What audiences sensed, I think, is exactly what’s wrong with the movie itself and that’s the casting. While Daniel Craig impressed us in “Casino Royale” and especially “Layer Cake,” he just doesn’t register as the mysteriously dangerous stranger who shows up in a corrupt Western town. This isn’t necessarily a criticism of Craig. Bogart’s a legend, but not every legend looks comfortable wearing a cowboy hat. Craig does look the part, but what he is missing requires some explanation.

As The Man With No Name, Craig fails to register. The story really does rest on his ridiculously toned shoulders, and this is where things falter most and also where I’m about to get a little unfair. As much as I would like to, it’s impossible for me to separate my love and knowledge of film from what Hollywood’s producing today, and when it comes to this kind of “town” Western and this kind of character, Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone’s “Fistful of Dollars” (1964) is the standard. As is Eastwood in his own masterpiece “High Plains Drifter” (1973), and I would even include Bruce Willis in “Last Man Standing” (1996), Walter Hill’s imperfect but still memorable updated remake of “Dollars.”

The stranger has to carry a sense of mystery about him that’s both unspoken and intriguing. Without a word of exposition, we have to want to know who this guy is and what makes him tick. Is he the good guy? Is he the bad guy? Moreover, there has to be a sense of unpredictable danger — the sense that this man is capable of anything. Lastly, a wicked sense of humor doesn’t hurt.

Blame it on the script, director, or genre, but Craig’s lacking here. While the actor might look the part, he “felt” out of place (not in the right way) and the sense that he might be explosively dangerous never generated a tense anticipation… probably because the question is answered too soon in a contrived barroom brawl. In a better film, by the time Craig’s stranger finally shows us how capable he is, we should be on the edge of our seats dying for that moment to arrive. Instead, due to [insert action scene here], “Cowboys and Aliens” denies us that pleasure.

Another problem is Harrison Ford, who’s never successful when he’s not playing Harrison Ford. As the brutal patriarch who “runs the town,” Ford is obviously channeling “The Big Country”’s (1958) Charles Bickford, but it’s all very surface. Nothing about the Ford character’s ultimate “arc” surprised in the least.

The problems with Craig and Ford are what I think audiences intuitively understood, even if I didn’t. One of the key components of marketing a film is to put an actor the public likes in a situation they are dying to see him or her in (Willis vs. terrorists, Sandler vs. snobs), and moviegoers just weren’t excited by the idea of seeing those two in that setting — and, as it turns out, for good reason.

The aliens, however, are even worse. As the story’s antagonist, their motivation feels contrived, and the effect their presence might have in that time and place is never really explored. Moreover, they never feel like much of a threat. There’s hardly any tension when they’re on-screen, much less off.  There’s so much promise wasted in this area, I wouldn’t know where to begin.

Another problem is the script, which, as I said above, lacks tension but is also structured poorly. Flashbacks explaining Craig’s backstory never fail to kill what little momentum is building, mainly because we don’t care about the Craig character’s backstory.

As expected, Favreau directs the action well, and the special effects, especially in the early scenes, are top-notch. The climax, however, is the biggest letdown. If anything’s lacking from “Cowboys and Aliens,” it’s fun.

On home video, this mash-up of genres should play better than it did with the expectations that come with the theatrical experience, especially one that’s a summer tentpole. But this is what you call a one-off — something you probably won’t be interested in seeing again. If Hollywood wants to know why DVD sales have collapsed, “Cowboys and Aliens” is Exhibit #12,127.

Directed by Jon Favreau (the Iron Man films, Elf, Zathura) from a script by multiple hands, Cowboys & Aliens has plenty of energy and action and is quite enjoyable, but it suffers from a curious lack of interesting plot twists and a rather glaring casting misstep. Most classic Westerns, contrary to contemporary beliefs, were given excellent, complex plots with strong character motivations. Unfortunately, the plot of Cowboys & Aliens is relatively simple.

We know from the film’s title and trailers that aliens are going to attack in the Old West, and it’s axiomatic that once that happens, the earthlings will fight back. So, no surprises there. Once the Western-standard mysterious stranger Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) arrives in town, we know the aliens won’t be far behind. And once he poses a challenge to the rule of the Western-standard arrogant ranch king Col. Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), we know that the two will reconcile at some point in order to fight the aliens together.

The same is true of the choices made by Dolarhyde’s arrogant idiot son, Percy, Indian guide Nat Colorado (Adam Beach), and the tribe of Apache Indians who capture the small band of people fighting the aliens. Colorado is a likeable character, thanks to Beach’s understated performance and his character’s interesting and laudable longing to be a valued member of the society and in particular of Dolarhyde’s ranch team. Unfortunately, he’s not seen all that much.

The Apaches inject dramatic energy and an amusing element of political incorrectness in their savage, unruly celebration after capturing a group of white settlers. But none of them are given complex or particularly unusual characters. Of course, although classic Hollywood Westerns showed the Indians in a much more positive light than contemporary film historians acknowledge, they weren’t always given characters as complex as the protagonists’, just as is the case here. That’s natural to any story: the subsidiary characters aren’t explored as deeply as the main ones. And in Cowboys & Aliens, as in the best Westerns of Hollywood’s golden age, the Indians are shown making real, reasoned choices, which is a nice throwback to the classic Western approach.

Another plus is actor Walt Goggins, who is amusing as Hunt, one of the villains. Alas, he, too, doesn’t get nearly enough screen time to make a sufficient impact.

There’s one interesting plot twist involving mysterious lady Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde, Tron Legacy, Year One, House), but even that is obvious fairly early on, given her rather strange behavior.

Where this film most differs from the classic Hollywood Western is in the decision to cast two extremely stolid, unemotional actors to play the stoic and fairly formulaic main characters, Lonergan and Dolarhyde. Although they’ve both been successful as action heroes, neither Craig nor Ford conveys much personality these days, and as a result they sap some of the potential energy from the film.

When one considers the great Western actors of the past, what stands out is the personal touch each one brought to the genre—John Wayne’s humor, Jimmy Stewart’s emotional vulnerability, Randolph Scott’s grit and determination. (Clint Eastwood set the pattern for today’s taciturn, joyless Western hero/antihero.)

Likewise, the great villains of the past, such as Barton MacLane, Jack Palance, Walter Brennan (also one of the world’s greatest sidekicks), Eli Wallach, and Lee Marvin, brought a delightfully perverse joy to their villainy—it’s interesting to note how many of their memorable scenes show these characters smiling or even grinning as they do their evil deeds. The contemporary cliché is that nobody in the Wild West ever smiled. It’s silly, false, and dramatically limiting, and it’s a shame that Cowboys & Aliens doesn’t transcend that. Ford, in particular, doesn’t manage to inject much humanity into his character until the film nears its climax.

These are problems that prevent Cowboys & Aliens from reaching its full potential, but the film has a great deal going for it. It includes a good deal of Christian imagery, some of it overly obvious (beginning with the town’s name, Absolution) but laudable nonetheless, and the Christian theme of personal redemption is evident throughout the film. The latter is not a necessary choice of theme for a film about alien attacks, and hence it is to the filmmaker’s credit for including it. In addition the film includes a personal, Christlike sacrifice which is emotionally and thematically satisfying.

A further and perhaps even more effective Christian element is the presence of a fascinating and complex character: the local parson, Meacham. Superbly played by Clancy Brown, Parson Meacham is a clearly sincere and knowledgeable Christian, and he’s no sissy. He can handle a gun quite well, and he teaches one of the characters how to shoot. He even gets the drop on Lonergan when the latter first arrives in town. Meacham is a truly unusual character, and I would be happy to see an entire movie with him as the central character or the protagonist’s best friend. Unfortunately, for reasons I won’t reveal so as not to spoil the story for those who haven’t seen the film, Meacham, too, is not in many scenes and is given suitable prominence in even fewer.

Also, as the historical/fantasy novelist Lars Walker has observed, the filmmakers make a very important choice in treating the story seriously, and not tarting it up with irony. Had they done the latter, audience involvement would have been undermined radically, perhaps fatally.

Like the great Westerns of the past, Cowboys & Aliens has some highly interesting characters in subsidiary roles—Meacham, Hunt, and Colorado. Where it differs from the classics is in the central characters, who are less engaging than they should be. Personally, I would have liked to see much more from such smartly drawn and well-acted characters—but of course that would leave much less time for the sci-fi elements. All of this suggests that I would rather watch a classic Western than a modern sci-fi film. I confess: mea maxima culpa.

So don’t get me wrong: Cowboys & Aliens is quite enjoyable and diverting, and its themes are praiseworthy. It’s rather boldly Christian and politically incorrect at times, which I appreciate. It could have been more interesting and insightful into the human condition, but these saving graces make it a worthwhile summer popcorn film.

But, boy, when is Hollywood going to remember how to make a real Western?

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“Cowboys” begins with a befuddled outlaw named Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) waking up in the middle of the desert with a strange mechanical bracelet attached to his arm. Lonergan doesn’t remember who he is or where the bracelet came from but he does remember how to defend himself, which he does when a group of cowboys surrounds him. Eventually, he heads into a local town where some of the townspeople remember Lonergan and his criminal past.  Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), whose gold was stolen by Lonergan,  arrives in town shortly after Lonergan is arrested.  While Lonergan and Dolarhyde’’s rebellious son Percy (Paul Dano) are preparing to be transferred to another prison, aliens attack the town and kidnap some of its people. The story then revolves around the cowboys and their efforts to fight against the extraterrestrials.

Jon Favreau, who previously directed the first two “Iron Man” films, is smart enough to focus this film solidly in one genre before switching gears. Before the aliens attack, “Cowboys” works as a typical Western and could have succeeded as one. The characters are well-drawn and both Ford, whose gruffness reminded me of his work in last year’s “Morning Glory,” and tough-guy Craig were well-chosen leads. The strong supporting cast includes Sam Rockwell, as a man whose wife is abducted, and the underused Dano, who was so memorable in 2007’s “There Will Be Blood.”

“Cowboys” doesn’t live up to “Iron Man,” but it’s a fun summer movie nonetheless. Favreau’s enjoyment of the concept becomes clear through some of  the distinct visuals that make this adventure stand out.  It isn’t every day that viewers can watch a group of cowboys climb onto an alien spacecraft in the middle of the desert or shoot at spaceships with old-fashioned weapons.

The plot, concerning the cowboys forming alliances with other locals and preparing for a big showdown with the aliens leaves a little something to be desired. With such an exciting concept behind the film, a stronger story could have propelled this film from being a solid film into something better but “Cowboys & Aliens” settles for what it is.

Oftentimes, “Cowboys” feels more driven by the concept behind it than by its own plot but the concept is strong enough to make it worth seeing. Favreau blends the two genres well, creating a strong setting for a typical Western and then adding aliens into it. Like the concept, the action scenes work well but don’t overwhelm the characters or the story. “Cowboys” may have some flaws but it’s a fun summer movie nevertheless and is definitely worth seeing.

When you discover you just spent more than $10 to see pretty much the worst movie EVER made, can anything give you comfort?
I didn’t think so … especially when my mind started wandering about 15 minutes into ‘Cowboys and Aliens’ and the thrill of seeing Daniel Craig in chaps had worn off …

Then, I had one of those moments. It was the moment I realized that greatness could arise from the ashes of a ridiculously dumb movie plot … the hope came in the person of Harrison Ford.

Because seriously, no matter how old he gets, Harrison Ford can still work it …(kinda like Sean Connery … always sexy) … But a bad movie is still a bad movie … so, I slipped into stupid-movie, nap mode … then … it happened AGAIN. …

This ridiculously asinine excuse for a movie (thank you, Stephan Spielberg) about aliens stealing town folk from an old west mining town to ‘see how they tick’ so they could annihilate the human race, started to become a perfectly normal paradigm of how the left is infiltrating every aspect of our lives. And in case you hadn’t figured it out yet … the left are the aliens and us red-blooded conservatives are the cowboys.

Basically, in the sandstone hills and mountains of what looks like Texas or New Mexico, the aliens have imbedded this colossally large space ship underground and it sticks up out of the ground like a tower (and totally doesn’t blend in, btw).

The aliens, on occasion, swoop into town in their metal spaceships and throw out these rope lassos from the sky and round up people, pulling them bungee cord style behind their spaceships.

Once aboard the mothership, the townspeople are forced to stare into the light for some sort of brainwashing before being dissected by the brutally disgusting aliens whose hands come out of their chests in this terriblby grotesque manner.

Amidst the squishy alien sound effects and sound of ripping flesh, I saw our youth – being plucked from our ranks and mesmerized/glamorized by the left and removed from rational thought and clarity. Our future hope is snatched up and indoctrinated into a culture hating what’s good and right.

And we are just sitting by, watching because we, like the cowboys in this movie, don’t know what the hell hit us and we’re not equipped with our 6-shooters and spurs to fight the flying saucers swooping down. Our arsenal is outdated and ill-prepared.

Wives, children, friends and family – people we love and trust — are being taken from our ranks because we aren’t ready to fight the battle and can’t refute the argument of the left effectively! We can possibly spout off a few Constitutional issues or even make them agree with us on a few of Obama’s faults, but we can not hold a conversation compelling enough to actually sway opinion. Therefore, the glitz and glamour of the left, coupled with the joyless, greedy cartoonish picture the left paints of us wins out almost every single time.

But thanks to Hollywood, even really crappy movies have good guys (and what I thought were really classy actors) … Step in, Daniel Craig. Craig’s character somehow escapes the alien dissection fate at the beginning of the movie, and he awakens in a dessert with a weird bracelet on his arm. He also has amnesia … and he teams up with Harrison Ford, whose son was also snatched, to try to figure out how to kick some major alien ass.

Through a fun ‘sipping of the Kool-Aid’ party with the Native Americans in the area (who also have had snatchings), Craig’s eyes are open to his past trauma and his love interest in the movie (Olivia Wilde) who dies earlier, is reborn, stepping NAKED out of a fire to once again join the good fight (yes … a sort of ‘savior’ thing going on here …sans clothes, to keep the men movie goers interested .. because seriously … this movie is bad …)

So what is our Kool-Aid, fellow conservatives? Come on, I know you’re wondering … I say it is truth, education and engagement. We don’t need peyote or ‘shrooms to make people see the light – we just need voices. We need courage and most of all we need to find our audience, engage it and keep it.

I’ve said before it’s really easy for us to continually preach to each other. But to actually get out there and make a stand for what we know to be right, in the middle of those who are already engaged and enraged, is a totally different story.

This is not a friendly business we’re talking about. We are going up against a contingent that’s mad as hell – AT US – for all the wrong reasons and they’ve been lied to. And while we are the victims of this, we have to take the offensive stance and step out of the victim zone to win this battle and win back support.

We have our email groups and we have our publications – our communities — we turn to in order to make sure we can all stay informed and to gain strength. But these safe zones are not the trenches – they’re our home base — a place for us to recharge and gain support and encouragement.

How are we literally stepping out of our comfort zones and interacting with the natives? (For the record, Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford were at first taken prisoner by the Native Americans … then, after the peyote Kool-Aid party, they decided to team up).

How are we supporting each other when the media picks one of us off, or when one of our very own sells us out? Do we run around in a state of confusion, unable to respond accordingly, or do we have our stuff together enough to stay armed and dangerous?

This is an area where the left has us beat. We are a seemingly unorganized lot. Sometimes our messages are scattered and disjointed. It’s not because we don’t have passion and desire – our ranks are overflowing with it. We just don’t know how to mobilize as a cohesive group. But we can figure this out – it’s just a matter of being educated in strategy and in psychological warfare.

We can’t continually fluster or retreat when we are challenged on a belief. We must keep our wits about us and stay a step ahead. We are less equipped when it comes to money, training and backing. BUT if living in America teaches us anything, it’s that the underdog can indeed win the battle.

So you get the gist of the flick, right? These high-tech aliens (the left) and the good-intentioned, raw-hide underdog cowboys (the right) engage in a battle for the ages and everyone expects the aliens will come out on top.

But through team work, training and a deep belief in what’s good and right, Daniel Craig with his shiny bracelet (which turns out to be a high-tech laser weapon he stole from the aliens pre-amnesia), along with Harrison Ford, totally kick it on horseback. Along with the Native Americans and a band of unwieldy outlaws, they force themto fly off into the sky. … And while it could end here, it doesn’t …

Olivia Wilde, the time-travelling, reborn, now clothed gun-blazing beauty, found a secret weapon. She hides inside the bowels of this disgusting space tower as it rips itself from the earth.

In anotherChrist-like reference, she looks upward while engaging this computer chip board and hugs it to her chest… and causes the ship to implode … annihilating the entire alien colony and saving the old west from lasso-swinging, body snatching aliens.

The significance? Really, I have to tell you?

A woman saved the world … and seriously … I think that’s pretty cool …(and I’m ready to do it, btw … are you with me?)

The “plot” couldn’t be more basic, yet it took nine people to assemble the script, which opens on tough-guy cowboy Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) waking up in the desert with a nasty gash in his belly and a mysterious iron bracelet on one arm.

As he struggles to remember what led to his desert awakening, Jake is confronted by three horsemen who threaten to turn him in for a bounty.  He still can’t remember his name or where he came from, but he does know how to open a can of whupass on the interlopers and proceeds to kill them before riding into the nearest town wearing their clothes and riding their horses.

When he finds that the town is ruled by the terroristic clan of corrupt cattle rancher Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), he proceeds to stir things up by humorously beating Woodrow’s son and henchmen. Just as he’s about to have to run for his life or fight to the death with Woodrow, however, a fleet of alien spaceships comes swooping in out of nowhere to blow a bunch of stuff up for no immediately apparent reason – and Jake and Woodrow have to team up and bring their respective posses together to fight back against the aliens with one cohesive force.

Before you wonder if the idea of combining the gangs to stop an outside force is an exercise in kumbaya multiculturalism, let me assure you that this is a rare case where Hollywood just lets a film play by its own rules, with no agenda to be found anywhere. The two posses are made up of middle-aged white men just because that was the norm back in the days of the segregated Old West, and at a few points there are even touching or haunting moments in which a character named Doc asks the town preacher about the meaning of his life and the suffering he has endured, as well as a touching turnaround in which the Doc makes sure the preacher is treated with respect and proper prayers when he dies.

And it’s also cool to see Craig find inventive ways to beat the crap out of people and shoot them from unexpected angles, enabling him to cut loose in a way his reserved James Bond character rarely can. Ford, meanwhile, pulls off his first fun non-Indiana Jones role since 1997’s “Air Force One,” and while it’s obvious that Craig and Ford are having a blast bad-mouthing and punching each other across some impressive Western vistas, this doesn’t quite add up to the jaw-droppingly entertaining genre mashup that it should be.

Instead, it seems to drag at times while director Jon Favreau (“Iron Man”) finds ways to shoehorn the under-developed yet frightening aliens (who bear way too much resemblance to the creatures in the “Alien” series, and are a bit too blatantly CGI amid the vibrantly real locations the cowboys ride through).

But the fact that I was able to maintain a goofy smile and chuckle throughout does count for something. It may not be a great Western like “Shane” nor a sci-fi classic on the level of the “Alien” series, but “Cowboys & Aliens” offers an amusing oasis for weary viewers to drink from amid a summer film schedule filled with parched ideas and countless sequels. If you can’t help grinning over the concept alone, you’ll probably enjoy it. And if you think it sounds stupid, this film definitely isn’t for you.

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In this one, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) hails from the realm of Asgard, and is apparently more of an alien than a god or deity. Cast out of Asgard by his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) as punishment for narcissism and disobedience, Thor’s stripped of his powers and banished to our little marble, landing in small town New Mexico. There, he’s confronted by a world that greets his stories of fantastic kingdoms and powers with scorn, and where his mighty hammer, containing the thundery awesomeness of his powers, remains inaccessibly stuck in a block of stone. Thor then must not only clash with a civilization that doesn’t respect his ancestry, but also with the machinations of villains back home and some surprisingly well-intentioned government agents.

Notably, this is the first Marvel film of the “Avengers” series whose hero is unburdened by the darkness and sorrow of a Tony Stark or Bruce Banner. Thor’s a proud, aggressive warrior, so merry that he manages to be pleasant even as he carelessly invades another planet to slaughter its monstrous inhabitants. Hemsworth, with his magazine cover physique and flowing blonde locks photographed to maximum effect, demonstrates an enormous likeability key to the film’s success. Coupled with his strikingly muscular presence, he doubtlessly has potential to be a common blockbuster presence for some time to come, provided he plays his cards right. He imbues the film’s best moments, in which Thor grapples with his ego and comes to put the welfare of others above his own hubris, with a dramatic heft that makes him an easy character to root for.

The aforementioned lightness of the tone doesn’t mean that the story is without weight, and Branaugh aptly balances the misadventures of the earth-trapped Thor with the royal intrigue on the other side of the galaxy. Back home, Thor’s brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) makes moves to seize the Asgardian throne, and apt writing and acting make him seem more dramatically misguided than villainous, giving the final confrontation an extra dramatic kick that would likely be absent were he just a cackling evildoer. Branagh’s action scenes, though not as impressive as the tech-heavy sequences from Jon Favreau’s “Iron Man,” aptly render straightforward superhero combat, and with more flair than I had expected.

One of the film’s more interesting moments is also its most ideological, when Thor tells the government agents (or the SHIELD agents to us geeks) that he recognizes their benevolent intent and offers his hand in an alliance. It’s a brief but memorable moment from an industry that has spent much time demonizing the intelligence community, especially in light of their recent very public success.

Natalie Portman, apparently one of Hollywood’s busiest actresses, plays Jane, Thor’s love interest and possibly the world’s cutest astrophysicist. Portman doesn’t have much to do other than smile for the camera and fawn over this handsome extraterrestrial, which results in a romance that’s somewhat lacking in the intensity department. Their relationship seems better suited for a hard crush than the passionate love the dialogue later suggests, though it’s easy enough to forgive as the plot gains speed.

Comic films of the past decade, good and bad, all seem to be either serious or grim, and it’s almost startling to remember that to many, the medium represents colorful, lighthearted entertainment.  Just as the story, with its otherworldly royalty and small town journey of discovery, is both epic and personal, it’s sufficiently heavy and certainly fun.

 
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Jeremy Piven is at his pre-Ari Gold best as Droz, something like a seventh year senior at Port Chester University college who is the unofficial leader of a group of campus misfits who live in a former fraternity house known as The Pit.

It’s a former frat house because fraternities have been banned from PCU, and the residents of The Pit are misfits because they are, gasp, regular people.

They are a collection of individuals, completely at odds with campus groups whose bonds are the result of a supposed shared identity, i.e., the radical feminists (the Womynists), the rich white guys (Balls and Shaft). Navigating the campus requires moving through a maze of protests and counter protests. The college president, Ms. Garcia-Thompson, is obsessed with multiculturalism and diversity, at one point suggesting that the Bi-Sexual Asian Studies program should have its own building on campus. The irony is, of course, that the denizens of the Pit are the most diverse group on campus.

This is pretty funny, relevant stuff, but the movie never becomes hilarious. Port Chester University is based on Wesleyan University, a ripe target for satire, but the story never really rises above good-natured ribbing. Droz schools Tom, “These, Tom, are the Causeheads. They find a world-threatening issue and stick with it for about a week,”  and then abandons him, but by the end, Tom decides he wants to come to PCU and live in the Pit.

David Spade oozes smarm and entitlement as Rand McPherson, the leader of Balls and Shaft. Jon Favreau is amusing as a paranoid stoner. The weak link is Tom, a bland protagonist who is pretty much just…there.

Like”Entourage,” the movie is at its best when it allows Piven to cut loose:

“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but there actually was music recorded before 1989.”

“You’re wearing the t-shirt of the band you’re going to see? Don’t be. That guy.”

“We need kegs. Multiple, cold, and domestic.”

Ultimately, the movie boils down to a “Let’s whip this place into shape and put on a show!” finale that felt fresher when Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo stole the idea. Worse, the wackadoo groups on campus mobilize and realize their true shared enemy is none other than…Conservative White Men! This predictable turn mars everything that’s come before it, but the movie is still worth renting for a chuckle or two.

Weigh in below, bearing in mind that in coming up with movies to write about, I’ve come to realize that while I had fun at the movies in 1994, calling it the best year ever is not hyperbole. Indeed,  it’s horseshit, for reasons I will cover in my final column on the subject next week.

When that superhero flew into theaters in 2008, he brought the thrill of discovery back to moviegoers who had been hit throughout the decade with a wave of Spiderman, X-Men and Superman movies. With Downey Jr. taking on the lead role of super-industrialist and weapons maker Tony Stark, that film’s producers took a big chance on giving one of Hollywood’s most legendary bad boys another shot at stardom after he had wasted years of great reviews on a personal ride through a drug-addicted hell complete with time in a hard-core prison and repeated attempts at rehab.

Audiences went wild for him, as Downey brought genuine emotion, sass and swagger to his role at the heart of the expertly mounted film, which featured Terence Howard, Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow in key supporting roles.

That story was launched with a gritty sequence in the Middle East in which Stark escaped Arabic terrorists by creating a crude prototype for our hero, thus grounding the fantastic yarn in a sense of real-world good and evil.

The first film also had the emotional weight of Bridges’ character, Obediah Stane, who was both a mentor and father figure to Stark, running his Stark Industries, yet ultimately turning on his younger boss when Tony felt the need to stop crafting weapons and start fighting for world peace. The resulting finale’s Ironmano a Ironmano battle royale not only shook the screen with spectacular effects, but also registered on a genuinely human level.

With “Iron Man 2,” Favreau returns with Downey and Paltrow (as his assistant and ever-pining friend Pepper Potts) and Don Cheadle taking Howard’s place as Stark’s best friend, Lt. Col. James “Rhodey” Rhodes. The villain this time is played by Mickey Rourke in his first role since his Oscar-nominated comeback in ‘The Wrestler.” Here, Rourke’s still sporting a seemingly juiced-up physique, which brings an immediate sense of foreboding to his character, a disgruntled Russian physicist named Ivan Vanko.

Vanko wants to avenge his father, who developed Iron Man’s power source with Tony’s father, but died in squalor and was never credited for his work. However, it’s not long before Rourke’s Vanko becomes an oversized but poorly developed one-note monster.

Vanko’s goal is to invent his own version of Iron Man in order to fight and kill Stark. But when Stark’s defense-contractor competitor Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) lures Vanko to work with him on developing a competing weapons-based suit for the Pentagon, Rourke opts instead to create an army of droids. At this point, the plot falls into a rather long and listless stretch in which the audience is left waiting for the film’s admittedly entertaining finale.

“Iron Man 2” amps up the special effects machinery in its key action sequences — including the jaw-dropping showdown between Vanko and Stark on a Monte Carlo race track. And Downey is once again solid, veering from a hilarious televised showdown against a slimy senator played by veteran comic Garry Shandling to effectively conveying Stark’s fear over the fact that the radioactive device that’s keeping him alive is also poisoning him.

Justin Theroux, who wrote this script solo after his co-writing debut with Ben Stiller on “Tropic Thunder,” seems an odd choice for inventing the movie’s plot. The first movie had four writers, yet possessed more of a cohesive feel than Theroux’s often-exhausting mishmash of plot devices and characters (including a new double agent named Black Widow portrayed by Scarlett Johannsen, who alternately has too little or too much to do). Worst of all is that Rourke isn’t given much to do beyond scowling and fighting in a distinctly less compelling way than Bridges’ Stane.

In the end, “Iron Man 2” is good enough. But following the first film, good enough is still a bit disappointing.

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See trailer here.

But in the new movie “Couples Retreat,” which not only co-stars but is co-written by real-life best friends Vince Vaughn (“Wedding Crashers”) and Jon Favreau (a popular character actor who has also directed “Iron Man”), these average middle-class American problems are given hilarious voice through vivid performances and rapid-fire dialogue. Or, more accurately, the movie shines when it focuses on those aspects of life in the first half of the film, while disappointingly falling off a cliff for much of the unfocused second half. Yet, just like a real-life marriage that lasts, the ups outnumber the downs enough to make this a satisfying if not spectacular night at the movies. 

“Couples Retreat” kicks off with uptight couple Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristin Bell of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) begging their other friends – workaholic Dave (Vaughn) and his neglected wife Ronnie (Malin Akerman of the underrated remake of “The Heartbreak Kid”), and high school sweethearts-turned-bored middle-agers Joey (Favreau) and Lucy (Kristin Davis of “Sex and the City”), and just-separated Shane (Faizon Love) and his ridiculously young new girlfriend Trudy (scene-stealing Kali Hawk) – to join them on a retreat to the Club Med-style resort of Eden. If they can get a group of four couples together, they can all go half-price – which sounds great to the three seemingly healthy couples, as long as they’re assured they won’t have to go through couples counseling. 

And so they arrive in what seems like paradise, and of course, everyone is subjected to counseling from the get-go. It turns out that Eden is no mere resort, but strictly follows a program by Marcel (Jean Reno) that forces couples to get deep with each other in addition to following regimented diet, sleep and yoga regimens. And this unexpected rigor sets the couples off, opening up about unresolved issues each never knew the other had. 

With the hilarious team of Vaughn and Favreau firing on all cylinders again after their cult-classic teamings in “Swingers” and “Made,” the early stretches at the resort are filled with hilariously sarcastic dialogue that takes well-placed swipes at the sappy, New Age-y relationship advice dispensed far too often in our culture. Seeing these guys fight for their right to be guys while their wives awaken to the fact they have their own reasons to complain rather than simply accept their husbands’ bad habits and passive neglect makes for a sharp take on modern relationships. 

There’s also a gloriously offensive sequence in which the resort’s yoga instructor (the brilliant Carlos Ponce) guides the couples – but especially the ladies – through a series of shockingly inappropriate positions and thrusts that offers some of the funniest film moments of the year. But when Trudy disappears from the married part of the resort, apparently relocating to the singles part of the island to get her freak on with her own age group, the couples all have to come together to sneak her back onto their part of the resort or face early expulsion. Here we’re promised a series of comical misadventures, but instead the film strangely pulls its punches and winds up devolving into a series of pat resolutions. 

Following his star turns in a pair of slipshod Christmas comedies (the bizarre “Fred Claus” and the cliched yet funny “Four Christmases”) it’s clear that Vaughn’s trying to steer himself back on course with “Retreat.” Not only did he co-write it with Favreau, but as producer he’s sprinkled the film with his patented fast patter and hired another lifelong friend, former child actor Peter Billingsley (the immortal Ralphie from “A Christmas Story”) as director. Vaughn also has the class to depict his middle-class, middle-aged Middle Americans with respect. 

In other words, the success or failure of “Couples Retreat” rests squarely on Vaughn’s shoulders. He’s a steady and reliable purveyor of comedy, but rarely makes a stretch in his acting persona. How much you like the film will largely depend on how much you like your comedy served up: if you like familiar comfort food, you’ll be just fine. But if you want something with a truly fresh flavor, you might be disappointed.