Sabotage

Posted on March 27, 2014 at 6:00 pm

sabotage-movie_poster-261x400“Sabotage” begins with two painful images.  A woman is being horribly tortured.  And Arnold Schwarzenegger, as the man watching it happen on video, is trying to act.

As generic as its title, “Sabotage” wastes no time or effort on such, um, expendables as character, plot, dialog, or making sense.  This is all about gut-wrenching (literally) violence, as in entrails-out corpses and sliding around in pools of blood.  It is often said of middle-grade movies that if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the film.  Not in this case.  If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen a better film than the one playing in theaters.  The trailer makes it look like a story of DEA agents vs. drug cartels.  And it makes it look like a story with a plot.  Ticket buyers might want to contact the Federal Trade Commission for false advertising on both counts.

In Training Day, screenwriter David Ayer had two advantages missing here: galvanizing performance by Oscar-winner Denzel Washington and some emotional heft to the storyline, with Ethan Hawke as the audience’s entry point to the soul-destroying world of combatants in the drug wars.  Since then, the soul-destruction has come more from watching his subsequent films than from the degrading violence-for-the-sake-of-violence stories on screen.

Schwarzenegger is no Denzel Washington.  And this story has no deeper resonance.  Schwarzenegger plays Breacher, the leader of a group of badass DEA agents.  They all have tattoos and tough handles like “Pyro” and “Grinder and mad SEAL-level combat skilz.  And after they mow down a houseful of presumed bad guys (sparing the children), they say quippy things like “Cleanup on aisle 3.” (This is one of perhaps a dozen sentences in the film without the f-word.)  And of course they have the kinds of tight bonds you only get from risking death and killing bad guys together, exemplified and reinforced with visits to strip clubs and lots of high-testosteronic insults about people’s mothers and what everyone’s private parts have been doing.  Plus intrusive product placement (apparently) of PBR.  Fun for everyone!

Our merry team of marauders lifts a cool ten million from some bad guys, but then it gets lifted from them.  So now everyone suspects everyone.  As a Justice Department official warns in a typically heavy-handed exchange, trust is like virginity — once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.  Breacher’s bosses don’t trust him.  The drug dealers they stole from and the other drug dealers they’ve busted over the years want them dead.  And, because the gang never got the money, they begin to lose trust in each other.

This gets more volatile and intense as, Ten Little Indians-style, the group starts getting picked off, first the “that guy” actors whose faces look vaguely familiar, and then working up to the bigger stars, one of whom may be behind all of this.  The cop investigating the murders is Caroline (Brit Olivia Williams attempting a Georgia drawl), and her sidekick Jackson (Harold Perrineau, apparently visiting from some other, better movie and a welcome bright spot in this one).  Oh, they’re all quippy, too, but more adept.

There’s a lot of uninspired, mind-numbing, standard-issue bang bang with ludicrous turns — a corpse nailed to a ceiling, a car chase and shootout in a public place with apparently no interest whatsoever by the local police, an experienced law enforcement officer who neglects to bring back-up to a meeting sure to turn lethal, a woman who finds Schwarzenegger enthralling.  He isn’t, and neither is this movie.

Parents should know that this film includes extended and extremely explicit and graphic violence, including rape and torture, with many disturbing images, characters injured and killed, crude and explicit sexual references, nudity, strippers, constant strong and vulgar language, drinking, smoking, drug dealing and drug use, corruption and murder for hire.

Family discussion: How do the experiences of Breacher’s team make them work more effectively together? How do the same experiences divide them?

If you like this, try: “Training Day” and “Internal Affairs”

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Action/Adventure Crime

Divergent

Posted on March 20, 2014 at 6:00 pm

B+
Lowest Recommended Age: Middle School
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense violence and action, thematic elements and some sensuality
Profanity: Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Mind-altering drugs
Violence/ Scariness: Intense and graphic peril and violence with many characters injured and killed, some disturbing images, guns, fighting, suicide, deaths of parents, sexual assault
Diversity Issues: Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters: March 21, 2014
Date Released to DVD: August 4, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN: B00GQQ75QO

divergent posterAnother day, another movie based on darkly dystopic book trilogy with a brave and beautiful teenaged girl who is the only one who can save the world. This time it is Tris (Shailene Woodley), who lives in a post-apocalyptic Chicago, where the ravages of a barely-remembered but devastating war have resulted in a totalitarian society that appears benign but is brutal and corrupt.

What is left of civilization has evolved or devolved into a rigidly divided society. There are five factions each named for its sole defining characteristic. Annoyingly, some of those names are nouns and some adjectives, because none of the factions have grammar as a specialty, but they are descriptive. There is Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). The tasks of the society are assigned appropriately. Amity are the farmers. Dauntless are a combination of law enforcement and military. Abnegation care for everyone, even the factionless, and due to their tradition, culture, and ethos of putting the good of others before themselves, they are the governing body.

Each year, all the 16-year-olds are tested to determine whether they will stay in their faction of origin or are better suited for another. If they leave, they never go home again. The slogan is “Faction over blood.”

Beatrice Prior’s test shows that she is a rare “divergent,” combining the qualities of three of the factions: Abnegation, Erudite, and Dauntless.  This means that she has a unique ability to solve problems and understand issues more deeply in a way that threatens the ruling and would-be ruling powers.  She does not tell anyone and chooses Dauntless while her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort, who will be Woodley’s romantic interest in the highly anticipated upcoming “Fault in Our Stars”), chooses Erudite.

Beatrice choses a new name for herself: Tris.  She and the other inductees are subjected to an intensive boot camp to learn to fight and prove their courage.  The top performers will stay with Dauntless.  The ones who do not make it will be factionless, which means homeless and shunned.  Part of the training includes sessions in a fear room, where the subject’s worst and most disturbing fears are revealed to themselves and to the people conducting the tests.  Tris’s test is overseen by Dauntless leader Four (hunky-but-sensitive-for-a-Dauntless Theo James).  There is a strong connection between them for reasons they do not yet understand.

Kate Winslet plays Jeanine, the calm but steely Erudite who acts as a sort of Chief Operating Officer of the entire community.  She is convinced that human nature is something to triumph over, even eliminate entirely, in order to preserve the peace, and if preserving the peace means chaos and murder, she will not hesitate because she believes it is for the greater good.  Not being Candors, the Erudites have been spreading rumors about the Abnegations to try to take over as rulers.  They cannot do it without the support of the faction with physical courage.  What is the best way to get that support?

Much of the storyline involves the series of physical and psychological tests that Tris and her fellow inductees must take, knowing that anyone who does not excel in every category will be kicked out and shunned.  It is fun to see Tris come into her own, making the most of all she has to draw from and to give to others.  She knows you do not have to be harsh to be strong, or weak to be kind.  And her divergent thinking ability enables her to evaluate options, assess probabilities, and plan strategically.  Woodley carries the most improbable of the story’s twists with sincerity and sweetness that keeps us on her side.  And it is a relief, for once, to have a YA female-led trilogy that does not depend on a love triangle to hold our interest.

Parents should know that this film includes intense and graphic peril and violence with many characters injured and killed, some disturbing images, guns, fighting, suicide, loss of parents, mind-altering drugs, some strong language, sexual assault, romantic kissing and brief discussion of waiting to have sex.

Family discussion: Which group would you pick and why? What is the significance of Four’s name? What compromises of freedom are necessary for peace?

If you like this, try: the books by Veronica Roth

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Action/Adventure Based on a book DVD/Blu-Ray Pick of the Week Fantasy Science-Fiction Series/Sequel Stories about Teens

Need for Speed

Posted on March 13, 2014 at 6:00 pm

Need_For_Speed
Poster courtesy of Dreamworks SKG

Important tip: If the word “speed” is in the title of the movie, don’t make it over two hours long. And especially, don’t make it feel even longer than that.

Clearly going for the “Fast and Furious” vibe with a side order of “Smokey and the Bandit,” “Need for Speed” tries to capitalize on the buzz around newly graduated “Breaking Bad” star Aaron Paul. But it has no idea of how to use him. Paul is a talented actor and an appealing performer but he is not up to the particular demands of a dumb chases and explosions movie.  This is probably to his credit.  Unfortunately, it is not to the movie’s.  The cars are fast and pretty and the stunts are impressive.  But when it comes to the script, it just spins its wheels.

Paul plays Tobey Marshall, a decent guy in financial trouble following the death of his father.  He needs money to keep the family garage going, and the only way he can make it is by street racing.  He and his wisecracking but devoted Benetton ad of a pit crew/posse/A Team are, of course, the best of the best, all wisecracking and womb to tomb and such.  But Tobey tangles with arrogant professional race car driver Dino (a glowering Dominic Cooper), not just a racing rival but a romantic one as well.  Dino is after Tobey’s former girlfriend, Anita (future “50 Shades of Gray” spankee Dakota Johnson), as much to spite Tobey, apparently, as for any feelings of affection or regard for Anita herself.  Why she is with him, we never understand.

But then, there is not much in this movie that makes sense.  It’s all about the races and chases and the very fancy cars that are 3/4 rocket and worth zillions of dollars.  That would be fine, but first-time writer George Gatins keeps trying to put a story around the chases to make us more invested in the outcome and the details are just so dumb and inconsistent that it has the opposite effect.  The script does to this movie what a blown tire does to a race car rounding the corner, and it ain’t pretty.

After a fatal accident, Dino frames Tobey, who goes to prison for manslaughter for two years.  When he comes out, he really really really wants to beat Dino for the same reasons as before but more so.  To recap: he is arrogant and mean, he was responsible for the accident and made Tobey take the rap, and that Anita thing is still going on, plus Tobey still needs money to buy the old garage out of foreclosure.  It turns out there is — say it with me now — one really big race coming up.  This is the ultra-secret, invitation-only race organized by eccentric rich guy and former racer Monarch (Michael Keaton, literally phoning it in).  In order to get the car to the race, Tobey will have to drive it across the country in just 45 hours.  And in order to get the car he needs, he will need to bring along snooty British car expert Frog, I mean Julia (Imogen Poots).  He’ll need to get the band back together (actors who deserve better: hip-hop artist Scott Mescudi, better known as Kid Cudi, along with Rami Malek and Ramon Rodriguez).  Mescudi plays a literal wing-man, stealing aircraft of one kind and another to let Tobey know where the cops are, and, since they are doing all of this on major streets and highways, where the traffic may present a problem.

It’s all hijinks and high spirits, but the romantic pairing never clicks and the banter is lifeless. As the crashes mount up, it becomes increasingly hard to overlook the carnage and carelessness of the characters we are supposed to be rooting for.  There is still too much substance inherent in even the slightest of narratives that makes the crashing of a cop car more disturbing on screen than it might be in a game.  The stunts are capably staged but some are taken from better movies — there are even references to “Bullitt” and “Speed” which just point up this one’s inferiority.  The filmmakers have emphasized that the stunts here are real, not CGI, and the 3D effects are excellent.  But the only speed you are likely to need is the fast switch to a better film.

Parents should know that this film includes a lot of reckless and illegal behavior and extended mayhem including many car crashes and explosions, characters injured and killed, some graphic and disturbing images, strong and crude language, and male rear nudity.

Family discussion: What made Tobey and his team so loyal to one another? What changed his mind about Julia? Which car was the coolest?

If you like this, try: the “Fast and Furious” series

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3D Action/Adventure Scene After the Credits

Mr. Peabody & Sherman

Posted on March 6, 2014 at 6:00 pm

Mr_Peabody_&_Sherman_Poster
Poster copyright Dreamworks 2014

Jay Ward’s irresistibly daffy cartoons of the early 1960’s were charming and witty, with a post-modern meta wink at the fourth wall, wacky puns, and jokes that kids would suddenly remember and understand years later.  This reboot is smarmy, overblown, dumbed down, and off-kilter.  Who thinks it is a good idea to have a movie for children about time travel begin with a trip to the French revolution and the guillotine?

Cartoonist Ted Key, best known for the Hazel character played by Shirley Booth in the television sitcom, came up with the super-genius dog, Mr. Peabody, inventor of the WABAC machine, and his boy Sherman, for Ward’s “Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.”  In each episode, the duo would go back in time and somehow help a historical character solve a problem.  In this computer-animated, 3D, full-length feature version, the wit of the original devolves into bathroom humor and slapstick.  If the poster slogan is a doggie potty joke (“He makes his mark on history”), it is not a good sign.

As in the original, Mr. Peabody (“Modern Family’s” Ty Burrell) knows everything.  He’s a Nobel Prize-winning scientist who advises world leaders and makes a mean cocktail.  In one of the movie’s highlights, he is challenged to play musical instruments ranging from a flamenco guitar to a didgeridoo, and performs flawlessly.  He has invented a WABAC machine to take Sherman back in time, where they have encountered a cake-loving Marie Antoinette, with Mr. P led to the guillotine, and an unhappy Mona Lisa (Lake Bell), refusing to smile for Leonardo da Vinci (Stanley Tucci).

He has an adopted son, Sherman (Max Charles), who attends a fancy private school, where a girl named Penny (“Modern Family’s” Ariel Winter) gets angry when Sherman corrects her answer about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, explaining that it never really happened.  After a sloppy misuse of the term “sarcastic,” she insults Sherman in the lunchroom, calling him a dog because he has a dog for a father.  They get into a fight, and Sherman bites her arm.  Mr. Peabody is called to the principal’s office, where Ms. Grunion (Allison Janney), a representative from Child Protective Services, tells him Sherman will be removed from the home if he is not an appropriate parent.

Mr. Peabody invites Penny and her parents and Ms. Grunion over for dinner to straighten things out.  Sherman shows Penny the WABAC machine that Mr. Peabody invented to take them back in time, and soon the two kids find themselves in ancient Egypt, where Penny becomes engaged to the young King Tut, until she finds out what that entrails, I mean entails (the bad pun thing is contagious–parents be warned).   Soon they are zipping around through history, meeting up with Agamemnon (Patrick Warburton, hilarious as always, despite an Oedipus joke) and soaring over Renaissance Florence in one of da Vinci’s flying machines.

The time travel plot gets bogged down in time-space continuum anomaly mumbo jumbo.  Then there are the father-son issues.  Mr. Peabody, who wants his son to call him Mr. Peabody, has a problem with the l-word.  Ms. Grunion’s blustery bullying and threats to remove Sherman from his home will make some families uncomfortable.  It should also make them uncomfortable that the movie appears to portray kidnapping a woman as a romantic gesture that should make her instantly fall in love.  Jokes about Oedipus and Bill Clinton are particularly disappointing.  Warburton’s dry delivery and some good scenery and action sequences can’t make up for the fact that this movie is a disappointing come-down that completely misses the charm and humor of the original.

Parents should know that this movie has a lot of potty humor, some crude jokes, cartoon-style peril and action including a guillotine and a taser, a character is presumed dead but later shown to have survived, a woman is captured as a romantic gesture, and child protection services challenges an adoption and attempts to remove a child from his home.

Family discussion:  If you could go back to any time in history, what would it be?  Who would you want to meet?  Why was Penny so mean?

If you like this, try: The original series and the other Jay Ward classics like “Rocky and Bullwinkle,” “Fractured Fairy Tales,” and “Dudley Do-right.”

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3D Action/Adventure Animation Based on a television show Fantasy For the Whole Family Talking animals
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