Piranha 3D
Do you want to see naked spring
breakers being eaten alive by vicious flesh- eating fish, with
severed body parts floating in front of your face in 3D? If so,
you're my type of person. You also need to make plans to see
"Piranha 3D," a movie that's nasty in a really,
really
delightful way. Elisabeth Shue plays the sheriff of an Arizona town
who discovers that an earthquake has made a hole in the bottom
of the lake, thereby releasing thousands of prehistoric
piranha. She has to convince all the vacationing spring break
partiers to get out of the water before they die gruesome deaths.
Here's a hint: she's not real successful. Any good movie will have
at least one or two amazing scenes that you can't wait to
start talking about with your friends. "Piranha 3D" has a
dozen of them. The "kills" are awesomely bloody, but also
intentionally over-the-top so that you're laughing and retching at
the same time. The movie is cheesy,
it knows it's cheesy, and it decides to have as much fun being
cheesy as possible. The 3D is no great shakes during scenes where
people are talking, but when the fish come in for dinner, it works
great, adding to the overall outrageousness. There's also plenty of
gratuitous 3D nudity, which will surely please the guys in the
audience. In the time-honored tradition of exploitation pictures,
"Piranha 3D" is a gory, self-aware joyride that's insane in all the
right ways. (3 1/2 stars)
The Expendables
particularly good at any of those
things. Case in point: "The Expendables." In the film, Stallone
leads up a team of mercenaries who go to a small South American
country
to stop the rogue CIA agent who's just taken over a major drug
cartel. Stallone's team includes Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph
Lungren, and mixed martial arts champion Randy Couture. Mickey
Rourke and Stone Cold Steve Austin also have roles, and there are
even cameos from Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's a
lot of manliness on one movie screen, and it sounds awesome, doesn't
it? I was expecting "Ocean's Eleven" with action heroes, where each
guy had a part to play, and where there was maybe even some humor at
the expense of the stars' well-honed personas. Unfortunately, the
characters who aren't played by Sylvester Stallone all get pushed
into the background. And as for laughs...well, remember that
Stallone's "comedies" include "Rhinestone" and "Stop or My Mom Will
Shoot," so that tells you something about his sense of humor, or
lack thereof. Worst of all, Stallone uses shaky cameras and choppy
editing for the action sequences, which often makes it difficult to
tell what's going on. There is some ground level fun to be had
watching these macho men share the screen, but that's literally all
"The Expendables" has going for it. Color me unimpressed (2 stars)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
If you took a video game, a comic
book, a music video, and some
Japanese manga, mixed them all up in a blender, then made a movie
about it, you'd end up with "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World."
Michael Cera plays a young musician who meets the girl of his
dreams, a free spirit played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. The hitch
is that, in order to be with her, he has to fight and defeat her
seven evil exes. You won't see this kind of hardcore action on "The
Bachelor!" Jason Schwartzman co-stars as the most evil ex of them
all, who will prove to be Cera's biggest challenge. It's become an
insult to say that a movie looks like a video game, but in the case
of "Scott Pilgrim," it's a compliment. The fight scenes have
been staged to look like they came out of Mortal Combat, and when
someone dies, they burst into coins and Cera gets points. How cool
is that? Other times, the movie looks like a comic book, complete
with split screens and sound effects written as text above the
actor's heads. Director Edgar Wright has made an energetic ode to
youthful preoccupations, but what's really great is that the
relationship between Cera and Winstead is actually kind of touching.
There's so much going on in "Scott Pilgrim" that it's hard to
absorb everything in one sitting. I felt a little overwhelmed at
times. That said, this is a hip, entertaining movie I won't mind
sitting through again and again. (3 1/2 stars)
Dinner for Schmucks
In "Dinner for Schmucks," Paul Rudd plays a
guy who tries to
impress his boss by attending a dinner party where the goal is to
bring the most idiotic guest possible. And I'm suddenly nervous
about that invitation I accepted last week. Rudd doesn't know any
idiots, but is lucky enough to meet nerdy IRS agent Steve Carell,
who builds dioramas using dead mice in his free time. Yeah, he
totally fits the bill. In the 24 hours leading up to the dinner,
Carell manages to turn his new friend's world upside down. "Dinner
for Schmucks" is a farce, and those are hard to do because
everything in a farce by definition has to be as outrageous as
possible. That's certainly true here. No one in this film displays
anything even remotely resembling actual human behavior. A few
moments fall flat, but for the most part, the movie has a pretty
high ratio of laughs. That's because the actors all go for broke,
committing themselves to creating delightfully silly characters.
Carell is hysterical, as are Zach Galifianakis as another dinner
guest, and Jemaine Clement as a pretentious artist who may be
sleeping with Rudd's girlfriend. "Dinner for Schmucks" gave me a
steady stream of chuckles, with an occasional belly laugh thrown in
for good measure. It's not a gourmet meal, but it definitely
satisfied my appetite for a good comedy. (3 stars)
The Other Guys
"The Other Guys" stars Will Ferrell
and Mark Wahlberg as New York City detectives who have been
relegated to desk duty. Wahlberg can't stand not being
on
the beat, so when a police call comes in on day, he forces Ferrell
to help him respond to it. They end up uncovering a massive scandal
involving...well, I don't know. If anyone involved in the making of
this movie had the intention of creating a coherent plot, that
person was clearly voted down. The idea of spoofing buddy cop movies
is worn out by now, and that strain shows a little bit here.
Thankfully, "The Other Guys" has enough good jokes to compensate.
The movie, like many that Will Ferrell makes, goes off on a lot of
strange, bizarre comic tangents. Some of the jokes fall flat, but
many of them are quite funny. Ferrell and Wahlberg have surprisingly
good chemistry together. If Riggs and Murtaugh from the "Lethal
Weapon" movies mated with Laurel and Hardy, you'd end up with these
guys. Actually, that would be kind of gross. The film also has
humorous supporting performances from Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne
Johnson, and Michael Keaton as fellow cops. "The Other Guys" isn't
quite as funny as Ferrell's best films, like "Anchorman" or "Talledega
Nights" because it's not as broad a comedy. The characters and
situations have one foot in the real world this time instead of just
being incessantly goofy. Still, I laughed more often than not, and
that counts for something. (3 stars)
Salt
If stupid movies were racehorses,
"Salt" would stand a good
chance
of winning the Triple Crown. Angelina Jolie stars in this action
thriller as a CIA agent accused of being a Russian spy. She goes on
the lam, only to be pursued by her boss, a high-ranking CIA bigwig
played by Liev Schreiber. Because she is so "highly trained," Jolie
is able to escape any situation, no matter how potentially deadly,
with nary a scratch to show for it. Okay, so I know that a real hot,
female Russian spy just had her cover blown a few weeks ago, but
that still doesn't make this movie any more plausible. One big
problem with "Salt" is that it tries to keep us guessing as to
whether Jolie is good or bad. Because of this, we spend the whole
movie not knowing if we're supposed to root for her to get away, or
root for the authorities to catch her. As the story goes along, it
introduces one preposterous plot twist after another. I don't mind
movies with ridiculous plots, so long as they don't take themselves
too seriously. "Salt" asks you to swallow some insane stuff, all
while pretending that it has something very important to say about
national security. The action scenes are routine and forgettable,
and the "surprise" plot twist at the end is only surprising if
you've been asleep for the first 85 minutes of the movie. Which is
entirely possible given how dumb it is. "Salt" is a great big dud.
(1 1/2 stars)
Inception
"Inception" stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a so-called "extractor" who can enter people's dreams and steal their secrets. He's hired by a Japanese businessman to
engage in some corporate espionage by breaking into the mind of a rival CEO. Ellen Page plays the architect who designs the levels of the dream into which the victim will be placed. If someone tried to invade my dreams, I think they'd find a thousand screen multiplex, some random Star Wars characters, and a forest made entirely of cheese doodles. Truth be told, I could use up my whole 60 seconds just trying to explain the plot of "Inception," but all you really need to know is that it's a really great puzzle: complex, intricate, and extraordinarily satisfying once you figure it all out. Director Christopher Nolan stages dream sequences within dream sequences within dream sequences, never losing focus or allowing us to get confused. You know, for all the dream sequences in this movie, not one single person dreams of being naked in public. What gives? Nolan also provides mind-bending visuals and hypnotic action scenes that will blow you away. There's even some heartfelt emotion in the story, although I don't want to give any spoilers on that
front. "Inception" is not only the best movie ever made about dreams, but it's also one of the best movies of 2010 and one of the most awesome movies I've seen in a decade. (4 stars)
Predators
"Predators" is a sequel to the
popular 1987 sci-fi movie that starred future governors Arnold Schwarzenegger
and Jesse Ventura. They went from being
chased through the jungle by a creepy
alien to something really scary: politics! This time around, Adrian Brody leads
a group of killers who have all been mysteriously dropped on another planet. It
doesn't take long for them to realize that they're intended to be the prey for a
bunch of hungry, dreadlocked creatures. Apparently, the beings on this planet
are all Rastafarians with a wicked case of the munchies. The original "Predator"
spawned three lousy sequels, two of which pitted the predator against the alien
from the "Alien" series. Thankfully, "Predators" is better than any of them.
It's the first one to feel like a genuine sequel to the original. Plot and
character development are admittedly minimal, but the action has been created in
the same spirit as it was in the Schwarzenegger version. The whole point of a
"Predator" movie is to watch humans try to survive when put in a confined space
with the bloodthirsty beasts, and this movie delivers on that promise well. The
action scenes are exciting, and the performances are better than you'd expect.
"Predators" won't win any Oscars, of course, but if you're a fan of the
franchise, you can rejoice in the fact that this is the first sequel to get it
right. (3 stars)
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Anyone who regularly listens to me on the radio knows that I love to make fun of Twilight. Now that the third part of the saga is in theaters, it's time for me to
start all over again, right? Well, hold your horses, Slappy! I'm still no Twilight fan, but I must concede that "Eclipse" is the best of the three films adapted from Stephenie Meyer's novels. In this installment, the vampire Edward must team up with his rival, the werewolf Jacob, in order to protect young Bella from an army of bad vampires that want to drink her blood. You know, if the characters were mummies instead of vampires and werewolves, there would be no Twilight phenomenon. "Eclipse" pleasantly surprised me by having some really good action sequences, interesting character development, and a tight pace. That
said, this franchise is still too mopey and self-serious for me. I've never found the love triangle credible. It's obvious that Bella loves Edward, and the story's attempts to put her in the arms of the perpetually-shirtless Jacob become almost comical at times. Plus, Robert Pattinson? Seriously, ladies? The bottom line is that if you're a fan, you're gonna love it. If you're not a fan and someone physically drags you to see it, "Eclipse" is a lot less painful than you'd think. (2 1/2 stars)
Grown Ups
"Grown Ups" brings together Adam
Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider. Depending
on your point of view, this cast is either a comedy dream or a

comedy nightmare. They play old friends who are reunited for the funeral of
their childhood basketball coach. Together with their families, they spend a
long holiday weekend at a lakeside cottage. With the obvious exception of
Rob Schneider, these can be funny guys, but "Grown Ups" gives them nothing
to do once they reach the cottage. This movie avoids having a plot like Sean
Penn avoids having his picture taken. Without characters to play or
interesting situations to react to, the stars simply ad lib, and do so
badly. The dialogue in the film is literally nothing more than a string of
insults the guys lob back and forth."Grown Ups" represents Adam Sandler
working in his safe zone. The film is filled with jokes about crotch
injuries, horny senior citizens, and bodily fluids. All the female
characters are either harpies or sex objects, and the humor has an
uncomfortable homophobic tint to it. Sandler has gone to this juvenile well
so many times that it's just not funny anymore. I wish everyone involved
with "Grown Ups" had grown up and actually tried to make a good movie. (1
1/2 stars)
Toy Story 3
"Toy Story 3" is the final
installment in Pixar's franchise about
Woody
the Cowboy, Buzz Lightyear, and all the other playthings. Their
owner, Andy, is now heading off to college, and the toys are
accidentally donated to a day care center where they receive
unexpectedly rough treatment from the rowdy children. Woody then
leads a charge to get them all back home and into the safety of
Andy's attic. When the toys don't even want to be there, you know
it's a bad day care center! New toys debuting in this movie a purple
teddy bear, voiced by Ned Beatty, and a Ken Doll, voiced by Michael
Keaton. When Keaton was playing Batman 20-some years ago, I bet he
never dreamed that he'd someday be downgraded to playing Ken. "Toy
Story 3" is surprisingly mature for a family film. It's about what
happens to toys after someone stops playing with them. The only
choices are donation, storage in the attic, or the local landfill.
While the movie is full of humor, it also has real depth, and it
never condescends to children, even when it's dealing with issues of
abandonment and retirement. Once again, the geniuses at Pixar prove
that an animated feature can actually have genuine substance to it.
"Toy Story 3" is funny, heartwarming, and poignant. It's also a
beautiful end to a magnificent trilogy. (4 stars)
The A-Team
I don't know about you, but I'm tired
of movies based on old TV shows,
especially
when they're as poorly done as "The A-Team." This is a loud,
violent, sometimes nasty adaptation of a show that was kind of goofy
and fun. Once again, we get the story of four Special Forces
soldiers, now played by Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, that guy from
"District 9," and some UFC fighter. After being wrongly accused of a
crime they didn't commit, they set out to find the real culprit and
clear their names, yadda yadda yadda. It took three screenwriters to
come up with this basic plot, and it still doesn't make sense. The
main draw for a lot of people will be the action, which, frankly, I
think sucks. In any action-heavy summer movie, you need to forget
about realism and just go with the flow. However, the action
sequences in "The A-Team" are so blatantly preposterous that it's
impossible not to scoff at them. Plus, in an epic bit of miscasting,
Jessica Biel plays a high ranking military officer. Right - and I'm
a Chippendale's dancer! The movie version of "The A-Team" doesn't
feel like it's in the same spirit as the TV version of "The A-Team,"
and I found myself growing bored. So to sum it up: I pity the fool
who has to sit through this movie! (1 1/2 stars)
Get Him to the Greek
In "Get Him to the Greek," Jonah Hill
plays a young record company employee charged with getting an
out-of-control rock star from London to L.A. in time
for a big comeback concert. And it isn't Courtney Love. Or Axl Rose.
Or Amy Winehouse. The task is easier said than done, considering
that the rocker, played by Russell Brand, is a drug-addicted sex
fiend who drags Hill into his hard-partying orbit. If this sounds
like the recipe for an outrageous comedy, it is. "Get Him to the
Greek" has plenty of big laughs, many of which come from Sean "Puff
Daddy - Puffy - P. Diddy - Do Wah Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy Do" Combs as
a temperamental music mogul. At the same time, the film is also a
cautionary tale about the hazards of the "sex, drugs, rock & roll"
lifestyle, as Brand's character realizes that his life and his
career are in a tailspin. The character is loosely based on Brand's
own personality before he got off heroin and went into a sex
addiction clinic. I'll hand it to the guy: he gives a performance
that is very authentic without ever becoming too self-seriousness.
At times, the tone of "Get Him to the Greek" is a little uneven, and
some of the big comedy scenes aren't as funny as the movie thinks
they are. Even so, the humor is on target about 75% of the time,
plus you get a terrific, star-making turn from Russell Brand. So I
say, get yourself to a theater to see it. (3 stars)
Shrek Forever After
"Shrek Forever After" is the fourth
and final installment in the popular series about America's
favorite
ogre. America's least favorite ogre is, of course, Jesse James. In this
chapter, Shrek has grown bored with domestic life, so he strikes a deal with
the conniving Rumplestiltskin to have his old life back for just one day -
the life he had before he become a lovable movie character who inspired
three sequels and a billion dollars in merchandising revenue. This deal
propels him into an alternate universe where Princess Fiona is a freedom
fighter, Puss in Boots is a fat cat, and Donkey is a slave. Realizing that
his life wasn't so bad after all, Shrek has to find a way to defeat
Rumplestiltskin and get things back to the way they were. "Shrek Forever
After" is the most unusual film in the series, in that it has a much more
serious story than its predecessors did. The movie lacks the rapid fire
jokes and goofy pop culture references that seemed to define the franchise,
replacing them with a more mature plot about an ogre having a mid-life
crisis. While it may not hit the sublime comic heights of Shrek and Shrek 2,
there was enough here to make it work for me. The story is dark, but still
touching, the animation is superb, and the 3-D is nicely utilized. I love
these characters, and if you do too, then "Shrek Forever After" is worth
seeing. But it's definitely time for this saga to quit while it's ahead.
(3 stars)
MacGruber
Has there ever been a "Saturday Night
Live" sketch that was less
conducive
to a feature film adaptation than MacGruber? It's a one-joke bit,
where the joke is repeated again and again: MacGruber tries to
diffuse a bomb using mundane objects, but is unable to prevent it
from exploding. On the show, he's repeatedly blown up; in the case
of "MacGruber," the movie is the bomb and it's the audience that
suffers. To compensate for an extremely thin plot, the filmmakers
have decided to spoof the kinds of 80's action pictures that
typically starred Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzengger.
Highly decorated veteran MacGruber (Will Forte) is called out of
retirement when a former nemesis gets his hands on a nuclear
warhead, with plans to use it for suitably evil purposes. He
assembles a ragtag team of helpers - played by Kristen Wiig and Ryan
Phillippe - to track down the pass codes, thereby making the warhead
itself useless. Spoofing action movies is, by this point, not a new
idea anymore. It's been done to death, so watching "MacGruber" poke
fun at the conventions of the genre has no appeal. It simply points
out the same things that all the other action movie spoofs have
already pointed out. I really didn't find this movie to be funny at
all. You can see the majority of the punchlines coming well in
advance of their actual arrival. And since most of the jokes revolve
around sex, bodily fluids, genitalia, and/or bare buttocks, it's
particularly easy to guess what the payoffs will be. This makes for
a very long, arduous viewing experience. Once again, the powers that
be have proven that "SNL" sketches are probably best left in New
York, live, on a Saturday night. (1 star)
Robin Hood
The world needs another movie version
of Robin Hood like Lindsay Lohan needs another DUI arrest.
For
proof, look no further than "Robin Hood," starring Russell Crowe in
the title role. This is a revisionist take on the tale, which means
that instead of leading a band of merry men through the forests of
England in a little green hat, he's now a surly Australian who looks
like he's ready to throw a telephone at somebody's head. Yes, this
version is a lot "darker" and "grittier" than we're used to, and
there's absolutely no swashbuckling. Seriously, no buckles were
swashed in the making of this movie. Instead, as Robin Hood tries to
fight corruption in Nottingham, we get a lot of exposition about
unfair taxation, royal lineage, and inter-country politics. You know
- boring stuff. I'm kind of ashamed to admit this, but "Robin Hood"
was so deadly dull to me that I eventually zoned out and stopped
paying attention. Russell Crowe sleepwalks through his performance,
and co-star Cate Blanchett doesn't have enough screen time to make
Maid Marion a fully realized character. Even the action can't save
it, because there's not nearly as much of it as the advertising
would lead you to believe. This "Robin Hood" is so bad, that I
officially forgive Kevin Costner for his weak 1992 version of the
tale. (1 1/2 stars)
Iron Man 2
Nothing bums me out as badly as when
a movie I'm super-excited to see turns out to be a great big
disappointment. Fortunately, "Iron Man 2" is not one of those films.
In fact, it's a supersized serving of awesomeness! Robert Downey,
Jr. returns as billionaire industrialist Tony Stark. This time
around, the government wants his Iron Man technology, a rival
industrialist wants to run him out of business, and his assistant,
played by Gwyneth Paltrow, wants to win his heart. Then there's
Mickey Rourke as the villian Whiplash, who wants him dead. I guess
Iron Man stepped on one of his chihuahuas or something. "Iron Man 2"
makes the mistake that a lot of superhero sequels make: it tries to
cram in too many fan favorites. In addition to Iron Man and
Whiplash, we also get Scarlett Johannson as Black Widow, Don Cheadle
as War Machine, and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. While the plot
may be all over the map this time, "Iron Man 2" still delivers on
the things that are most important. The action scenes are fantastic,
with some mind-blowing special effects. We also get more of the
compelling character study of Tony Stark, who is once again played
brilliantly by Robert Downey, Jr. And if anyone has earned the title
"Iron Man," it's Robert Downey Jr. It's kind of interesting how,
through these movies, Iron Man went from being a second tier Marvel
superhero into being one of the most beloved. I think that's because
the movies fundamentally deliver the thrills, while still finding
the humanity beneath the costume. "Iron Man 2" isn't perfect, but it
sure is a lot of fun. Now let's all keep our fingers crossed that
they don't screw up "Iron Man 3." (3 1/2 stars)
A Nightmare on Elm Street
"A Nightmare on Elm Street" is the
latest horror movie to get the reboot treatment. In case you don't
know what a reboot is, that's where they take a
horror movie that was perfectly good the first time around, then remake it
so that it sucks. Jackie Earle Haley bravely steps into Robert Englund's
shoes to play Freddy Kruger, the knife-fingered killer who inhabits the
dreams of innocent teenagers. Of course, the catch is that if Freddy kills
you in your dreams, you die in real life, so the teens spend a lot of time
trying not to fall asleep. Which is appropriate because I was trying not to
fall asleep during this movie. "A Nightmare on Elm Street" faithfully trots
out all the elements you'd expect a remake of Wes Craven's classic to have,
yet it doesn't do a single new thing with any of them. The movie is like a
Xerox copy of a Xerox copy of a Xerox copy. Jackie Earle Haley is a fine
actor, but let's be honest: Robert Englund was too
iconic in the role for anybody else to play Freddy. It's like watching
someone other than James Gandolfini playing Tony Soprano, or someone other
than Michael Richards playing Kramer. It just doesn't feel right. The film
has no scares and no suspense, and I actually found myself growing
increasingly bored the longer it went on. This "Nightmare" reboot has
more in common with the crappy Freddy Krueger sequels than it does with the
original masterpiece.
(1 1/2 stars)
The Losers
In "The Losers," Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris
Elba, and Chris Evans play members of a Special Forces unit left for
dead while on a mission in Bolivia. They want to get back to the
States and exact revenge upon the criminal mastermind who tried to
wipe
them
out. Zoe Saldana plays the one person who can help them do this.
This being a testosterone-driven action film, the lone significant
female character of course has to be smokin’ hot, able to kick butt
with the best of them, and with access to a seemingly endless fund
to finance the revenge mission. "The Losers" is a 14 year-old boy’s
example of freakin’ awesome: it has lots of shootouts, lots of
explosions, and lots of gratuitous close-ups of Zoe Saldana’s ass.
Any mature viewer seeking a movie with even half a brain in its head
will walk away sorely disappointed. It also tries way too hard to be
cool. There are constant fancy camera movements, funky editing, and
sequences where the action is alternately sped up and slowed down.
You can feel it trying to be edgy, yet it fails consistently. I
cannot fault the actors; they are not the reason why the picture
isn’t very good. In fact, the stars keep The Losers from being a
flat-out disaster, managing to generate some collective chemistry
despite having a dull, formulaic screenplay from which to work. But
the bottom line is that this premise has been done before, and it's
been done a lot better. (2 stars)
The Back-Up Plan
"The Back-Up Plan" marks a major
comeback for Jennifer Lopez. Unfortunately, she's come back to
making crap. In this insipid romantic comedy, J. Lo plays a single
woman who hears her biological clock ticking. Afraid she'll never
have children if she doesn't
get
moving, Lopez pays for artificial insemination and, sure enough,
gets pregnant. Wouldn't it be funny if the donor turned out to be
Ben Affleck? And she named the child Gigli? Immediately after
learning of her impending motherhood, she meets the man of her
dreams, a professional goat cheese maker. I'm not making this up.
Then she has to worry about whether or not he'll freak, knowing her
situation. This could actually be an interesting premise for a movie
that wanted to take it seriously, but "The Back-Up Plan" treats it
in a very bad sitcom way. There's no genuine human emotion here,
just a lot of painfully contrived romantic comedy cliches, executed
in almost robotic fashion. Much of the humor is played very broadly
too, which only further robs
the story of any real meaning. Jennifer Lopez looks gorgeous on
screen, but she has absolutely no chemistry with co-star Alex
O'Loughlin. I'd rather watch a dog romance a fire hydrant than watch
these two romance each other. "The Back-Up Plan" is yet another
example of an assembly line chick flick that ends up insulting the
intelligence of its female audience, and anybody else unlucky enough
to have to endure it. (1 1/2 stars)
Kick-Ass
"Kick-Ass" is the story of Dave, a
high school dweeb who decides to make his own superhero costume and
fight crime on the streets of Manhattan. Hey, it's a
lot cooler than joining the Chess Club! He meets up with two other
homemade heroes - a disgraced cop named Big Daddy (played by Nicolas
Cage) and his 11 year-old daughter Hit Girl - and joins them in
their quest to bring down a mafia boss. "Superbad"'s
Christopher Mintz-Plasse plays the mobster's son, who creates his
own superhero identity, Red Mist, to protect his father's business
from all the other crazy people who like to dress up in costumes.
"Kick-Ass" is the latest comic book to make the jump to the silver
screen, and it's also one of the edgiest. I mean, Hit Girl uses
every four letter word in the book and brutally kills the mobster's
henchmen with a smile on her face. 11 year-old girls are supposed to
be watching "iCarly" and swooning over Justin Beiber, not creating
bloodbaths! The provocative nature of the material may put off some
viewers,
since most of the graphic violence is either committed by or carried
out upon children and adolescents. If you look a little deeper,
though, I think the story is saying something quite interesting
about how young people need to realize that real-world
violence is a lot different than comic book violence. "Kick-Ass" has
been made with great style and energy. It's funny, it's exciting,
and it's very, very cool, provided you like dark, edgy, satiric
superhero stories. Which I do. So for me, "Kick-Ass" is an
appropriately titled movie. (3 1/2 stars)
Date Night
"Date Night" stars Steve Carell and
Tina Fey as the Fosters, a self-described boring married couple from
New Jersey. To try to spice up their marriage, they
drive into Manhattan to eat at a hip new restaurant. We know it's
hip because Will.i.am is there. Will.i.am is the epitome of hipness,
even though you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who actually
listens to his music outside of an aerobics class. When they can't
get a table, Carell and Fey steal the reservation of an absentee
couple, but are then mistaken for blackmailers and chased
through the city by two crooked cops who want them to return a flash
drive they don't have. You've heard of "dinner and a movie?" Well,
this is "dinner and running for your life." The idea of an innocent
date turning into a life-or-death situation is a little thin, but
"Date Night" does something very smart: it dials down the mystery
and dials up the dynamic between the couple. Even when having guns
pointed at them or participating in car chases, the couple's marital
issues come to the surface and take over. That's funny, and the two
leads do a great job of making the characters' marriage woes seem
relatable. Carell and Fey have obviously been given lots of room to
ad-lib, which was a masterstroke. These are two of the smartest,
sharpest comic geniuses working today, so they turn a ridiculous
plot into something hilarious. See it with a date and who knows you
might get lucky. But see it by yourself if you have to. It's one of
the funniest movies I've seen in quite a while. (3 1/2 stars)
Clash of the Titans
"Clash of the Titans" is a remake of
the 1981 cornball classic that paired Sir Laurence Olivier and Harry Hamlin.
How did anyone think the remake could ever top that?
Sam
Worthington plays Perseus, a young warrior who tries to stop angry gods Liam
Neeson and Ralph Fiennes from unleashing a hideous beast known as the Kraken
upon humanity. You've heard that "Release the Kraken" line, right? Sounds
like a euphemism for something really, really dirty. The gods are angry
because humans no longer worship them properly. They don't sound like gods
at all; they sound like big babies. "Clash of the Titans" has a lot of cool
monsters, including gigantic scorpions, the snake-haired Medusa, and, of
course the Kraken itself. Whenever the characters were fighting hideous
beasts, I was relatively entertained. That stuff works. The actual plot,
however, does not. Whenever the monsters leave and the people take over, the
movie quickly becomes boring. Part of the problem is that no one here is
very interesting. Sam Worthington has been in three major movies in the past
year – “Terminator: Salvation,” “Avatar,” and this one - and he hasn't shown
an ounce of personality in any of them. Honestly, I was kind of rooting for
the Kraken, because at least that thing - whatever it is - has some
charisma. "Clash of the Titans" is about 60% good stuff and 40% junk. Oh,
and by the way - the movie was actually filmed in 2-D and converted to 3-D
at the last minute to take advantage of higher ticket prices. I say, release
the Kraken on whatever greedy studio weasel came up with that idea. If
you're going to see it, see it in glorious 2-D. (2 ½ stars)
Hot Tub Time
Machine
“Hot Tub Time Machine” represents an
example of the phenomenon known as Great Title, Middling Execution.
Three guys have three separate problems.
Adam
(John Cusack) has just been dumped by his girlfriend. Nick (Craig
Robinson) has been cheated on by his wife. Lou (Rob Corddry) is a
suicidal alcoholic. Together with Adam's dorky nephew Jacob (Clark
Duke), the pals decide to take a vacation from their problems by
returning to the same ski resort where they shared many a wild time
back in the 80's. They get their old room, party heavily in the old
hot tub, and somehow wake up in 1986. Before they can decide how to
get home, they have to figure out if they even want to, of if they’d
rather stay and re-live their own lives. Part of the problem with
“Hot Tub Time Machine” is that it doesn't really know what to do
with its premise, and so we get the same-old same-old: romantic
entanglements, a guy getting revenge on the punk who once beat him
up, etc. It’s kind of disheartening to see a bold concept employed
to fuel such hackneyed subplots. The actors give it their all, and
occasionally something legitimately funny happens. I especially
liked Chevy Chase as a shady hot tub repairman and Crispin Glover as
the resort’s one-armed bellman. However, I simply didn't laugh as
much as I wanted or expected to. “Hot Tub Time Machine” is watchable,
but with an awesome title like that, wouldn’t you like to have it be
a whole lot more? (2 ½ stars)
The Bounty Hunter
In "The Bounty Hunter," Gerard Butler
plays - get this - a bounty
hunter
who is hired to track down and bring in his ex-wife, a reporter
played by Jennifer Aniston. He's happy to do it, but she doesn't
want to go, which leads to a wild chase throughout the streets of
Atlantic City. This is yet another example of a Bickering Couple
Movie, in which two characters use excessive passive-aggression to
mask the fact that they are actually falling in love with each
other. And if you think that's a spoiler, you've obviously never
seen a romantic comedy. The problem with a movie like this is that
you have to endure a lot of hate before you get to the love, and
there's a truckload of hate here. Aniston tases Butler and punches
him in the groin, while he throws her in the trunk of his car.
Because that's how real people express their love. My wife is in the
trunk of my car right now. The meanness wears thin, as does an
action subplot about a drug dealer who is also chasing the couple.
You can tell the filmmakers wanted to create something that appealed
to both guys and girls, so they mashed up a romantic comedy with an
action flick. The stars play variations of characters they've played
before in other, better movies. They also cashed nice fat paychecks,
while we in the audience are left to watch this turkey. "The Bounty
Hunter" isn't funny, it isn't romantic, and it isn't something I
want to talk about any further. (1 ½ stars)
Alice in
Wonderland
Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland"
isn't a remake of the classic story we all know and love. Instead,
it's kind of a sequel. Alice is now 19 years old.
On
the day of what's supposed to be her engagement party, she goes
wandering through the woods and falls down the rabbit hole - again.
Once back in Wonderland, she finds herself in the middle of a battle
brewing between the evil Red Queen, played by Helena Bonham Carter,
and the more benevolent White Queen, played by Anne Hathaway.
Fortunately for her, Alice also reunites with some old friends, such
as the Mad Hatter, played by Johnny Depp. Incidentally, Depp manages
to out-weird even himself in this role. If Capt. Jack Sparrow and
Willy Wonka had a love child who was then raised by Hunter S.
Thompson, it would be the Mad Hatter. Nobody creates a fantasy world
quite like Tim Burton, and Wonderland is like his ultimate
playground. The visuals are beautifully designed, with the 3-D
effects primarily used to immerse us more fully into this
wonderfully strange place. Plus, every so often, the Cheshire Cat
suddenly materializes an inch in front of your face, which is cool,
unless you're stoned, in which case it might be kind of terrifying.
I think the storytelling could have been a little tighter, but
still, who wouldn't want to visit Tim Burton's Wonderland? It looks
great and the performances are fun. The movie isn't going to become
a classic, but it's an entertaining way to spend two hours. (3
stars)
The Wolfman
Werewolves have been getting the short end
of the stick on screen lately. I'm sorry,
but
Jacob Black is not a real werewolf. Real werewolves are too busy chewing
people up to work out at the gym and romance moody teenage girls. For this
reason, I was pretty excited about the new R-rated remake of "The Wolfman."
Benicio Del Toro plays an actor who falls victim to a curse that causes him
to grow fangs, claws, and hair all over his body whenever the moon is full.
He then goes on rampages where he runs around biting innocent people. You
know, putting one of those lampshade-looking dog cones around his head would
put an end to that. Emily Blunt plays the fiancee of Del Toro's late
brother. She believes that true love might be able to cure him of his
affliction. "I'm in Love with a Werewolf" - sounds like a topic for the
Maury Povich Show. There is much to like in "The Wolfman" and much to
dislike as well. The basic problem is that it can't decide whether it wants
to be old-fashioned or cutting edge. At times, the film employs old-school
makeup effects for the creature and focuses on being highly atmospheric.
Other times, the werewolf is created through CGI and the movie becomes
graphically violent and action-heavy. That inconsistency of tone prevents it
from ever really taking off. Some of the werewolf attacks are definitely
cool, and Benicio Del Toro gives a delightfully wacko lead performance, but
in the end, "The Wolfman" is too scattershot to have any real bite.
(2 1/2 stars)
Crazy Heart
In "Crazy Heart," Jeff Bridges plays a
washed-up, alcoholic country singer
who's
been reduced to performing in dive bars and bowling alleys. On the plus
side, he now regularly bowls a 220. His life starts to turn around after he
meets - and subsequently falls in love with - a much younger journalist,
played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. He also starts thinking about getting his
career back on track by dueting with his former protégée, played by Colin
Farrell, who's now a big time recording star. The question is, can he truly
change, or is he too committed to living the stereotypical country music
image, which of course is all about having bad relationships, boozin' it up
all the time, and just generally being a loser. This is why I listen to pop
music. Jeff Bridges gives the performance of his career in "Crazy Heart." He
so fully embodies this character that you're very likely to forget that
you're watching an actor. Bridges does all his own singing too, and he's
completely credible. Colin Farrell sings as well, and while he might not be
the next Keith Urban, he ain't too bad. I'm not entirely sure I totally
bought the romance between the aging singer and the young journalist, but it
really doesn't matter. The love story isn't the focus here; the character's
transformation is, and Bridges makes that transformation deeply compelling
from start to finish. We're still over a month away from the Oscars, but I'm
calling it now: the guy wins Best Actor. Bet on it. "Crazy Heart" is a rich
story with good music and one of the finest pieces of acting you're likely
to see. Don't miss it. (3 1/2 stars)
Edge of Darkness
"Edge of Darkness" represents Mel Gibson's
first on-screen appearance since 2003. Gee, I wonder what he's been
up to the last few years. He plays a
Boston
cop whose adult daughter is shot and killed on his front porch.
This, of course, pushes him over the proverbial edge, and he vows to
find those responsible and make them pay. Mel Gibson definitely goes
ballistic, but nothing he does in this movie is anywhere near as
crazy as the stuff he's done in real life. The search for answers
leads him to discover that his daughter was involved in a vast
conspiracy with far-reaching implications. Also, he keeps crossing
paths with Ray Winstone, who plays a mysterious "fixer" in charge of
making sure matters of national security turn out the way the
government wants them to. We're never sure which side he's on...but
that's largely because Winstone mumbles all his dialogue as though
channelling Mush Mouth from the old "Fat Albert" cartoons. "Edge of
Darkness" is a middle-of-the-road movie for me. The scenes of Mad
Mel getting revenge are a lot of pulpy fun. Even though he now looks
a day older than dirt, Gibson is still credible as a butt kicker.
What works less well is the conspiracy. It's way too complicated and
weighty for what is essentially another "Death Wish" ripoff. And the
film has to keep stopping the action so that secondary characters
can come in and explain what's going on. To conclude - on the Mel
Gibson scale, "Edge of Darkness" isn't another "Lethal Weapon" but
it ain't "Bird on a Wire" either. (2 1/2 stars)
Tooth Fairy
"Tooth Fairy" may have the worst concept in
the history of cinema. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson plays a
professional hockey player who is
forced
to spend two weeks working as a tooth fairy after taking the money
his girlfriend left under her daughter's pillow in exchange for a
bicuspid. So in other words, it says that tooth fairies don't really
exist, but then has the main character turn into one. This movie is
so stupid, it doesn't even play by its own rules. Of course, Johnson
screws up the job, which causes him to butt heads with the Fairy
Queen, played by Julie Andrews. If you guessed that working as a
tooth fairy ultimately turns him into a better man, pat yourself on
the back and take a shot of Listerine. I guess we're supposed to
laugh at the image of Dwayne Johnson wearing silk
pajamas and spouting wings, but it actually seems kind of pathetic.
Johnson used to be a pro wrestler who beat people over the head with
folding chairs and made action movies. His most recent efforts have
just turned him into a clown for children. Dude, it's time to grow
your manhood back! Start kicking some butt again! The jokes in this
film are so old that Neanderthals probably drew them on cave walls,
and the story's attempts to be touching may literally make you gag.
Nothing - and I mean nothing - about the movie even remotely works.
If someone gives you the choice between seeing "Tooth Fairy" and
getting a root canal, choose the root canal. It'll be less painful.
(1 star)