How to Horror: Entrance and Sinister (Reviews)

    For anyone who knows me, [REC] has become a common staple of my vocabulary. When I saw that little Spanish horror film it opened my eyes. I hadn't been that scared since I was 7 and saw The Exorcist with my entire VERY Catholic family. THAT was terror.

    But for years after seeing The Exorcist, no film managed to frighten me. The Ring was engrossing, Cloverfield and Blair Witch were thrilling, and the Sixth Sense pulled the rug out from under the audience, but none of them were scary.

    Books were scary. Stephen King and Edgar Allen Poe and HP Lovecraft. I ate these up and watched Guillermo Del Toro create the monsters of old in the films of now, all the while wondering what happened to horror in cinema.

Nosferatu begins with a man welcomed into a Castle during a storm.

Comfort is key.

    Where [REC] got me was the long drawn-out opening, a late night report that has the same passing as Nightly News. A small crawl without a hint of danger. Too few horror filmmakers realize that the reason King and Poe and Lovecraft hooked us was the reality and weight of the situation. They felt real. And in that, familiar, and therefore comforting. It wasn't until the final pages that Poe and King and Lovecraft all brought out the madness and delusion and Rats in the Walls that stuck in your mind.

    So I was perfectly fine watching Entrance, a 2011 indie film from Los Angeles that spends 60 minutes of its 80 minute runtime on dialogue.

Dialogue.

Inane, boring talks.

   Wait wait wait, you're recommending a movie that's BORING for an entire HOUR?

Yes.

   I've read often on the internet that Entrance would benefit from a massive trimming, turning it into a 30 minute short film, 10minutes of dialogue, and the last 20 minutes of the film intact.

But that doesn't work.

    Entrance's last 20 minutes work so well BECAUSE you just watched 60 minutes of boring LA twenty something life. These characters, by all means, are normal people that you've probably met and talked to. So when things go south, they go VERY south.

    Entrance thematically analyzes isolation, specifically isolation in a major city. And to say that NOTHING happens in the first 60 minutes would be an understatement. The isolation builds, and creates so much dread and tension that you wonder WHEN the characters will die. But the film holds off. It makes you wait. Leaves you comfortable.

    On the more mainstream screen, Sinister is going to be the biggest horror film of this year. At least, I'm hoping it will be. Because it realizes that comfort is crucial.

    Our protagonist in Sinister has a family. In fact, Ellison has a nice family and the opening move to a small town benefits them. It's the obsession that doesn't. And obsession is as scary a film as isolation.

    Both Sinister and Entrance posit that you aren't safe anywhere. Not alone, not with your family, not in a big city, not in a small town. But they hold off their scares until the audience AND the characters feel safe.

   Both also have a luscious direction and cinematography that only aids in the tension and build up. Entrance feels like an indie drama for the first 60 minutes, and then in the last 20 minutes has a ONE SHOT take of terror. Sinister's score and camera and cinematography rises and falls as Ellison uncovers more and more.

Style and comfort and scary ideas.

Worth your time and money? Yes, very much so. If you have the patience to watch a very indie, very slow LA film, Entrance is right there. If you ache to watch a mainstream horror that actually scares, Sinister is your bag. If you watch both, you'll have a night of wonderful dreams for sure.

Homecoming Week

    There's a sort of magic that comes with Texas High School Football. And it's difficult to describe if you don't experience it for yourself. It's a total subculture that fascinates me, and I can only imagine it fascinated those involved in Friday Night Lights and the likes of Texas Football epics.

Homecoming Week, until the Playoffs, is the epitome of High School Football in Texas. An entire week devoted to this team and this game and this Friday Night. Then there's a dance.

It's a nice ritual, lighthearted even, because even if the team loses, the dance always cheers everyone up.

Homecoming dance is Prom's crazy cousin. Shows up early, dances crazier, dresses more casual, and makes every one laugh.

Here's to Homecoming Week!

The Race for College Admissions

Well not so much a race, as much as a colosseum of cats, clawing and hissing at each other.

Let's admit it. It's September! The cool kids are talking and thinking about Homecoming or football, THEY are the lions, and WE, are the kittens.

The kids who are taking and retaking both the ACT and SAT so that we can apply Early Decision to Ivy Leagues.

The kids who are pestering counselors about school forms while they're trying to fix first semester schedules.

The lions are getting high and getting drunk, and the kittens are staying up until 1am on eprep dot com. For real. I have done it.

And meanwhile, us kitten are few in litter at our own school, but reading College Confidential, we find the cougars. The kittens who started way earlier then us. We scored 30's on the ACT and they scored 36.

The lions could beat up the cougars, but the cougars could outwit the lions. And us kittens can't do anything to anyone.

And now, the lot of us are placed in a mad dash to submit everything before November 1st, when College Admissions will seal our fates as we quiver in fear of December 15th's notification date.

The lions will hang back and apply regular decision in January, the Cougars will cross the finish line, and the kittens will jump in and hope to scrape by.

Here's to all the kittens, racing toward Early Admission.

This was a bad metaphor and I apologize.......

The Influence of Teachers

    Teaching seems like a difficult line of work to pursue if only for the loss of momentum. I've been Chief Student Aid for the English Department at my High School for more than 2 years now, and I have seem some terrible classes treat teachers in ways that make me sick.
 
    But I've also seen teachers respect their students and seen the students return that respect. It's in those instances that I see the faculty smile and glow in what I'm sure is always their end goal.

    Teachers have a ton of influence on students. So today, was a bit disheartening.

    "I have news for you, folks. Boeing does not build engines that fall off."
     Sitting in my Economics class on September 11th, the board reads "3 major economic questions..." But the topic never comes up. Mr Hainer, our professor, asks the class where we were on that tragic American day when New York, and all of America, trembled. The stories overflow lachrymose or jovial, but honestly, it's mostly accounts of what we saw in our parents and family that day.
    We were all too young, 6 or 7, and none of us were in New York, so we're afforded a sort of safety blanket to what resounds as a horror story for Americans world wide or a lead-in into jingoism. Suffice to say that when its Mr. Hainer's turn, his story bears much more gravitas. He's lecturing to impressionable teenagers now, but back then, when the towers still stood, he was working in DC. He recounts 1977, his first visit to the World Trade Center, watching the two river flow through New York as a clear sky rolled over the Twin Towers. He recalls taking his daughters there. He also recalls September 11th, 2001, when he stood outside the pentagon, smoking a cigarette on his break, and seeing two fighter jets shoot past him.
    "The story of United 93," he tells us, "is a fairy tale." The plane went down but, by Mr Hainer's account, it "had help going down. Engines don't just fall off. They get shot off." Usually in this class I appreciate his conservative ideals as a breath of fresh air from all the "liberals" and self-proclaimed "hipsters," but today it bothers me, that what he's saying is snaking its way into my classmates' minds and nestling in there as fact.
    Before, he's told us things like: "Capitalism is a synonym for freedom," and "Wall Street brokers work as hard as anyone else!" But today it feels like more than Right Wing Thought. To debase our journalistic institutions, which I admit, are far from perfect, and imply that not one person out there knows the truth.
    Because in moments like this one, I really wonder if teachers are aware of their impact on students. Does Mr. Hainer know that all the kids in my class left certain that United 93 was shot down by our own military? Not to mention that he specifically told us this was a media cover up perpetuated by our "incompetent" journalists. I don't know much about missiles or aircrafts, but I don't think two fighter jets could shoot down a 757 and know that it wouldn't hit somewhere crucial or drop dangerous debris all over DC.

But anyway.

Teachers matter. And I think sometimes they need to be reminded.

Web Series

     I've been watching The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and Girls and Breaking Bad and Squaresville and because my last short film was such rousing success, (I, myself, don't even know if I'm being sarcastic) I have decided to write a web series entitled "Youth." 

     I registered the youtube account and everything, even though right now it's just a story on paper. The problem with a Web Series is that I can not do it myself. I'd need a cast, and one that could constantly be available for filming. This is a problem because my friends are High Schoolers and all of us are in a bunch of extracurricular so where do we find time. And I can't cast actual actors because they'd want to get paid.

So

what is there to do.

How Cities Are Our Partners In Crime

 
      Sometimes your girlfriends are too far away or too busy for a sleepover and your bros are too lazy or sleepy to get off their couches, and in those times, we turn to our windows. Whenever you pick a job or an apartment or maybe even a restaurant, the view outside is most often a heavy factor. Usually after "smell" and definitely as important as "How much A/C in here/does it get too hot?" Of course the view is no where near as important as "Will Ryan Gosling or Neil Patrick Harris walk by here," but few things are. Needless to say, we love our cities. Our towns. Our communities. In those times when you feel just a bit too alone for your own comfort, looking out toward an electrifying skyline or perfectly placed clouds reminds you that everything's okay, if only just for a little while.

     Woody Allen and countless romantic comedies have made us fall in love with New York. The Rockefeller ice rink, the coffee houses, rooftops where you can rendezvous unbothered and uninterrupted. Truth is,  each of us yearn for this sort of oasis, and actively seek it out when we choose where to live. Maybe you grew up watching 90210 or The O.C and now you crave a coastal city. Or maybe you read Anne of Green Gables and wish for rolling hills. Or maybe Neil Gaiman and Doctor Who and the Olympics have you orbiting towards London. WHATEVER THE CASE MAY BE, we're searching for a latitude and longitude that will become a friend. One that will stay where we need them and hug us with its stars each night. 

     When family or friends live out of town and they come visit you, there's a sort of power that comes with knowing all the good restaurants and street routes. It isn't unlike introducing them to your new roommate. "Oh hi, Mom! Hi, Dad! Have you met my friend New York City? Yeah, she's the one I'm always talking about!" You know your city well, and you're proud to show it off, good Italian food and all! 

     How you discovered those routes and those restaurants will be stories in and of themselves. Adventures tucked away inside your memory vaults for when you need cheering up or a nice anecdote at a party. Your first days, lost among the gibberish street names. Your intimate nights, driving down now natural roads, finding the hotspot to blast music or grab midnight snacks. And then you're acquainted. You'll spend the rest of your time sharing experiences with your city. Loving it for certain blocks of paradise, and getting grumpy with it for certain bumpy roads and uneven sidewalks. But you'll get home, after long days of work, and even if your whole life has been flipped upside down by personal turmoil, and even if your favorite store got renovated, the city stays pretty much the same. Just like you. Altered in tiny bits, but pretty much the same.

     Therein lies the comfort. Sitting on your couch with your bowl of cereal, you can look out your window and see the same friendly buildings.

     "Thanks for being here when I need you."

     And the next day, with the Sun filling your window and lighting the view, it will be there still, to greet you good morning.

Summer Art Spree

  As pretentious as it might sound, I don't think it's enough to CREATE art, you've got to share it. Even if it's a short story or a diary entry you're embarrassed of. A doodle in your notebook or a gem of a quote you thought of. Not enough to make magic, you've got to put it to use.

  In a way, I think that's why I love quotes. They're little snippets of art and wisdom usually summed up in a sentence or two. This helps in the remembering. Unless you're me, with chalk on a sidewalk, and can't recall one good quote to save your life. If you're me, you'll remember the quotes as soon as you get home and the chalk is out of your hands and the sidewalk resting miles away.

  Quotes are like slices of an elaborate wedding cake: easy to hand out and always delicious. But the masterpiece from which the quote was born is the entirety of the cake: layered, gorgeous, and intricate.

  I'm never seen anyone over the age of 35 writing on a sidewalk with chalk and I hope that changes soon. More people need to share art. Lend your friend an album, a book, watch movies with them, share quotes and stories and then write them on the sidewalk for all to see.

  We live in a world of roughly 7 Billion people. For world peace to even be fathomable, we've got to not only BE happy, we've got to share it with our neighbors.

The Amazing Spider-Man (Review)

This is how a Spider-Man film was meant to be. The casting is perfect and the director, Marc Webb (who also directed 500 Days of Summer), could not be more spot-on in Spidey's High-School-Nerd-Turned-Superhero tale. Seriously, I am giddy for this film to exist and can not wait for everyone to watch it.

  Take it as my opinion- reviews are, after all, not much more -but as an avid comic reader and someone who has never left the Spider-Man fan bandwagon, even when The Avengers and Batman where so much more popular, I I know my stuff. And so does this film. It's not perfect, but it's pretty, emotionally sound, and best of all: funny.

  My main problem with the original trilogy- starring Tobey Maguire, James Franco and Kristen Dunst -cemented in that not only did the actors not LOOK like High School students, they didn't really ACT like them either. The Amazing Spider-Man fixes that problem from the get go. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone- who still look too old to be in High School, but I'll excuse that -behave just like any teenagers would. When he first gets his powers, Peter has WAY too much fun covering criminals in artificial webbing, cracking witty one-liners all the way. Gwen and Peter seem like the couple everyone in High School wants to be, and their mushy-gushy glances into each other's eyes are highly believable. Not surprisingly, Andrew and Emma are a real-life couple. Good for them. When the film ends their relationship is as much a dynamic duo as any superhero team and no one misses Mary Jane, because Gwen was the original, and she's the main reason Spidey loves being Spidey. This film has that on lock.

   What it DOESN'T have on lock is the villain. My favorite Spider-Man film before this one was Spider-Man 2 (2004), where Alfred Molina portrayed Doctor Octopus. MJ and Peter were out of High School so I could buy them as people, Aunt May was given depth, and Doc Ock was a family man before he was a villain. That's a very important aspect to the Spidey story: Family is everything. Peter lost his parents, and later his Uncle, and in the end, taking care of people is all he really wants to do. So it helps when the Villain is someone more than just a MONSTER out for his own gain, but a troubled soul like Peter. In this film Lizard never gets the detail that we got with Doc Ock. Yes, they give us a back-story as to his relation with Peter's Father and his whole Arm Trauma, but it doesn't really matter because we KNOW he's the Villain and we couldn't care less how Gwen and Spidey handle him.

  Which is a shame because that's where this film shines above the Tobey Maguire-Sam Raimi trilogy: There's detail. More emphasis on human relation, less emphasis on Comic Book Special Effects. And Spider-Man is funny! Why he wasn't funny in the Tobey films is beyond me. Spidey's a teenager with superpowers, of course he's going to be cocky, and show offy, and pull out one-liners. That's what I love about this film. It gets Spider-Man.

   It premieres next Tuesday, July 3rd or Midnight-Monday for all you Teenagers who love Midnight Premieres. Go watch it, you owe it to Spidey.

  Worth Your Time and Money?: Yes. As funny and fun as The Avengers, with maybe not as MANY actors and thrills, but just enough to make it the best Spider-Man film yet. 

We Do This For Fun

    As much as we try to kid ourselves, saying we love Melville and Godard and Bergman, we didn't start loving Films because they are dark, or haunting, or provocative. 
    We got into them because they are fun.

The Good Films of 2011

Good movies in 2011: 

Drive Angry 
Drive 
Tyrannosaur 
Thor 
The King's Speech 
Hanna 
Fast Five 
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo 
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 
Hugo 
50/50 
The Iron Lady 
Rango 
Bridesmaids 
Hobo With A Shotgun 
The Tree of Life 
X-Men: First Class 
Rise of the Planet of the Apes 
Attack the Block 
Super 8 
The Muppets 
The Artist 
Shame 
Fright Night 
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark 
Moneyball 
The Skin I Live In 
Young Adult 
Captain America 
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol 

Summer Reading or The Best Sort of Discipline

     I just finished reading Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens.

Read it. It's fantastic and magical.

   One of my favorite bits about Summer is how it affords you time to do anything you'd like to. Sleep, read, eat a ton, sleep more, catch up on movies and television programs.
 
   But you can't just do it all Flotsam and Jetsam. The rewarding bit is when you tell yourself you'll work out every day, or read 4 books a month, and you ACTUALLY DO IT! That's when Summer is at its best, in my opinion. Doing the things you WANT to, and actually holding yourself to it.

Shame or Ineffable Pangs of Desire

   I saw this film with my Father, and while I had expected awkward tension (this film was basically hyped by the internet as "LOTS OF SEX SCENES AND MICHAEL FASSBENER'S PENIS: THE FILM"), the mutual viewing resulted in great inner dialogue with myself.

  My father didn't like the film, acknowledging the performances and cinematography as great, but said the "plot had no point" and I found that very sad. Excuse me while I try to work out exactly why that is in just one blog post.

  If you don't already know, the film features Michael Fassbender in the role of a sex addict. In my adolescents I've met plenty horny teenagers and read Judy Blume often, but it wasn't until I delved into Bret Easton Ellis, Jeffrey Eugenides, Chuck Palahniuk, and Jay McInerney that the subject of Sexual Obsession really dawned on me. There existed people who weren't only interested or amused by sex, as my classmates were, but were practically consumed by it. I didn't know these people, but they fascinated me.

  So when I heard that Steve McQueen (a director who is blazing a prominent path in Film) was teaming up with Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan to create a film on the subject to say I was giddy would not be an exaggeration.


  The magic comes from the same seed as "Requiem for a Dream", "Lost in Translation", and "Blue Valentine". These films are concerned with showing sex or drugs or HUMAN EMOTION or maybe all three and they plan on doing it honestly. Isn't that wonderful? 


  Sometimes you just want something deeper than standard Hollywood popcorn fair. 


  What that means is no quick cuts, no snappy one liners, and a camera that maybe doesn't move much. A quiet soundtrack. Films that play like recollections of life, rather than fantasies of the imagination. There IS a point to the plot, and it rests in the emotions and ambitions of the siblings, in the feelings they can't express and wish they could. 


  But enough of that. Watch if for yourself, and get back to me. 

AM I Doing Summer Right? or What It Feels Like To Never Go To Parties

   A few years ago, as a High School freshman, I made a huge mistake. I started telling my parents everything. Ever since then, I have CONTINUED to be honest and open on what I'm thinking or feeling or doing, and I can't help but feel like this was a very poor decision on my part.

   Now, my only reference for ways of dealing with parents are television, movies, books, and my friends. None of which have been helpful. TV, Film, Lit., all of those contain conflicting views and opinions and would be silly for me to base myself off of anyway. My friends take the polar opposite of an approach to parents, when compared to me. They don't tell them ANYTHING.

  Wait wait, what does this have to do with doing summer right? Well I'm 17 and I've never gotten drunk or high and it seems to me that those are two things very crucial to teenage summers.

  But I could never just GO to a party, come back, and lie to my parents. I mean, I could, but I would suck at it.

  Oh wellllllllll.

Also!

    "The Strokes- Is This It?" reminds me of Junior High crushes.

I don't know why.

The Way Summer Should Be or Why I Write This Blog

   Those two things in the title may not seem related but they most definitely are.
   1) I have never once felt like I did summer "right". I have always felt like I royally sucked at summer-ing it up.
   2) I never feel like I'm "writing" right, either. My writing sounds like my talking and I can't decipher if that's a good thing or a crutch or WHAT.
   So anyway, here I am writing a blog that no one reads.
   HELLO, NO ONE, HOW ARE YOU TODAY?

   And No one will respond.

   But this Summer I've decided to not CARE. I'm not itching to go out with friends, nor am I planting myself in my bed. I just AM. Whatever comes to mind, I do. And well, that's my writing. I'm not subscribing to rules anymore, I just AM.
  I started this Blog as a way to write reviews and organize my thoughts on Film, but I might as well use it to write ANYTHING and organize my thoughts on EVERYTHING.

  I'm really into capitalized letters today, huh?

  If you read this Blog I would like to talk to you. Leave me a comment. Email me. Whatevs. I'm not lonely, but neither are you. Both of us crave stimulation. If we didn't , we wouldn't be on blogspot.

  There's this mixtape that's a mashup of Neutral Milk Hotel and hip-hop, it's called In My G4 Over The Sea. I put it on my boombox, took the boombox outside, then played Soccer with my little brother for and hour.

   This is Summer. This is writing. Pedants can suck it.

I Am SHERlocked or Clever Television

  Because I'm not a resident in the magnificent United Kingdom, and I don't have BBC America, every year I patiently wait for PBS to broadcast the hits from across the pond, and I'm never disappointed. Whether it's Hamlet with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart, Downton Abbey, or Moffat's Sherlock, I always come out of each episode mentally invigorated. No American Television programs achieve this level of intellect!
  Except Breaking Bad.
and Damages.
And Weeds.
And Community.
And Dexter.
And Friday Night Lights.
And Game of Thrones.
And Louie.
And... oh nevermind.
  I guess American Television can also hit the nail on the head, but why do so many watch the Kardashians or Dancing With the Stars? Don't get me wrong, I love my guilty pleasures [insert here any CW teen drama ever aired] but at least those have substantial writing, acting, and a dash of respect for its audience. I watch the shows I watch because even the good dramas make you chuckle and even the good comedies will make you cry. They are feats of art that air weekly and they leave you wanting more. The reality tv boom changed the game, and not for the better.
  What we're stuck with now is simple Turn-Off-Your-Brain programs, and that's a mentality I can not support. Not to mention that the only intellectual shows which survive are usually those on subscription based cable channels. HBO, Showtime, AMC. Place one of those shows on Network and they DIE. Freaks and Geeks
Community
Firefly
Dollhouse
Arrested Development.
  And yes, Arrested Development is coming back and Community got renewed, but AD is returning on Netflix (subscription) and Sony fired the creator/showrunner on Community in order to replace him with a more mainstream crew.
  What is this?!
  Why are we so adverse to intellectual, imaginative television?
  Why do generic police and medical dramas soar while breakthrough concepts drown?
  This is a call to action. Start thinking. Even when watching television. Brain stimulation isn't bad, it's good.
  Two and a Half Men is bad.
  That's the enemy.
  Generic, trite entertainment that refuses to innovate.
  Word.

This Film isn't FOR You

 
     It didn't begin recently, Georges Méliès and his contemporaries definitely knew that at its core Film would always be Art over Business, but big time studio Writers and Directors are really trying their hardest to turn out films that make us CONTEMPLATE. Or maybe just convince us we're working out brain while staring at the screen? 

Anyway, there are films that aren't exactly FUN to watch (such is the case with "Irreversible" by Gasper Noe, an incredibly difficult film to finish). Instead these films ask you to sit and EXPERIENCE a story, no matter how grisly, or honest, or tedious it may seem. 


The most difficult part about these films is where their audience lies. It seems to be somewhere between High School Film Buff and Pretentious Film Critics. Although, I guess those two are basically becoming one and the same.


I genuinely enjoy these movies. The slow, simmering drama or the fast cut mind melts that David Fincher has been trying to push onto Mainstream Audiences for the past 2 decades. The thing is. Not many people DO enjoy these films. So what does that mean? Should Films stop trying to be art? Because I honestly don't see audiences getting smarter anytime soon.


On that cue: Go see The Cabin in the Woods. It's smarter than most audiences and deserves to be seen.

The Avengers (Review)

  

      Do you remember when you were younger, sitting in the middle of who knows where, enthralled only by your action figures? Or do you remember countless hours spent imagining and creating worlds that never were, just so that you could be there? Jump there, live there? That was back when your imagination was on full blast. Now I want you to sit back and enjoy The Avengers, because it has a lot of imagination. It is every one of those Action-Figure-Make-Pretend Days, packed into 2 hours. I got to see this film at an advanced screening, about two weeks ago, and let me tell you, you are going to have FUN with this movie. 

  What the Cast and Crew have created in The Avengers is a continuous barrage of breathtaking visuals, rip-roaring sounds, and to-exclude-any-fluff, and Boatload of Bad-Assery. Seriously, guys, this movie is so cool. The Cast and Crew have managed to take a handful of heroes, an army of villains, and never once rush the pacing. The film never films cramped. Unlike Transformers, where it felt like there were too many robots and too many humans and the film felt generally WAY too long, clocking in at nearly 3 hours. But The Avengers feels just right. There is no heavy handedness, as all characters get great amounts of screentime- and by the way the casting is pitch perfect in this, each line and facial expression is so much like the character that I don't even DOUBT these are Gods and Millionaires, and Giant Green Rage Monsters. The Crew, lead by the extraordinary director Joss Whedon, give us some of the coolest Superhero Images in a long time, along with a soundtrack that never once drags or interrupts the action on screen.

  The biggest thing about The Avengers, is that it isn't The Dark Knight Rises. It isn't deep, and it isn't moody. It's just FUN. Lots of it. So many characters, so many bad ass moments (one scene in particular that I can't wait to discuss with friends), and so few flaws, I can't help but love it. I also can't wait to see what this means for Superhero Films. Are people getting tired of them yet? Will this and "The Dark Knight" and "The Amazing Spider-Man" make them want even MORE? In order to play Bruce Banner/The Hulk, Mark Ruffalo signed a Six-Film contract with Marvel. SIX FILMS. That's a lot of years and a lot of effort. Will people still care? 

You won't come out of this film contemplating existence, but you will want to take out bad guys and save the world. And in the end, that's the whole point of Superhero Films, right?

Worth Your Time and Money?: Yes. If you've ever liked big action blockbusters, or Superhero Films, this movie is going to hit all the right notes.