Ghostbusters

Posted on July 14, 2016 at 5:20 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended fantasy/paranormal violence with some disturbing images
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	July 15, 2016
Date Released to DVD:	October 10, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:	B01I2FFGW6

I’m willing to believe them. I mean, sure, the original is a classic, mostly thanks to Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, and a new approach to action/paranormal comedy. But the reboot has the Mount Rushmore of movie comedy with SNL writer/cast members Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, and Kristen Wiig, plus America’s sweetheart Melissa McCarthy. That’s some serious comedy power there, and some serious dimples, too. It pays tribute to the original, opening with the Ray Parker, Jr. song and featuring cameos from original cast members Murray, Aykroyd, Hudson, Potts, and Weaver, and a couple of the original ghosts, too.

But it is very much its own take on the story, with a fresh script from director Paul Feig and Katie Dippold (“Parks and Recreation,” “The Heat”). There are tweaks on the original’s headquarters and car. And it has updated references — you know that if a New Yorker saw a ghost today, she’d whip out a selfie stick and Instagram it, and they pause for a burn on Reddit haters).

Like the original, it begins with scientists losing their jobs in academia because of their insistence on exploring the paranormal. Wiig plays Erin, a physicist who misses her chance at tenure when it is revealed that she once co-authored a book called Ghosts from Our Past — Both Literally and Figuratively. It was out of print, but the other author, her estranged friend Abby (McCarthy), has made it available on Amazon. Erin visits Abby’s lab and meets Jillian Holtzmann (McKinnon), a mad scientist type who literally plays with fire. When they are all fired, they start a company to investigate the paranormal and are soon joined by Patty (Jones), a subway worker who does not know much about science but has an extensive knowledge of New York city history. And they hire a receptionist named Kevin (“Thor’s” Chris Hemsworth) and get to work trying to capture a ghost so they can prove they are right.

Meanwhile, a nerdy guy is building a machine to unleash and intensify all of the spirits in the city, and so the women go from studying the ghosts to, yes, busting them, with a major confrontation in the midst of a metal concert with a group called “The Slimers” onstage and Ozzy Osbourne watching in the wings. The mayor (Andy Garcia) and his aide (Cecily Strong) thank the team privately but denounce them as frauds publicly to keep the city from panicking.

The final confrontation goes on a bit too long, which is probably why there is an obvious cut of what would have been a dance number (glimpsed in the credits and I hope added in full to the DVD extras). But the action scenes are strong and the comedy is first-rate, at its best achieving a deliriously loopy silliness that is refreshing in an era where gross-out, oh-no-they-didn’t jokes are considered wit.

Each of the four main characters is clearly having a blast showing what she does best, creating distinctive characters with very different styles but always working the chemistry between them with dialog that often feels improvised by actors trying to make each other laugh. It is refreshing to see a movie with four female leads who are professional, super-smart, and totally badass, kicking the butts of all the ghosts and demons and the Bechdel test as well. Their happily ever after is saving Manhattan not getting some guy to put a ring on it.

Newcomer-to the big screen McKinnon tears it up as a Doc Brown type with a wicked smile, a steampunk vibe, and a Faraday cage, swinging into a Glinda the Good Witch song and handing out weapons from a motion-activated proton glove to a Swiss army knife. “She’s doing a marvelous impression of a deflating balloon,” she says as one of her colleagues is being shot through the air. Jones, also in her first feature film lead role, is outstanding as Patty, who knows who she is and what she wants. McCarthy is adorable as always and has a lot of fun with a particular demon. And Hemsworth is flat-out hilarious as the incompetent Kevin. It’s funny, smart, and sweet and in every way as good or better than the original. Fanboys, have at it.

NOTE: Stay through the credits for glimpses of the excised dance scene and some other treats, and following the credits, a brief extra scene with some important information.

Parents should know that this film includes extended fantasy/horror peril and violence. Characters are killed (one off-screen, one suicide by electrocution), and there are some gruesome images and mild crude humor.

Family discussion: What’s your favorite ghost story? Which was the scariest ghost in the movie?

If you like this, try: the original “Ghostbusters,” “Monster House,” and “ParaNorman”

The Legend of Tarzan

Posted on June 30, 2016 at 4:15 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, some sensuality and brief rude dialogue
Profanity:	Some racist epithets and mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended peril and violence, characters injured and killed, some disturbing and graphic images and scary animals
Diversity Issues:	Historical abuse and enslavement
Date Released to Theaters:	July 1, 2016

“The Legend of Tarzan” gets some things right. The swinging through the trees is exhilarating. Alexander Skarsgård (Tarzan/John) and Margot Robbie (Jane) are beautiful to look at, as is the African scenery. The CGI animals are pretty good. Thankfully, other than a few flashbacks, it avoids dwelling on the over-familiar origin story. And it is nice to see a shift from the colonialist perspective of some Tarzan stories to recognition of the real-life atrocities inflicted by Belgium’s King Leopold on the African natives, exploiting their resources and enslaving their people.

But there’s a lot the movie does not get right. It’s not terrible; it’s just oddly off, as though it was assembled by a committee that didn’t communicate with each other very well. The first problem is that Tarzan is depressed. I do not know why people seem to think that we somehow make classic literary characters more sophisticated or modern by making them depressed, but I’ve had enough of it. We’ve already had a depressed Batman and a depressed Superman this year. We don’t need a depressed Tarzan. Tarzan, now using his birth name of John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, is living in England when we first see him. Presented with an invitation to return to the Congo as the guest of King Leopold, he declines. Lifting a pinky as he sips from a porcelain teacup to demonstrate just how far he has come from running naked through the jungle, he explains simply, “It’s too hot.” He does not want to go back. But an American named George Washington Williams (played by Samuel L. Jackson and a toupee) persuades him to return, so he can investigate charges of abuse and enslavement. Jane is thrilled to return to Africa, and John reluctantly agrees to let her come along.

The invitation from the King was engineered by Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz, in his usual ultra-civil, ultra-evil mode). If he can deliver John to Chief Mbonga (a regal Djimon Hounsou) the chief will give him access to the diamond mines. When John escapes, Rom takes Jane and some of her tribal friends prisoner.

There’s an unfinished quality to the film. The tone shifts from a literally heavy-handed early image of a cruel hand wrapped in a rosary ripping a flower from its stem to some awkward and anachronistic attempts at humor (Samuel L. Jackson after a diplomatic speech: “And I thought the Civil War was long!”), and distracting random camera-swooping. But the real drag on the film’s momentum is Tarzan himself, who is so morose that the energy seeps out of the story. Reportedly, Skarsgård spent six months working out all day. He looks great, but to be honest he already looked great, and the fixation with male or female movie stars remaking their bodies for roles is barbaric. What needed the work was the script.

Parents should know that this film includes extended peril and violence, guns, spears, explosions, predator animals some disturbing images, characters injured and killed, some sexual references, and brief strong and racist language.

Family discussion: Why did John and Jane have different views about going back to Africa? How did John’s idea of honor change and why?

If you like this, try: the many other movie and television portrayals of Tarzan and the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Independence Day: Resurgence

Posted on June 24, 2016 at 12:33 pm

Twenty years ago, Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith flew into an alien mothership and uploaded a computer virus in a movie that is still one of the definitive summer blockbusters, Independence Day. Two decades later, moviemaking technology has made a lot of progress, and it has some striking visuals, but it is missing a lot of the brio of the first, especially Will Smith. This is one of those movies with a story that involves billions of people around the world but pretty much the same six people keep running into each other and their relationship issues are as important as the impending attack that in military terms is deemed “extinction level.”

The alien attack of 1996 did something humans were not able to accomplish on their own after thousands of years. It united the world, which came together to adapt the alien technology and develop a comprehensive monitoring and defense system, including space stations and an outpost on the moon. The US President (Sela Ward) coordinates with other world leaders in what seems to be an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity, if operating under the constant pressure of recovering from unprecedented losses and the fear of another invasion.

In the first film, a nerdy scientist named Dr. Okun (Brent Spiner) who had been hidden away in Area 51 was used as something like a ventriloquist’s dummy by an alien and has been in a coma ever since, tenderly care for by his partner. All of a sudden, his eyes fly open and he is awake. There are other indications around the world that dormant capacities for communication are being triggered by what could be another approaching invasion. That includes the former President (Bill Pullman, with beard, cane, and PTSD) who not only inspired the world with a great speech but personally flew a fighter plane to attack the alien ship.

David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum), who in the last film was a cable company computer technician who was the first to identify the anomalies that indicated an alien interference, visits Africa to speak to a warlord whose people engaged in hand-to-tentacle combat with aliens. The ex-wife played by Margaret Colin in the last film has vanished from the storyline, without even the half-sentence explanation that lets us know what happened to Will Smith’s character. Instead, we meet a scientist played by Charlotte Gainsbourg who says she has identified some symbols, especially a circle with a horizontal line through it, that people who have had some alien contact feel impelled to draw or paint. And the aliens who have been locked up in Area 51 for 20 years are suddenly awake and screaming…or celebrating. Yes, they are back and they are big. One thing the movie does well is show us the scale and scope of this new invasion.

But what it does not do well is connect us to the characters. There are utterly pointless and unconvincing subplots about a past between Goldblum and Gainsbourg, who have no chemistry whatsoever, but still find more sizzle than the subplot about the hopelessly bland trio of the three fighter pilots, the daughter of the former President, the son of the Will Smith character from the last movie, and Liam Hemsworth, trying to be all “Top Gun”-adorably dashing but more “Starship Troopers.” The actors do their best, but they are stuck with clunky sci-fi cliche dialog. The first film had some clever references to classics like “2001,” but this one just borrows shamelessly from other, better films. The aliens may be bigger and better in this return, but the script is not.

Parents should know that this film has extended sci-fi peril and violence with some disturbing images and characters who are injured and killed, including vast destruction and genocide. Characters use some strong language and there is brief potty humor.

Family discussion: What should the President have considered in deciding about the orb? What would you want to ask it?

If you like this, try: the original “Independence Day” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Posted on June 23, 2016 at 5:22 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for thematic elements including violent content, and for some language
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drug reference
Violence/ Scariness:	Extended action-style peril and violence, some injuries
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	June 24, 2016

Writer-director Taika Waititi brings the same wild imagination and subversive wit to “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” that he did to the vampire comedy “What We Do in the Shadows.” Based on the book by New Zealand favorite Barry Crump, it is the story of “a real bad egg,” a boy named Ricky (Julian Dennison) who has been in an endless series of foster homes and finally comes to live out in the wilderness with the warmhearted Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and silent, reserved Hec (Sam Neill). Just when Ricky begins to feel at home, a tragic loss has him running away into the bush, followed by Hec, and then followed by the social worker (Rachel House) and the cops.

Waititi’s films have a lively energy that provides a delicious counterpoint to the understated comedy. The story is told with wry chapter titles, beginning with “A Real Bad Egg.” Ricky is described as “a bit of a handful” with a history that includes “disobedience, spitting, running away…and that’s just the stuff we know about.” But we can see that this chubby kid who says he intends to grow up to be a drug dealer and rap star and get killed in a drive-by wants to be part of a family, even though he does not know exactly how. Bella has just the combination of bluntness and generosity of spirit to make Ricky begin to feel welcome. He’s not looking for cuddles and compliments. There is a bracing reality to Bella that begins to help him thaw. She kills a pig with a knife and says, “There’s dinner, sorted. Want to help me gut it?” He gets a dog and comes up with three possible names: Psycho, Megatron, or Tupac. This is a place where those names are just fine.

On the run, he is back to trusting no one but himself. He says he lives in Rickytown, population: Ricky. Hec tells him it’s time to get back to Realitytown. But that trip has to wait when Hec is injured and they have to stay in “Broken Foot Camp” until he is well enough to walk. And that gives them a chance to get to know each other, and become enough of a team to take on some of the challenges they meet along the way.

They meet some delightfully quirky characters, including three hunters who mistake Hec a child molester (an attempt at humor that does not work at all well), a paranoid hermit known as Psycho Sam (Rhys Darby), and a girl on a horse who brings Ricky home, where her father asks him if he can take a selfie. Waititi’s affection for the independent spirits of the people who live in the wilderness make us, like Ricky, glad to spend time with them.

(NOTE: look for writer/director Waititi in a small role as a clergyman)

Parents should know that this film includes extended peril and some violence including guns, with characters injured, a sad death, themes of abandonment, references to molestation, a drug reference, and some strong language.

Family discussion: When did Ricky and Hec begin to trust each other? When were they in the greatest danger?

If you like this, try: “Big Game” and “The Dish”

Alice Through the Looking Glass

Posted on May 26, 2016 at 5:50 pm

“Alice Through the Looking Glass” the movie has almost no relationship to Alice Through the Looking Glass, the book by Lewis Carroll in spirit, character, or storyline. That might possibly be all right if the spirit, character, or storyline were in any way worthwhile, but it is not. Gorgeous production design and some cool stunts do not make up for a story that begins as passable and ends as painful.

Tim Burton, who produced this one, previously gave us an “Alice in Wonderland” with an adult Alice (Mia Wasikowska) replacing the little girl of the story and spending way too much time in the above-ground “real” world as she attends a party, turns down a proposal of marriage from the odious Haimish (Leo Bill), and accepts instead the offer from his father to serve as crew on a merchant ship.

In “Looking Glass,” we first see Alice, now captain of the ship, in an exciting escape from pirates that show us her courage and love of adventure. But when the ship returns to port in London, she finds that Hamish’s father has died, leaving him in charge, and he refuses to let her go back to sea. In his home, she finds a mirror over a fireplace that is a portal back to Wonderland, led by the former caterpillar, now-butterfly (voice of of the much-missed Alan Rickman).

Having already imported the talking flowers, chess pieces, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and the Jabberwocky from “Through the Looking Glass” into the first film, conflating the first story’s Queen of Hearts (the “Off with the head!” one) with the second story’s Red Queen (the chess one) this movie takes — but makes no use of — the first book’s characters like the Cheshire Cat and the White Rabbit, and then has a completely invented story about time travel.

This has many disagreeable aspects, but the worst is when it puts Sasha Baron Cohen as the embodiment of Time into a scene with Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter and allows them to try to out-grotesque each other in a manner clearly intended to be charming. It is not.

Neither is the plot, which relies heavily on just the kind of treacly heartstrings-plucking backstories that Carroll would never have allowed, asking us to feel sympathy for outrageous behavior and affection for caricatures. The first film’s attempt to create a warm, devoted friendship between Alice and the Mad Hatter was rather ooky. In the sequel, we are asked to believe that she has returned to do whatever it takes to help him because they love each other so much.

To paraphrase the folks behind “Seinfeld,” in the Alice world, there should be no hugging and no apologizing — and no heartfelt professions of affection, especially when they are not in any way justified by the characters’ history with each other.

Alice is needed on the other side of the mirror because the Mad Hatter has found something that has convinced him that his family is still alive, and not killed by the Jabberwock as he had thought. Why is this so important? Is it because he misses them so? Not really. It is because he feels bad about his behavior and needs to see them again so he can be forgiven. The disconnect between the expressions of devotion and the narcissistic reality of behavior is disturbingly cynical. Alice decides the only way she can save his family is to go back in time to the Jabberwock battle, which means she has to retrieve the chronosphere from Time himself, and that leads to more time travel as she solves various not-very-mysterious mysteries and Time chases her to get it back. Not that any of it makes any sense, logically or emotionally.

The production design is imaginative and witty, but it is buried under a gormless, hyperactive mess of a film. The book is endlessly witty and imaginative and delightful with all kinds of wordplay, math puzzles, and chess references from Carroll (aka Charles Dodgson), a math professor. The movie wastes all of that opportunity. Look at the title — the movie should be about a reverse world, not a heist/time travel saga that only concludes you can’t change history. If I had the chronosphere, I’d use it to go back to the moment I sat down to watch this movie so I could go home.

Parents should know that this film has extended fantasy peril with many disturbing images, discussion of loss of parents, brief image of someone dying, and bullying.

Family discussion: If you could go back in time, what time would you pick? Why did the Hatter and the White Queen have a hard time telling their families how they felt?

If you like this, try: the many other movie Alice stories including the Disney animated version and the Kate Beckinsale version of “Through the Looking Glass” and the books by Lewis Carroll