autobots and Decepticons (although its always been much more about the humans). There's a Bumblebee spin-off starring Hailee Steinfeld already shooting, and the climax here certainly leads us to believe that there's even more to come. The Last Knight runs at a whopping 149 minutes (which is actually one of the shortest in the series), and every one of those minutes feels like a lifetime as Bay amps up everything the majority of people have come to hate about the franchise. Huge planets are smashed into each other, characters share awkward and painfully unfunny banter, and the camera leers so much at the franchise's latest hotty (a professor who dresses like a stripper played by Laura Haddock) that you almost long for the acting talents of Megan Fox.

Wahlberg returns as Cade Yeager, the inventor-turned-outlaw who still hasn't realised how ridiculous his name is, and now sports an equally ridiculous haircut. Following the events of the previous film, all Transformers have now been declared criminals, and the Transformer Reaction Force has been set up to eradicate the alien robots. Only more are arriving on Earth every day, so Optimus Prime has travelled back to his home planet to confront his maker for answers. Yeager is protecting many of the surviving Autobots at his junk yard, but soon finds himself caught up in events when a strange alien talisman attaches itself to his arm from the ship of a dead Transformer. Giant horns have emerged from the ground in various locations throughout the world, and it all somehow ties into a tale going back to the time of King Arthur and Merlin (the latter played by a game Stanley Tucci). Decepticons want the talisman for some reason, and by this time I'd given up.

The first hour is spent trying to explain the plot to the audience, while the rest is spent exploring aimless sub-plots, one involving a tough orphan child living in the ruins of a previous battle, designed to appeal to the young crowd. Within the first twenty minutes, it shamelessly rips-off Game of Thrones and Stranger Things, TV shows of a quality Bay could only dream of creating. By the time Anthony Hopkins shows up to collect his pay cheque, you'll be too worn out to tolerate his bumbling, exposition-tool shtick. Bay isn't interested in correcting the mistakes he has been criticised for in the past: The Last Knight is custom-made to appease the audience who willingly pay to see this migraine-inducing nonsense every couple of years. Yet judging for the film's rather uninspiring box-office take, even they are getting tired of it. With the exception of 2007's sporadically enjoyable first film, this franchise has left me angry, outraged, depressed and physically sick, but never had I felt indifferent. The Last Knight left me feeling nothing at all, other than incredibly sleepy.


Directed by: Michael Bay
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Hopkins, Josh Duhamel, Laura Haddock, Isabela Moner, Stanley Tucci
Country: China/Canada/USA

Rating: *

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,003: 'Spotlight' (2015)

This years Academy Award Best Picture line-up was one of the most underwhelming in recent memory, but there was a little cheer when director Tom McCarthy's underdog Spotlight took home the top prize. My personal favourite of the nominees, The Big Short, lost out, and the stand-out film of the year, Inside Out, wasn't even on the list (although it took home the Best Animated Feature), but the lack of truly great films this year doesn't take anything away from Spotlight, which is a riveting little procedural hampered by a surprising emotional distance from the disturbing subject matter.

Like most films set amongst the huddled office meetings, desk-thumping and pen-chewing of the newspaper room, Spotlight takes its inspiration from Alan J. Pakula's seminal All the President's Men (1976), and concerns itself solely on the noble efforts of the staff trying to piece together that big story that will change everything. Here, we're at the Boston Globe in 2001, and the newspapers new editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) and almost instantly notices the importance of delving deeper into eccentric lawyer Mitchel Garabedian's (Stanley Tucci) accusation that Cardinal Law (Len Cariou) has covered up the molestation of various children by a priest in their very city.

Baron hands the task to Spotlight, a team consisting of 'Robby' Robinson (Michael Keaton), Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carroll (Brian D'Arcy James), who takes months exhaustively researching their subject matter before publishing their findings. What they uncovered were hundreds of cases in Boston alone of child molestation by priests, and the fact that this was ignored by people in a position to do much more. In fact, some of the most powerful moments come from the revelations that some of the Boston Globe staff sat on the story for years without taking notice of the extent of the abuse. With Operation Yewtree still hitting the headlines here in the UK, the subject of sweeping these kinds of cases under the rug couldn't be more relevant.

Spotlight depicts, in breathtaking detail, the work carried out by Robinson and his team to uncover the truth and to obtain the required evidence. Keaton, after last years Birdman, gives another assured performance, and Ruffalo is routinely terrific as the pit-bull Rezendes. Aesthetically, the film cannot be faulted, and McCarthy sticks strictly to the facts. However, the lack of an emotional connection means the film does not induce the kind of anger it really should. Without doubt the movies stand-out scene is Pfeiffer's reaction to a priests blunt response to her equally blunt questioning, and the film should maintain the sort of power and shock this moment inspires, but keeps itself frustratingly distant. Spotlight is still an accomplished piece of work with some sparkling dialogue, and McCarthy hints that he may have found the same form he had with his terrific debut The Station Agent (2003).


Directed by: Tom McCarthy
Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Brian D'Arcy James, Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup
Country: USA/Canada

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #795: 'Transformers: Age of Extinction' (2014)

For those (surely) few concerned at the film title's hint that this may spell the end of the giant, indistinguishable CGI aliens, then rest assured, the perplexing box-office takings and the recent announcement of a fifth instalment means that there's no end in sight for Michael Bay's soulless, money-churning franchise. For those tired of the sickly, shaky-cam photography, annoying, goofy humour, tactless pandering to it's undemanding audience, and endless scenes of computer effects bashing against one another, this spells disaster. Though Age of Extinction marks a slightly more focused improvement over it's two predecessors, Bay is showing no signs of wanting to create a decent movie.

Essentially a re-boot due to a complete cast overhaul (minus the robots), this fourth instalment offers little in terms of refreshment. Our human hero is now Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg), replacing Shia LaBeouf's Sam Witwicky, but sharing all the personality traits. Yeager is a genius mechanic, turning junk into something useful, though nothing financially successful, as his hot-pants-donning jailbait daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz) repeatedly points out. He is essentially the same nerdy, fast-talking every-man as Sam, only he has arms like tree trunks. His discovery of a beaten-down old trunk in a crumbling movie theatre (perhaps a nod to Bay's hand in the disappearance of the local independent cinema) kicks off a series of events which soon attract the attention of corporate-type CIA agent Attinger (Kelsey Grammer).

Of course, the truck is Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), and it turns out that the government are hunting down transformers - even the good guys who helped in the previous film's battle in Chicago. A shady company, headed by Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci - the only actor appearing to have a pulse), is also involved, using 'science' to extract data from the head of Megatron and extracting a new, codeable metal - laughably dubbed 'Transformium'. Anything can be created from the substance, and is being used to develop the company's very own transformers, including Galvatron, who fans of the comic will know to be an absolute beast. When he is unleashed, it becomes apparent that Galvatron has plans of his own. Also in the mix is ancient transformer bounty hunter Lockdown (Mary Ryan), who intends on taking Optimus back to the 'creator'.

It's a hell of a lot of plot, and at 165 minutes, this will test the endurance of even the most hard-core fan of the new movie franchise. Bay clearly hasn't learned anything from the critics. Age of Extinction is the same convoluted splurge as the film's that came before. This time at least, thanks to the vocal talents of John Goodman and Ken Watanabe, the robots can at least be identified amidst the carnage. Without Megan Fox or Rosie Huntington-Whitely to letch over, Bay has employed another useless female character in Peltz, who runs away from explosions in short-shorts and high heels, and has an equally dull boyfriend in Shane (Jack Reynor - whose Irish accent somehow sounds fake even though his IMDb page lists him as having lived in Ireland most of his life). They've been sleeping together for ages so, y'know, the whole sex with a minor thing is cool.

Many critics have dubbed this as the worst yet, but I disagree. Although I detest the use of CGI as a narrative tool, the special effects here are some of the greatest work ever put on film. There's also no outright racist characters, such as the Twins from Revenge of the Fallen (2009), and the whole experience is far less cringe-worthy than it's predecessor's in terms of attempted comedy. But with the film failing to inject any development or evolution into the series, the point of these movies points to just one thing - money. Bay is filling his pockets without a shred of artistic integrity, and as long as audiences keep offering their money for sheer mediocrity, these movies will keep popping up every couple of years.


Directed by: Michael Bay
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor, Titus Welliver
Country: USA/China

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #612: 'The Terminal' (2004)

Film-makers frequently find themselves going back to basics or back to their roots in order to find inspiration, rather than seeking innovation. Two of Hollywood's arguably most powerful men - Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks - did precisely this back in 2004 with the release of The Terminal, apparently based on the 18-year stay at Charles de Gaulle airport experienced by Iranian refugee Mehran Karimi Nasseri (although the film-makers and producers have failed to acknowledge it). Spielberg had been striving for bid-budget, CGI-laden blockbusters such as A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001) and Minority Report (2002), and historical epics like Amistad (1997) and Saving Private Ryan (1998), before he made The Terminal. Although those films were generally good to very good, Spielberg returned to something more simple and heartfelt; something in the vein of Frank Capra or Billy Wilder, who combined sentiment and romanticism to such a glorious effect. Well, to be frank, he shouldn't have bothered.

Victor Navorski (Hanks) arrives at JFK International Airport from his (fictional) home country of Krakozhia, with the intention of getting the autograph of a famous jazz musician who was loved by his late father in New York. Though what he doesn't know is that Krakozhia's government has been overthrown, leading do a devastating civil war. This puts Head of CPB Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci) in a difficult situation, as America no longer recognises Krakozhia as a country, voiding Victor's passport and cancelling his right to leave the airport doors. So Victor sets up home in the terminal, making money by returning baggage carts back to their holders for 25 cents a cart, and befriending the various oddballs and desperado's in the airport. He also meets flight attendant Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones), an emotionally unstable woman who is in a relationship with a married man. Despite Dixon's frequent attempts to thwart Victor's activities, Victor becomes extremely popular with the airport's inhabitants by performing various good deeds.

If there is one thing that Spielberg's movies are frequently lambasted for, it is for their cloying sentimentality. Even his darkest output, such as Minority Report and Munich (2005) had their moments of emotional embraces to the sound of a string score that felt shoe-horned in. With The Terminal, Spielberg has gone all-out with the rom-com aesthetic. The result is a manipulating and almost fraudulent throw-back to the great Cary Grant films of the 1930's, capturing none of the magic of Spielberg's idols. Hanks is good value as always, but the character of Victor is almost offensive in it's stereotyping of the simple, almost idiotic foreigner.

The collection of supporting characters don't fair much better either, with Dixon's Hitler-esque CPB man raising questions as to the reasons behind his hatred for Victor. Everyone else seems to like him, even his own men, so is he doing it for career progression? His own soon-to-be-retiring boss informs him that empathy and humanity are key to the job, and if Dixon needs to be told this, then how has he gotten as far as he has up to now? Zeta-Jones's Andrea at least puts a different spin on the familiar rom-com heroine, with her erratic behaviour and questionable decision-making at least adding a bit of dimension. The most impressive aspect of the film is actually the set, built from scratch after no airport agreed to allow Spielberg to film for such an extended amount of time, and this, if anything, adds a flow to the way the film is captured. But when the set is the best thing about a film, you know you're in trouble, and this is undoubtedly one of Spielberg's worst efforts.


Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Stanley Tucci, Chi McBride, Diego Luna, Zoe Saldana
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #429: 'The Hunger Games' (2012)

It could be argued that we are living in the last decades of Western Civilisation as we know it. The connotations of our popular culture has all the elements of distraction from what actually matters within our society. Reality television is now the most watched entertainment, with it's collection of delusional contestants vying for their 15 minutes of fame, along with the populous need to both humiliate and celebrate people of little worth. This format of mass-distraction is mirrored in the fall of the Roman Empire, which had its Gladiatorial Colosseum's as both a form of distraction and control. In the 21st century, television (along with other forms of media communication) is used to control and sedate the masses, and foment apathy in the population. It is also a form of contagion that infects those who believe they can also be rich and famous with little or no ability or talent. This seems to be what The Hunger Games is attempting to comment on, within the context of a distopian future.

Set after an uprising during a war, North America has been divided into 12 districts controlled by its centre, The Capitol. Each year one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 are selected by a lottery from each district to fight to the death in a televisual show. From district 12, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), volunteers herself for the event after her younger sister was selected. Along with male contestant, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), are transported to the Capitol, which resembles the Roman cities that the film is attempting to align itself with. After training and attempts to get sponsors, they are let out into a forest world to fight.

I really can't be bothered to explain any further the plotting or character narratives within this film, as you will more than likely have seen it before: The Hunger Games has similar themes, and has an incredibly similar storyline to both Battle Royale (2000) and The Running Man (1987). Whilst it's central character is played well by Lawrence (she has a slight presence on screen with her ordinary beauty), she has very little to do in a weak script, and obvious plotting. The films iconography is lifted wholesale from Roman history, and its depiction of a vapid elitist population fails to enlighten the initial premise (that admittedly could have been good). Within the first hour the film also manages to insult the spectator by repeating certain scenes of dialogue only 20 minutes after it was initially shown ("We are totally aware that that happened, cause not much has happened since, and it happened moments ago").

Writer Suzanne Collins has stated that the inspiration for the book came from channel hopping between reality TV and the Iraq war, but she fails to find a voice strong enough to contextualise all the information into a credible framework, and simply seems to use the idea to speak only to the idiots who watch the reality TV that she seems to want to criticise; in other words the idea has been produced in much more intelligent ways elsewhere, whilst The Hunger Games decreases its concepts to feed it to the masses. Back to the 2010's, it has been suggested that around 90% of teenagers desire fame. In this narrative world, this desire simply is not there. In conclusion, interesting idea which fails to interest - the film is too long, and it simply does not engage.


Directed by: Gary Ross
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Marc Ivamy

Review #257: 'Easy A' (2010)

Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) is a confident and highly intelligent girl that is doing well at school until she lies to her best friend Rhiannon (Aly Michalka) to get out of a camping trip. Rhiannon presses her for details and Olive ends up telling her that she and her made-up boyfriend had sex. They are overheard by the school religious freak Marianna (Amanda Byrnes), who spreads the gossip around like wildfire. Olive is then approached by her old friend Brandon (Dan Byrd), a boy who is being bullied because he is gay. He asks her if she will pretend to have sex with him in order to convince others that he is straight, to which she reluctantly agrees. Soon Olive is making money from desperate boys wanting to be known for having sex with her, at the cost of her reputation.

It's rare that teen comedies actually get the formula right, especially in the last ten years or so. There was a boom back in the late 1990's, started by the hugely successful American Pie (1999), which lasted a good ten years and is still a successful marketplace. If Easy A shares any similarities to any of the teen comedies of recent years, then it's the Tina Fey-scripted Mean Girls (2004), which was a smart and very funny story of high school rivalry and bitchiness. Yet Easy A shares it's true roots with a different era of teen films - the 1980's. Director Will Gluck's favourite film is Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), and the love and homages are plain to see. Olive even fantasises about her life being like a John Hughes movie.

Like Mean Girls, the screenplay is fantastic, and has a talent in Emma Stone to chew on the lines (I'll get to her later). Not only is the script very smart and funny, it's also venomous. Scriptwriter Bert V. Royal has created a highly intelligent character in Olive that can spit back an insult as good as anybody. When studying The Scarlet Letter (of which the film is obviously based on) in English class, one of the religious freaks who is disgusted by the rumours states her disapproval for the lead character in the book, before turning to Olive and saying 'perhaps you should embroider a red A on your wardrobe, you abominable tramp,' to which Olive replies 'maybe you should get a wardrobe, you abominable twat!'. Shocking, vicious, and very funny.

But the film's masterstroke is Emma Stone. While it's hard to believe that she blends into the background (as she describes at the beginning of the film - I mean, come on, she's gorgeous), she gives a performance full of swagger and confidence. Husky-voiced and super-smart, she gives Olive - who in somebody else's hands might quickly become unsympathetic or annoying - a likeability and vulnerability that makes her wholly endearing. Her talent was always obvious from her supporting roles in Superbad (2007) and Zombieland (2009), but this will surely catapult her to wholly deserved stardom.

If there's complaints to be made about the film, then some of the clever-clever quips and the interactions with her rather annoying parents (played by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson) can be cloying, and the film does rather run out of steam near to the end. But the film remains enjoyable, charming and genuinely funny. And it's a strong reminder that the teen comedy still has life in it, given a decent script and a bit of heart.


Directed by: Will Gluck
Starring: Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, Amanda Byrnes, Dan Byrd, Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci, Thomas Haden Church, Lisa Kudrow, Malcolm McDowell, Aly Michalka
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #184: 'Captain America: The First Avenger' (2011)

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is desperate to get into the army and help his countrymen fight in World War II. The only problem is that he's short, skinny, and has a list of medical conditions longer than his arm. In his umpteenth attempt at enlisting, Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci) sees Rogers' passion and help enlist him in a research project to build a super soldier. Colonel Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones) doubts him, yet when Rogers dives on a loose de-activated grenade to save his group, he is convinced. Along with Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), Erskine doses Rogers with a special serum that turns him into a muscled, near-invisible super soldier, and he becomes Captain America - at first a frontman to sell bonds, but when his friend needs to be rescued, he becomes a superhero. Meanwhile in Europe, psychotic Nazi Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) is harnessing a power that may help him rule the world.

The Marvel films of late seem to fit into two categories - either very good, and passable. This, unfortunately, falls into the latter category. The passable Marvel films (X-Men: First Class (2011), The Incredible Hulk (2008)) have been relatively pedestrian yet have the uncanny ability to be irresistibly likeable and undeniably entertaining. Captain America was one I was expecting to be on the level of Iron Man (2008) and Thor (2011), both of which are very good. But it is overlong, has poorly developed supporting characters, and a one-dimensional bad-guy. But Chris Evans and the fact that this is a teasing final link into the film that we're all really waiting for, helps raise the film up a few notches.

I'll start with the bad. Firstly, the action scenes, compared to even the lesser Marvel films, don't really add up to that much. I mean, this is a superhero fighting Nazis, and we all love seeing a Nazi getting smashed - but the big and loud action scenes are surprisingly dull. There's nothing to compare to the Frost Giants fight in Thor, or the Circuit du Monaco attack in Iron Man 2 (2010), or seeing The Incredible Hulk getting angry. And Cap's whole superhero persona just isn't that good - he's just really hard and can throw a shield rather well. He can't fly, doesn't have a hammer of near-limitless abilities, and can't turn massive and green.

Sadly wasted are Tommy Lee Jones and Weaving. Given a role he can sleep-walk through, Jones just doesn't seem to be making the effort, and delivers his few comic lines with a can't-be-arsed look on his face. Weaving chews on his lines with relish and is near-faultless as Schmidt, who later becomes The Red Skull. It's just a shame that Schmidt is basically there to do no more than give Cap something to fight against. After Tom Hiddleston as Loki in Thor, who was if anything a lot more interesting than his blonde-haired brother, brought emotional torment and raging jealousy into his multi-dimensional character. Maybe I'm comparing it too much to the other Marvel films, but knowing that it's all building to The Avengers (due in 2012), it's difficult not to see it as one huge film.

But while Captain America the superhero may be a little full, Steve Rogers isn't. Seeing him transform from a skinny weakling who will get straight up after a beating to become a giant of a man over-awed by his new strength, is a great reason to finally root for the little guy. The nodding winks to the comic book nerds and the links to the other films provide lots to smile at, especially in Tony Stark's father Howard, who as well being an entertaining character, is played well by Dominic Cooper (though not the level of Robert Downey Jr.) who is an actor I've never really taken to in the past . And it's nice to finally have a strong love interest in Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) after the blandness of Natalie Portman in Thor. As well as the obvious attractiveness, Peggy is a character that can kick some arse as well. Overall, it's a worthy entry into the epic franchise, and a nice final character film before it all really kicks off.


Directed by: Joe Johnston
Starring: Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving, Dominic Cooper, Sebastian Stan, Toby Jones, Stanley Tucci, Samuel L. Jackson
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie