TRAVIS BYRAM'S MOVIE REVIEWS

Even though this admits my guilt to my mind wandering a little, I realized that while watching Civil War this was the Marvel Cinematic Universe's thirteenth film. Besides Bond and probably those awful Transformers movies because audiences keep feeding Michael Bay's ego, how many franchises can say that? Additionally, how many can say that just about all of the films in their franchise have been well received? Most people cite the second Iron Man film as the worst, (and personally I think Iron Man 3 was a poorly executed film), but there isn't really a stinker in there. They're all fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, they all made obscene amounts of money...it's pretty impressive. Some have noted how the Marvel films are all fairly similar, at least in tone and the formula that follows a TV episode of thwarting the bad guy at the end of it. That's why they bring in directors to genre bend. Sometimes it works, when the Russo brothers (who directed this edition) make a 70s...

A good writer must always be willing to realize he made a mistake, and I've realized one has occurred.  In my review of "The Hunger Games" I stated that it was the most buzzed about movie of the year.  I was wrong.  It is obviously "The Avengers." Realistically it'll probably be "The Dark Knight Rises" coming out in a few months, but at the moment, "The Avengers" is the only thing people want to talk about, the only thing they want to see, the only thing they want to think about.  I haven't seen my peers, fellow critics, and others more excited about a superhero movie since the original "Dark Knight."  To say my hopes weren't at an all time high for this is an insult to my hopes. That said, (I feel terrible, writing about the film this late, but I was told people were sitting on theater steps during it's gargantuan opening weekend, so I didn't even attempt) the buzz is 100% accurate, but I can't call it t...

AAAHHHH! My inner nerd (who am I kidding, I'm nerd inside and out) has exploded.  "The Hunger Games" was incredible, "Dark Knight Rises" looks incredible, and now "Avengers" TV spots are popping out everywhere.  I won't lie, between the 3 superhero movies coming out this year (the other being the Spider-Man reboot) "Avengers" lands at a solid #2.  Why not 1? Well...it took a couple of reasons to truly realize how great "The Dark Knight" was.  I had a similar experience with "Inception," you have to see Nolan's movies a few times to soak in.  There's no denying "TDKR" will break insane sales and might get a Best Picture nomination to make up for the predecessor's loss.  Any other year "Avengers" would be at the top, though.  Since 2008 when superhero movies were saved (Iron Man, Hulk reboot, TDK) the suspense has been building up to this film, and I've tried to avoid the online trai...

I'm pretty unaware of anything Captain America as far as comic books wise, so I went into the theater only knowing a few things: Captain America is Steve Rogers, who used to be a 90 lb. weakling, but during WWII they needed a supersoldier for the army. There was a bad guy named Red Skull and he had a sidekick named Bucky. That's literally everything I knew. Unlike the Harry Potter series, you don't need to have read the source material to understand the film. "The First Avenger" plays out like any normal superhero film...and that's exactly what it is: a normal superhero film. It doesn't go beyond your expectations, it's not a below par film like I heard "Green Lantern" was. It plays exactly like "Thor" did actually; establishing the character's backgrounds, setting them up for what's to come, taking time to reveal the main villain. One could argue that that's the set-up for anymovie superhero movie, but if you...