Dark Shadows

Posted on May 10, 2012 at 6:00 pm

“Dark Shadows” tries to sink its teeth into the legendary 1960’s supernatural soap opera with both ironic distance and visceral thrills. It can be done — see the original “Men in Black” — but wonderfully weird visuals from director Tim Burton and a highly watchable performance by his muse, Johnny Depp cannot keep the tone from faltering and the results are unsatisfying. One big problem is a criminally underused cast. Eva Green matches Depp as Angelique, the woman scorned whose witchcraft turns the young heir Barnabas Collins into a vampire and curses all of the Collins family forevermore. But Michelle Pfeiffer, Johnny Lee Miller, Jackie Earle Haley, and Chloe Grace Moretz (“Hugo,” “Kick-Ass”) have little to do but pose in Colleen Atwood’s fabulous 70’s costumes. Co-scripter Seth Grahame-Smith, whose genre mash-ups include Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) has produced a script that does not work as tribute or update.

Barnabas Collins was the young son of a wealthy family who came to America in the 1770’s and settled in a 200-room mansion on a cliff near a Maine fishing town. Angelique (Green), the daughter of a servant, loved Barnabas or, more likely, she loved his wealth, position, and power. When he told her he could not love her, she unleashed her witchy revenge. She enchanted Josette (Bella Heathcote), the girl Barnabas loved, so that she committed suicide by jumping off the cliff. When Barnabas tried to follow her, Angelique turned him into a vampire who could not die.

Barnabas is captured and shut into a coffin for nearly 200 years. When a construction project digs him up, he enters the world of 1972, which is almost as confusing and dysfunctional as his descendants. They are: Elizabeth (Pfeiffer), her louche brother Roger (Miller), her sullen teenage daughter Carolyn (Moretz), and Roger’s “I see dead people” son David (Gulliver McGrath). They live in a partitioned-off wing of Collinwood Mansion with drunken caretaker Willie Loomis (Haley), a dotty housekeeper, and a substance-abusing psychiatrist named Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), who came for a brief time to help David after his mother’s death but stayed for years.

No one believes Barnabas at first, despite a convincing resemblance to the family portrait. But he tells Elizabeth he is there to restore the family to wealth and power and proves his good intentions by leading her to treasure hidden in a secret room and he begins to seem no less believable than the other members of the family. With some vampire version of the Vulcan mind meld, he persuades the local captains to switch from their association with the dynamic woman who controls most of the fishing business in the area. She is none other than Angelique, still going strong and still in the midst of a big love-hate thing with Barnabas. And there is Victoria, a new governess for David, who looks just like Josette (Heathcote again).

Depp is clearly having a blast with his character’s gothic formality of movement and linguistic curlicues and Green has a great triumphant/demonic smile. Whenever they are on screen the movie picks up and their intimate encounter is hilariously room-shaking. Barnabas experiences the wonders of the modern age, including some that we take for granted (paved roads, television) and some that feel as mystifying to us as they do to him. Shag rugs? Lava lamps? But the plot is as creaky as the hinges on Barnabas’ coffin.

Parents should know that the ghoulish plot concerns vampires, ghosts, and witches. While some elements are comic, the film has stylized but graphic horror-style violence, characters injured and killed, sexual references and an explicit comic sex scene, some strong language, smoking, drinking, and drug use.

Family discussion: What were the biggest differences Barnabas found when he returned after 200 years? How was he most like and unlike his relatives?

If you like this, try: Episodes of the original black and white television series and the fantasy film “Stardust”

21 Jump Street

Posted on March 15, 2012 at 6:30 pm

The record on movie versions of decades-old television shows is not a pretty one. I call them lunchbox movies because I can envision the pitch meeting with the young studio executive smiling, “Oh, I had the lunchbox for that show! It was my favorite! Yes, I’d love to do a movie version of ‘SWAT!'” For every “Charlie’s Angels,” there are a half-dozen, well, “Charlie’s Angels 2,” not to mention — please, don’t mention — “Land of the Lost,” “Bewitched,” “The Wild, Wild West,” “”The Dukes of Hazard,” “The Avengers,” “Inspector Gadget,” “I Spy,” “My Favorite Martian,” and “Starsky and Hutch.” Whether you play it straight or skewed, it’s very difficult to catch lightning in a bottle, and even harder the second time. So it’s a relief and a pleasure to report that “21 Jump Street” is a lot of fun. It is a wild comedy version of the 1987-91 police drama starring Johnny Depp, about young-looking cops who go undercover in high schools.

Channing Tatum (Jenko) and the newly slimmed-down Jonah Hill (Schmidt) star as the undercover cops. In high school, Tatum’s character was cool and Hill’s character was a nerd. But they become friends at the police academy and are made partners after graduation. “I thought there’d be more car chases and explosions,” Jenko says as they ride their constabulary but not at all exciting bicycles on beach patrol. When they mess up their first arrest by forgetting to read the perp his Miranda rights, they are sent to 21 Jump Street, an abandoned church that is the headquarters for the high school infiltration operation headed by Captain Dickson (Ice Cube), a pepperpot who endearingly owns up to embracing his stereotype and hilariously explains that their program is nothing but recycling a cancelled idea. Jenko and Schmidt are assigned to play brothers to track down the source of a very powerful and dangerous new hallucinogen that has already killed one boy. Jenko will be the cool jock to find the purchasers of the drug and Schmidt will be the science nerd to find the manufacturer — and they will have to move in with Schmidt’s doting but smothering parents.

And of course everything goes wrong.

They are no better at remembering their fake identities than they are at remembering the Miranda warnings. Jenko ends up having to play the brainiac and Schmidt has to be the jock who takes drama class. And in one of the script’s shrewdest and funniest observations, the seven years since they were in high school, a lot has changed. It isn’t just that calling a girl on a cell instead of texting is so old school she thinks it must be coming from one of her parents’ friends. The fundamental rules they both thought they understood about what makes someone cool like the iconography of one-strapping vs. two-strapping the backpack and the bedrock divisions of high school phylum, genus, status, and species seem to have moved or disappeared. For Jenko and Schmidt, figuring out high school is an even more daunting mystery than tracking down the drug dealers.

Tatum, best known for syrupy romances and action movies, turns out to have crackerjack comic timing and Brie Larson and Dave Franco are standouts as students who exemplify the boundary-crossing of the current generation of high school students. She’s cool and does drama — and Larson has a warmth, wit, sweetness, and sparkle that is utterly winning. He’s all about protecting the environment and has an entrepreneurial side that isn’t always legal. And it is fun to see Franco showing off the off-beat vibe he is so good at in the Funny or Die videos with his brother James. The strong supporting cast includes cameos from some “21 Jump Street” original stars and the inevitable Rob Riggle doing his inevitable obnoxious shtick. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (the witty “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs”) maintain a strong balance between action and comedy and keep things energetic with big scenes that include an out-of-control teen party and the prom. They also balance appreciation for the original series with a very contemporary sensibility. At the end they make it clear that everyone is up for a sequel and I found I was, too.

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New Barney and Angelina Movies Available on DVD and On Demand

Posted on January 6, 2012 at 3:56 pm

Two preschooler favorite series have new movies released this week on DVD and On Demand.

Barney: I Love My Friends The big purple dinosaur and his friends learn some valuable lessons about what it means to be a friend — keeping promises, sharing feelings, and sticking together. Included: a read-aloud book of hugs and a sing-along “If You’re Happy and You Know It”

I have one copy of this DVD to give away! Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Barney in the subject line and tell me your favorite Barney song. Don’t forget your address! I’ll pick a winner at random on January 9.

Angelina Ballerina: Sweet Valentine The adorable mouse dances, skates, and sings in five episodes about love and friendship, helping each other, celebrating Ms. Mimi, and being inclusive. Included: Angelina’s picture game and “Get Up and Dance” music video

Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol

Posted on December 15, 2011 at 7:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action and violence
Profanity:	One s-word
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Constant action-style peril and violence, bombs, guns, chases, explosions, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	December 16, 2011
Date Released to DVD:	April 09, 2012
Amazon.com ASIN:	B004EPYZUS

The first live-action film from animation director Brad Bird (“The Iron Giant,” “The Incredibles”) is pure adrenalin rush. It has the best stunts of the year and crackerjack mastery of pace in this fourth “Mission: Impossible” movie.

More “inspired by” than “based on” the 1960’s television series, the series features Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, an agent who operates outside even the ultra-clandestine world of spies. The most direct tie to the original program is in the presentation of new assignments. They include video as well as audio four decades later, but the recording still intones, “Your mission, should you decide to accept it…” and end by advising him that if anyone on the team is caught or killed, the US government will disavow any knowledge of the operation. And then it self-destructs — this time with a witty twist.

We begin with a classic spy setting, a document drop gone very wrong. There’s a guy with a laptop in a van. There are guards playing a card game in front of a bank of monitors. And there’s a field operative in some sort of hallway. Ethan has to be broken out of a Russian prison, and for some reason it has to happen before the end of the song, “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” by Dean Martin. A meticulously orchestrated plan is amended on the spot and the guy in the van says, “I don’t know what he’s doing and for some reason I’m helping him.” What Ethan is doing is bringing another prisoner along with him. He sticks by his friends, he explains.

After Ethan is in the wrong place at the wrong time and aborts a mission that takes him to the heart of the Kremlin only to be blamed when the whole building blows up, “the Secretary” (Tom Wilkinson) shows up to say that the entire Mission: Impossible force has been shut down and it is time for “ghost protocol,” a mission that is off the books for those who are already operating off the books, kind of a spy version of double secret probation. I just have to ask — the Secretary of what? The head of the CIA has the title “Director.” Cabinet officers are hardly low profile. But he’s not around long anyway, and with the M:I force disbanded and no time, Ethan has to work with the people already there. That’s field agent Gorgeous (Paula Patton as Jane), tech guy Comic Relief (Simon Pegg as Benji), and Mystery Guest Who Says He is an Analyst But Fights Like a Field Agent (“The Hurt Locker’s Jeremy Renner, soon to be Hawkeye in “The Avengers,” as Brandt).

They’re after a dangerous guy code-named Cobalt (Michael Nyqvist of the Swedish “Dragon Tattoo” series). He’s one of those super-villains who is not only off-the-charts brilliant but also in great shape and with outstanding hand-to-hand combat skills. And if they don’t stop him a lot of very bad stuff is going to happen. The details are not important; they’re just a delivery system for action and stunts that includes a wild chase though a sandstorm, a crazy fight scene in a parking lot with vertical conveyer belts and revolving platforms (has Bird been consulting with his old boss re “Cars 2?”), a fall into fan shaft, kept just above the sharp blades by a magnet suit, and Ethan’s heart-stopping ascension along the side of Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, 100 stories above ground with nothing but a pair of very sticky mechanical gloves — and then just one glove. What’s fun is what goes right — all the cool gadgets and clever plans. What’s cooler is when things go wrong — mechanical failures and just plain being outsmarted by a very clever bad guy. Our crew visits world capitals and a secret hideout in a train car and has run-ins with an assassin, a weapons dealer, the Russian police force, and a playboy billionaire. And of course, as all glamorous spy movies must, there’s also a pause for a big, fancy party so our crew can get all gussied up. Though I can never figure out why no one at the party ever notices our crew having conversations with the air Patton is spectacularly beautiful.

Renner is terrific in this, playing very well off of Cruise’s intensity and performing the action scenes a Steve McQueen-style economy of motion (I was pleased to see that he is currently working on a biopic of McQueen). He also shows great comic timing in a scene where he has to force himself to do something dangerous. I liked the way the story tied into the third in the series (director J.J. Abrams of III was a producer on this one). But the post-mission coda was under-scripted, with dialog that would have been out of date in the days of the television series. And even by the low don’t-think-too-hard standards of chase and explosion films, the plot has some big holes. But no one is buying a ticket for witty repartee or realism. This is just for fun and it is enormously entertaining.

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Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked

Posted on December 15, 2011 at 6:30 pm

The third in the series about the singing chipmunks and their exasperated but perpetually forgiving human father is a little brighter and sweeter than its predecessors. It tones down the slapstick and potty humor, meriting a family-friendly G rating.

The mischievous chipmunk trio singing pop songs in high, squeaky voices have been enduringly popular since their Grammy-winning 1958 single “Christmas Don’t Be Late,” the one where Alvin wants a huuuula hoooooooop. Songwriter Ross Bagdasarian used early audiotape technology to find the right speed – slow enough to be intelligible but fast enough for a helium-like sound to give the harmonies some buoyancy. Many recordings and an animated television series later, Ross Bagdasarian, Jr. has continued the saga of the chipmunks with live action movies starring Jason Lee as their long-suffering human father, Dave Seville.

Like the previous films, the third in the series relies primarily on recycled pop songs, Alvin’s naughtiness, Dave’s frustration, a silly bad guy (David Cross as Ian), and a couple of grown-up jokes (James Bond and the double rainbow YouTube hit) to keep the parents awake. It benefits from the welcome addition of former “Saturday Night Live” cast member Jenny Slate, best known for her viral video and book, “Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.”

It begins as Dave, the three original chipmunks, and their female counterparts, the Chipettes, board a cruise ship (intrusive product placement alert) for a much-needed vacation (cue the Go-Go’s). As usual, Alvin keeps getting into trouble and Dave keeps apologizing for the chaos Alvin leaves behind. Their old nemesis Ian shows up on the ship, too, in a pelican costume. There’s an amusing nightclub scene on the ship when the Chipettes are challenged to a dance-off to the inescapable earworm “Party Rock.”

When a kite mishap carries the chipmunks out to sea, Dave and Ian go after them via parasail and everyone ends up cast away on a remote island with only one inhabitant, the stranded Zoe (Slate). Yes, time for Destiny’s Child’s “Survivor.”

This is the best part of the movie as the chipmunks are pushed outside of their usual personas. When the cautious, bookish Simon is bit by a toxic insect, he has a temporary personality change, announcing he is now a dashing French-accented daredevil. Without Simon to act as leader, Alvin has to stop being “the fun one” and be responsible for taking care of the others. Chipette Jeanette learns that she can be more than “the pretty one” and rely on her intelligence and resourcefulness, especially after they discover hidden treasure, another Chipette is chip-napped, and a volcano starts to erupt.

Top voice talents Justin Long, Jesse McCarthy, Amy Poehler, Anna Faris, and Christina Applegate are wasted as the chipmunks, their sped-up voices unrecognizable. The same could be said for musical numbers. Upbeat tunes by edgy performers like LMFAO, Lady Gaga, and Pink are homogenized into indistinguishable rhythmic buzz. For kids, the familiarity, the silliness, and Dave’s unconditional love even when the chipmunks get into trouble make it appealing. For adults, the best it has to offer are nostalgia and a running time under 90 minutes.

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