Captain America: Civil War

The contemporary superhero movie runs on surprises that aren’t really surprises, more like plot and character elements that have been teased such that we know what’s coming. It’s the seeing it happen, the experiencing of the inevitable, that’s supposed to thrill us. To extend the familiar rollercoaster ride metaphor, we can plainly see the coaster’s twists and turns from the ground, but taking the ride still thrills. This is what Marvel Studios is banking on.

Whereas some some superhero films have drawn on genuinely interesting comic book plots (“Batman Begins,” “Watchmen”), “Civil War” wraps some thin comic plotting in deli paper to give us a to-go order of what the public wants: superheroes punching superheroes.

Continuing the recent trend of superheroes feeling crummy about all the destruction they’ve caused in the prior film, Captain America (Chris Evans) and the gang find themselves receiving public scrutiny. The Avengers, recall, are a ragtag group of superhumans who basically operate under their own authority and with the permission of their own good intentions. Cap, normally a smart fella, can’t seem to grasp why this might make folks uneasy.

But some members of the squad get it. Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) wants to sign a document that will put The Avengers under the control of the U.N. Cap says “The safest hands are still our own.” Thus two factions form. The film seems to exist in a universe where the United Nations functions as a kind of global government that speaks with one voice, immediately, and without bureaucracy.

Daniel Brühl plays the villain, Helmut Zemo, a Sokovian national who hates The Avengers because they decimated his nation. Brühl is excellent in a role that’s written to maximize his humanity (in a running motif he speaks solemnly to his wife and child on the phone). His grudge against The Avengers is understandable. The superhero crisis-of-conscience motif lends itself to a sympathetic villain who, in a sense, has a better argument than the hero.

Once sides are drawn, one realizes that it doesn’t matter who is on what side. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) sides with Iron Man, Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) with Cap. The other lesser superheroes get recruited onto their respective sides like a fourth-grade dodgeball game. Tony Stark makes a trip to Queens to recruit an underage Spider-Man (Tom Holland) under the pretense of awarding the young Peter Parker a grant. (Aunt May, played controversially by Marisa Tomei, has only a few lines, including the post-credits cookie, which reminds us that “Spider-Man will return.”) Why would the world’s foremost weapons innovator need the help of a reluctant superhero who has only been slinging webs for six months? Because everyone loves Spider-Man. Also early expositional dialogue lets us know that no one knows the whereabouts of Hulk and Thor.

Directors Joe and Anthony Russo show tremendous sensitivity to character and the various personality conflicts among superheroes that makes these films funny (funnier in the hands of Joss Whedon, but the Russos prove good mimics of Whedon’s wit). The film is most like a film when it takes the time to revel in a moment of character-based humor or wit. When seated in a car, for example, the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) asks Falcon, whom he dislikes, if he could move his seat up. Falcon dryly says “Nnnope.” The brief gag underscores their distaste for one another while highlighting their established personalities. As with every such small detail, “Civil War” has the feel of a film that conducted a focus group inside the men’s room at Comic-Con.

There’s a magic ratio of fidelity to the comics against liberties taking that, when achieved, will be met with applause from comics fans. The Russos may have cracked that code better than any Marvel film to date. Which may be why “Civil War,” for all its humor and breakneck bombast, feels more pointless than its predecessors.

“Captain America: Civil War” — TWO STARS

Directed by Joe Russo and Anthony Russo. Rated PG-13. Marvel Studios. 147 min.

Chef

“Chef” is that rare movie that is overlong, bloated with too many characters, and has a meandering plot, yet still manages to evince just enough charm to win me over.

In other words, it is a movie directed by John Favreau.

Favreau, who has been directing since the late 1990s, isn’t always on his game. His lesser films take the wrong kind of chances and fail to observe the difference between form and formula. Favreau’s better efforts, which tend to be smaller projects, combine an offbeat indie sensibility with good old American earnestness. Movies like “Made” and “Elf” aren’t trying to save the world (for that, see “Iron Man”). They’re just modest little stories.

“Chef” belongs to this category. Like its main character, Chef Carl Casper (Favreau), the movie is overzealous in its ingredients and presentation. But that zeal comes from a sincere place.

Carl’s story is largely uneventful by Hollywood standards: a chef quits his kitchen in a huff and runs off to open a food truck. It is a story about passionate exploration of one’s (a)vocation and soul searching that leads to Carl being a better guy.

It’s not a boring story. But audiences will react like someone who’s been served tiny portions at a gourmet restaurant — “Is that all there is?”

The overabundance of side characters comes in the form of a cavalcade of cameos, including Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey Jr., and Dustin Hoffman. These characters at times distract from the central story, but it’s not stunt casting. Each is well suited to the role.

What works in “Chef” is, indeed, that it is earnest. The sentimentality, the themes of personal growth and appreciating relationships — Favreau seems to mean it.

The film’s messiness is likely borne of this sincerity. The pacing is near-awful, the action slow, and the character study not as studious as it aims to be.

The “food porn” aspect of “Chef” that has been much commented upon is indeed a pleasure, if you’re into that sort of thing. However the real treats come as sideline attractions — John Leguizamo’s kinetic portrayal of Carl’s sous-chef, the candy-coated cinematography that is surprisingly beautiful. Even Favreau’s own performance is as good as he’s been anywhere else.

A great critic once said that he didn’t mind stupid movies so long as they were the right kind of stupid. “Chef” is the right kind of stupid — Spielberg’s stupid, stupidly optimistic but not naive. And watchable.

“Chef” — THREE STARS

Directed by John Favreau. Rated R. Open Road Films, Aldamisa Entertainment. 114 min.

Lucy

Imagine a movie star so pretty that her films are constructed as mere excuses for us to be able to stare at her.

Scarlett Johansson even has a Marilyn-like hairdo in “Lucy,” the new sci-fi romp from writer-director Luc Besson.

Unlike Johansson’s triumph of earlier this year, “Under the Skin,” “Lucy” is a bundle of unbridled energy in service of ideas that are incoherent.

Johansson’s title character is a good-time girl who finds herself conscripted by her ne’er-do-well boyfriend into delivering a mysterious briefcase to a mysterious man. She is then further conscripted into being a drug mule whose cargo is an extremely psychoactive substance. When large quantities of the drug get into her bloodstream, she becomes superhuman. Amid all this, Besson’s breathless, heavy-handed direction is as laughable as the story.

Lucy’s motivations throughout the film are unclear. Is she out for revenge? To save humanity? To help the French authorities nab a drug kingpin? Besson doesn’t care. Like the science, the storytelling is junk.

The action sequences are at times thrilling, but mostly they are dull. Lucy struts through dangerous situation after dangerous situation, which would be exciting if we didn’t already know she is invincible. The drug has given her such a high cognitive capacity that she becomes a combination of Neo, Carrie White, and The Man With No Name.

If only Lucy were as fascinating as those characters.

Morgan Freeman sleepwalks through another Old Man Gravitas role as a professor who is hip to Lucy’s superpowers. Freeman, whose best work shows immense charm and vitality, isn’t exactly a firecracker here. And with Johansson doing a pithy monotone most of the film, the audience doesn’t have any interesting personalities to watch.

A film as inane and boring as “Lucy” might be watchable if it explored its premise in a more interesting way and with a hero that had some, you know, vulnerabilities.

Why, for example, does Lucy have to become a member of the X-Men in order for the story to be worth telling?

It would have been more interesting simply to make Lucy super smart rather than superhuman — think more MacGyver than Magneto. Then, she could outsmart her foes, and, if her foes are smart, they might have a shot at outsmarting her. It’s more exciting to watch a character get by on her wits than it is to watch her walk up to bad guys and paralyze them with her mind.

In Besson’s film, though, the bad guys never had a chance. They keep firing bullets at Lucy even after she’s demonstrated that she cannot be harmed by conventional weapons.

Guys, you just saw her kill the Crazy 88 with her brain. That Glock nine-millimeter probably isn’t going to do much.

For a film about the human brain’s capacity, the humans in “Lucy” don’t seem to learn very much. The audience won’t either.

“Lucy” — ONE STAR

Directed by Luc Besson. Rated R. Europa Corp and Universal Pictures. 90 min.

Under the Skin

Jonathan Glazer fielded questions after a recent screening. “We just dropped Scarlett [Johansson] into Scotland and filmed her,” he said.

Glazer’s third film, the brilliant “Under the Skin,” is a fresh variation on the old Mars-needs-women story. Johansson is outstanding as an alien in disguise who lures men into her van for otherworldly purposes. In addition to actors playing scripted scenes, Glazer filmed Johansson’s real-life interactions with random Scotsmen, who rarely recognized the star. Small GoPro HD cameras were installed inside the van.

The result is a singular achievement of hard sci-fi. Glazer, who previously directed “Sexy Beast” and “Birth,” contrasts the rainy hills of contemporary Scotland with the psychedelic, dreamlike environs of the alien’s lair. Both a sci-fi and a horror film, “Under the Skin” eschews the usual tropes.

Even the way the film is shot refuses to reach for the Hollywood cookie cutter. In a harrowing scene that takes place on a rocky beach, imperiled characters fighting furious waves are shot at a distance, with Kubrickian detachment. A Jason Bourne film would shoot this with constant shaky-cam silliness and quick-cut editing. Glazer demonstrates how there’s nothing scarier than a camera sitting dead-still on a tripod.

The beach scene is one of no fewer than three scenes that are so disturbing and well directed they feel made by an advanced alien race. Glazer balances the stunning visual effects work with the needs of his slowly unfurling story. The visuals are spectacular without ever becoming mere spectacle.

The inspired direction succeeds on the back of Johannson. This is her best performance to date. Though only 29, she’s been a movie star a long time. Here Johansson demonstrates new depth and, for the first time, the poise of a veteran screen star who knows what powers her face carries even when expressionless.

What separates “Under the Skin” from, say, the “Species” franchise is an air of mystery. Michel Faber’s source novel answers some of the questions left hanging by the film. Why is this alien doing this? What’s her backstory? What does she think about?

Glazer says such answers were not as interesting as the questions. Moreover, I would say, the dangling questions make for a better story in the hands of a good director. In “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Kubrick doesn’t bother to explain things Arthur C. Clarke made explicit in the novel. Nothing makes the mind reel faster than imagining what the answers might be.

Thus this film opens itself to endless interpretation. It’s the old “what does it mean to be human” story. It’s a statement on feminism. On the objectification of celebrities. On the banality of human existence. On the allure of human existence. Zizek will have a field day.

“Under the Skin” asks us to consider questions without insisting upon answers. It’s also genuinely disturbing and fascinating along the way. Thus it stands tall next to the bulk of Hollywood genre pictures, which have long been pickled in their own vacuousness.

“Under the Skin” — FOUR STARS

Directed by Jonathan Glazer. Rated R. Studio Canal. 108 min.