RED 2

Posted on July 18, 2013 at 6:00 pm

Catherine Zeta Jones seems to be making a habit of appearing in the dumbed-down sequels to big, all-star franchises. First there was “Oceans 12,” and now there’s an utterly thankless role in “Red 2,” a stylish but empty follow-up to the original, based on the comic book about spies who are classified as “retired extremely dangerous.”

It was a lot of fun the first time around to see an over-the-hill-gang take on a spy story with an all-star cast that included Oscar-winners Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, and Richard Dreyfuss along with Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, and Mary-Louise Parker. It was a lot of fun. This one, not so much.

Dean Parisot (“Galaxy Quest”) takes over as director from Robert Schwentke (whose new action comedy, “RIPD,” is also being released this week). Willis returns as Frank Moses, the once-top CIA operative with the American equivalent of a license to kill. He is now living happily ever after with Sarah (Parker), the woman he met on the customer support line and sort of kidnapped in the first film.

Happily ever after is a little boring for both of them. Shopping at Costco does not compare to the good old run-with-a-gun days. When Marvin (Malkovich), somewhat paranoid following years of CIA-sponsored LSD experiments, shows up to tell them they are in danger, Frank and Sarah are almost relieved. After all, she reminds him, he gets restless if he isn’t killing people (note: not saving the world — it is killing people he misses).

Parisot stages some nice fight scenes. The bad guy points out that it’s seven to one and Frank is in handcuffs. We know he will get out of it, but it is fun to see how he does it. It would be more fun with less carnage. Even if we were not living in a more sensitive time when it comes to the casual — even gleeful — treatment of senseless widespread slaughter, this would be over the top. Almost as bad is the uselessness of another death that adds nothing to the story.

The plot is not much — there’s a MacGuffin thing that could destroy the world and our heroes have been framed so they are being pursued as they try to save the day. Someone apparently did a Google search on what the best-protected international locations are and sent the RED team to break into them.

These always-watchable stars do their best. Helen Mirren is clearly having a blast as a cheerful assassin with a freezer full of bodies, especially when she gets to pretend to be a madwoman who thinks she is a queen, the role Mirren has played many times. Her “Hitchcock” costar Anthony Hopkins is a treat as a tweaked version of the fusty professor type he played in films like “Shadowlands.” Willis and Parker have palpable chemistry, which makes it all the more disappointing that they are stuck with dreary jealousy banter. Parisot tries to hide the script’s frequent sags with smartly-staged action scenes (the martial arts bouts with Byung-hun Lee, “G.I. Joe’s” Storm Shadow, are electrifying) and, less successfully, by having the characters chit-chat about relationship advice as they are chasing, shooting, and bombing. The AARP-eligible cast still has it. Next time, the MacGuffin they seek should be a better script.

Parents should know that this film includes constant action-style spy violence and peril with chases, crashes, explosions, guns, knives, martial arts, and a weapon of mass destruction. It has a casual attitude about a very large body count and a lot of property damage. There is also some strong language, drinking, drugs, and some sexual references.

Family discussion: What made some of the characters switch sides? What is the difference between following the rules and doing what is right?

If you like this, try: the original “Red” and “Hitchcock,” also starring Dame Helen Mirren and Sir Anthony Hopkins

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Pacific Rim

Posted on July 11, 2013 at 6:00 pm

I know there’s only one question you have about this movie, and the answer is yes. If you ever wanted to see a movie with giant monsters battling giant robots, this is it.

And if you ever wanted to see a movie that is nothing but giant monsters battling giant robots, this is that movie.

Not much more to say after that. And thankfully, director Guillermo del Toro understands that. I don’t remember ever seeing a movie that gets to the point so quickly. Less than a minute into the running time there’s a monster attacking a city and cars falling off a bridge and moments later, we get, you guessed it, a monster fighting a robot. And it’s pretty much monsters and robots from then on.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. These are some mighty fine monsters and robots.

So, here’s the deal. There are monsters. We don’t know where they came from but they arrive through some sort of “Thor”-like portal under the Pacific Ocean. Its cheeky conceit is that the dinosaurs were a sort of failed advance team and the monsters had to wait until humans evolved and deteriorated the environment until it was Goldilocks-just-right for them.

These are very, very big monsters known by the Japanese term “kaiju.” Del Toro loves monsters, and these are absolutely fantastic. Like Ray Harryhausen, del Toro and his character design team understand that we need monsters to be at the same time very strange and very familiar, impossible but possible. The structure of bone and muscle and teeth has to make sense to us. They have to be able to support their frames and their movements have to feel weighty and powerful. These monsters are masterfully designed, marvelous and scary. There are blue, glowing tentacles and massive jaws with pointed teeth. They attack cities like Godzilla’s gigantic brother, stomping and chomping.

What’s cool here is the sheer scale of the things. Over and over, it take your breath away.

At first, the humans think it is a one-time attack. But then there are others. And the earth has to recalibrate all notions of what is possible, all priorities. They have to find a way to fight the kaiju. They have to build robots the size of the Empire State Building.

The robots look great, with ninja heads and believable scuffs and dents. Some of what they do does not seem physically possible — how does that running and jumping thing work? — but mostly their movements seem to make sense and feel believably powerful and weighty. What goes on inside, not so much. We can build robots the size of a skyscraper but the arms and legs have to be operated manually, like a kind of gym stair-stepper? And what is this mumbo-jumbo about how the pairs who operate them have to be able to “drift” — meld their neural pathways so they can access each other’s thoughts? Oh, well, let’s get to the fights!

Charlie Day provides some comic relief without going overboard as a nerdy scientist. Ron Pearlman shows up as a colorful profiteer. He goes overboard, but that’s what he’s there for. Idris Elba gets to use his real accent for once, is majestic as the guy in charge. Charlie Hunnam, bulked up, fades into the background, more generic than the machines. Whenever they try to add some human interest, everything stalls, but fortunately that does not happen too often.

There are a couple of good touches about the way different elements of civilization respond to the monsters. I couldn’t really understand who was doing what some of the time or what they were saying much of the time (a lot of the usual sci-fi moments of people staring intently into monitors, but it is always nice to Clifton Collins, Jr., and he does better with the jargon than most people). But there were robots fighting monsters and in the middle of the summer, that’s good enough for me.

NOTE: Be sure to stay halfway through the credits for an extra scene.

Parents should know that this film has non-stop and intense sci-fi action violence with massive destruction and genocide, very scary monsters, chases, explosions, suicide missions, gruesome images, sad deaths, brief language

Family discussion: Why didn’t Staker want Mako to go out in the Jaeger? How is the cooperation between Gottleib and Geiszler like the drifting of the Jaeger operators? What are three different ways we saw characters respond to the attacks?

If you like this, try: “Independence Day,” “Top Gun,” “Blade Runner,” and the original “Godzilla”

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3D Action/Adventure Science-Fiction

The Lone Ranger

Posted on July 7, 2013 at 11:32 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence, and some suggestive material
Profanity:	Some mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Scenes in bar
Violence/ Scariness:	Extensive action-style violence, some graphic, many deaths and injuries
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie but some insensitivity to racial differences
Date Released to Theaters:	July 4, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B008JFUOC2

For more than a century the movies have been telling us the story of America through westerns, and each decade gets the version it deserves. We have seen films range from the optimistic, heroic, and racially insensitive movies of the 40’s (“Destry Rides Again,” “My Darling Clementine”) to the more politically metaphoric movies of the cold war era (“High Noon,” “The Ox-Bow Incident”) to the subversive 60’s (“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “Cat Ballou”), to the bleakness of spaghetti westerns and the Oscar-winning “Unforgiven.”

And now, 110 years after Edwin S. Porter’s “Great Train Robbery” (considered the first movie western), we get an update on the radio show-turned television series-turned forgettable 1981 movie version starring model-almost-turned-actor Klinton Spilsbury and Michael Horse, “The Lone Ranger.” And it is indeed a reflection on the era of Citizens United and squestration. It is the very essence of soulless corporate excess and celebrity self-regard.

The folks behind “Pirates of the Caribbean” have reunited for a reboot of “The Lone Ranger,” but this is more like the overstuffed sequels than the fresh and charming original. Everything is out of balance in this bloated two and a half-hour endurance challenge. The worst part is that pared down to lose 40 minutes or so of filler, this could be a nice little action movie. It has the key ingredients: a story and characters that have stood the test of time, inventive and absorbing action sequences, and talented performers. Unfortunately, it is hard to find any of that in the midst of all of the bombast and overkill and tooooo many cooks.

It is now well known that Depp became a superstar with his performance as Captain Jack Sparrow in the “Pirates” movies, a performance of such quirk and weirdness that it completely freaked out the suits. So of course now, with him as producer, they let him do whatever he wanted for the character of Tonto, including spending the entire movie with his face completely painted and wearing a dead crow on his head, inspired by a picture he saw. This is when the suits should have stepped in. Instead they were enablers, allowing the quirks to become distracting and unpleasant. That is especially true in a completely unnecessary framing story set in 1933, with Depp in old man make-up appearing in an old west display, telling a little kid dressed as the Lone Ranger his story.

Armie Hammer does his best in a thankless role. His John Reid is part James Stewart in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” (bookish lawyer who wants to bring Lockeian notions of a civil society to the west), part doofus. He isn’t as smart as Tonto or the villains, which is fine, but he isn’t as smart as his horse, either. He isn’t as smart as the blanket under his saddle, except when he is, or when he is called upon to do crazy stunts like racing the snow-white “spirit horse” across the top of a racing train, shooting his gun as he goes. He is a fine actor with a strong screen presence and he is clearly game. He deserves better.

The many, many references to other movies seem like crutches, not tributes. The many, many anachronisms are sloppy and show contempt for the audience, not meta-commentary. People in 1869 did not say “Let’s do this.” They did not eat hot dogs in buns with ketchup. The “Star Spangled Banner” did not become the national anthem until 1931. There was no such thing as “health code violations” in a bar — or a house of prostitution. And the all-purpose conspiracy that has the military, a hostile takeover, and an outlaw feels desperate and generic. Any commentary on today’s economic and political woes is purely coincidental.

The real commentary on the failures of capitalism is in spending $250 million of the Disney shareholders’ money on this uninspired vanity project.

Parents should know that this film has intense and graphic violence for a PG-13. A villain literally eats the heart of a man he has murdered and there is massive slaughter, with many characters injured and killed. There are prostitutes, a cross-dresser, bathroom humor, some alcohol, and mild language.

Family discussion: Why did Tonto feed the crow? Why was trading so important to him? Read the Lone Ranger’s creed and discuss how it applies to your life.

If you like this, try: “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” “Silverado,” “Cat Ballou,” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”

Despicable Me 2

Posted on July 3, 2013 at 10:00 am

Is there more to the story of “Despicable Me” after Gru (Steve Carell) isn’t despicable anymore? The original, with Gru and Vector (Jason Segal) as warring super-villains, was one of the best animated films and one of the best family movies of the past several years. The characters, brilliantly designed by illustration great Carter Goodrich, were a magnificent contrast, Gru all musty gothic and Victorian, with heavy carved wood and hammered metal and Vector all sleek and mid-century Creamsicle colors. The happy ending had Gru’s heart warming to three adorable orphan girls and saving the day.

With all of that resolved, this movie never quite reaches the emotional resonance of the first, and this edition’s villain (I will try not to give away any surprises that occur after the first third of the film) is not as interesting as Vector, visually or in terms of plot or character.

But it is still wonderfully imaginative and fun, with a masterful use of 3D and breathtaking, precision-timed, action sequences that are both exciting and hilarious. And there are minions.

The adorable yellow creatures who appear to be made from marshmallow peeps and serve as Gru’s version of ooompa-loompas are even more effective scene-stealers than they were in the first outing, whether wearing a fetching maid uniform, reacting to the taste of a very bad batch of jelly, or suffering the effects of a transforming serum called PX41. Watch the end credits — they appear to be poised to take over the next chapter.

There are some new characters in this sequel, too, most delightfully Lucy, an agent for the Anti-Villain League who recruits Gru to help her save the world. She is charmingly voiced by Kristin Wiig (a different accent and a different character from the orphanage director she played in the first movie), and deliciously drawn, with Lucille Ball-red hair and a fearless but charmingly dorky personality. A local mom keeps trying to fix Gru up with her single friends and the girls want him to try a computer matchmaker. But it is Lucy who makes him consider for the first time getting over the childhood trauma that made him decide that romance was beyond his ability. Lucy is adorkable, both coltish and rubber-limbed, cheerily explaining to Gru that he should not announce his weapon until after he uses it, and then demonstrating by singing out “lipstick taser!” as he seizes and jerks on the ground.

Meanwhile, there is a new super-villain to track down. The Anti-Villain League has traced him or her to the local mall (witty and imaginatively conceived). So Gru and Lucy go undercover with a cupcake shop called Bake My Day and try to figure out which of the local merchants has the PX41. This is much more exciting than trying to make an honest living manufacturing jams and jellies, especially after the departure of his long-time aide, Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand), who leaves for evil-er pastures.

In the midst of all this, Gru still has his parental responsibilities, including some worries over oldest daughter Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), who has spotted a cute boy named Antonio (“Kings of Summer’s” Moises Arias), who has Beiberific hair and all the charm of a future Latin lover.

A chase scene that has the minions trying to protect Gru is one of the best action sequences of the year and Gru’s entry into the super-villain’s lair is cleverly designed. It is fun to see Gru try to manage a 6-year-old’s birthday party (like Steve Martin in “Parenthood,” he has to step in as the entertainment) while redefining himself as a man the girls can trust and respect. It isn’t the villain who’s his match this time, it’s his partner in non-crime. While not as liberatingly refreshing as the original, it is still a blast and one of the best family films of the year.

Parents should know that this film has several instances of potty humor and some violence and peril (mostly comic but with weapons and drug-induced personality transformations). There’s a brief shot of a bare minion tush and a joke about being drunk.

Family discussion: Why was it hard for Gru to tell Lucy how he felt? What “despicable” qualities did Gru have that helped him be a better good guy?

If you like this, try: “Despicable Me” and “Megamind”

Man of Steel

Posted on June 12, 2013 at 6:00 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence, action and destruction, and for some language
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Some drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Extensive sci-fi/action violence including acts of terrorism, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie, diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	June 14, 2013

Come on, guys, can’t you give us one superhero who is not all angsty and conflicted? Director Zack Snyder, who presided over the ultimate superhero deconstruction in Watchmen, and producer/co-screenwriter Christopher Nolan, who put the cinematic “dark” in Batman’s Dark Knight have taken the original superhero, the one all the others are a reaction to, the one who never needed to be reminded that with great power comes great responsibility, and saddled him with an existential crisis.

This is less an updating of Superman than a downgrade.

That is not the fault of British actor Henry Cavill, who plays Clark Kent and Superman with a lot of heart behind that flawlessly heroic jaw, cleft chin, and broad shoulders. It is the sour tone of the script and the drab look of the film, with completely unnecessary post-production 3D adding a greyish cast over the bleached-out images.

And a reboot really does not require yet another retelling of the origin story. We all know about the little spaceship sent off from Krypton by Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and Lara (Ayelet Zurer) before the planet exploded, and the baby who was discovered by the childless Kents, honest farmers who called their new son Clark. Here the re-telling is used to lay the foundation for a battle of former Kryptonians, with towering rage specialist Michael Shannon as General Zod (memorably played in “Superman II” by Terrence Stamp). A new wrinkle: as in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and “Gattaca”, the decadent, depleted Kryptonian society genetically programs fetuses for particular purposes.

In defiance of this system, Jor-El and Lara produce a child the old-fashioned way, the first such birth in generations. But it is too late. Krypton has ignored its inconvenient truths for too long. The world, including technology that features a phone that looks like a talking pomegranate, is about to end. General Zod, once Jor-El’s friend, rebels, killing Jor-El, and vowing revenge as he and his followers are sent to the Phantom Zone. (And by the way, the Phantom Zone here is not nearly as cool as the rotating glass plane in “Superman II.”

After the Kryptonian prologue, we get a distractingly disjointed story, beginning with Clark as an adult, saving the day in secret and disappearing before he can be identified. In flashbacks, we see that Martha Kent (Diane Lane) teaches him how to manage his super-senses without getting overwhelmed. Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) tells his adopted son not to reveal his powers because the world is not ready to understand and appreciate him. Though he loves his parents, Clark feels isolated and anguished. He cannot help stepping in when rescue is needed (and in one case when a bully needs a comeuppance), but then he has to move on so his secret cannot be uncovered.

Lois Lane (Amy Adams), spunky as ever (“What can I say, I get writer’s block if I’m not wearing a flack jacket”) finds out Clark’s secret immediately. She is not someone who is going to be fooled by a pair of glasses and a timid demeanor. Indeed, one reason this story seems so sterile is that it leaves out some of the core elements of the Superman story. No kryptonite. Instead of graceful soaring through the sky, he takes off like a jumping bean. He does not call himself Superman and is only called it once. Instead of the iconic bright red and blue uniform, he wears a textured supersuit with a dramatic but not very practical ankle-length cape. Edna Mode, where are you when Superman needs you?

Clark keeps his secret, with tragic consequences, until General Zod arrives and insists that Earth surrender its lone Kryptonian. This leads to a half-hour fight sequence that is ably staged but empty in spirit. Post-production 3D effects are applied indiscriminately, with the pores of the actors’ skin unsettlingly immersive. The action is indiscriminate and overblown. Perhaps some day we will be able to appreciate mass destruction without painful associations. But here and now, it feels gratuitous. Clark Kent/Kal-El gets so caught up in his own existential angst he overlooks some complex moral issues in his fight with Zod. The plot draws too heavily from “Star Trek” (in at least two places) and not enough from Superman’s decades of history. What about Mr. Myxlplyx? The City of Kandor? Bizarro World? Don’t make Superman into another Dark Knight. Let Superman be his own super-self.

Parents should know that this film includes extended scenes of comic book-style action violence with fights, chases, explosions, tornado, planet annihilated, sad deaths of parents, crashes, and massive city-wide destruction. Many characters are injured and killed including fetuses. There is a non-explicit childbirth scene, some strong and crude insults, and some drinking.

Family discussion: Was Clark’s father right to tell him to keep his powers secret, no matter what the cost? How does this Superman differ from other portrayals and why? Is morality an “evolutionary advantage?” What would you pick for the symbol of your house?

If you like this, try: “Superman” and “Superman II” and the new book about the teenagers who created the character of Superman: Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster