Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Posted on September 15, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Roger Ebert launched a thousand blog posts with howls of protest by asserting that a video game could never be a work of art. I don’t say “never” when it comes to art, but by all evidence to this point, a video game does not make a movie. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who improbably turned a theme park ride into a phenomenally successful movie franchise with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, has not done as well by the Prince of Persia game, omitting the two elements that made the Pirates movies sensationally entertaining: a very good script and Johnny Depp.

Jake Gyllenhaal, newly bedecked in long hair, buff bod, and English accent, plays Dastan, a former street kid adopted by a king and raised as brother to his two sons. When he is framed for the murder of the king he must run. And since he has taken a special dagger that belongs to a princess, she has to come with him. She is the keeper of a sacred dagger, which gives everyone something to chase after, steal from each other, and almost lose many times.

The movie is about two-thirds action and one-third bickering banter. The action scenes are fairly good; the banter is below the level of chit-chat from Oscar presenters. There are winks at the game, with a lot of leaping between ledges and rooftops and the ability to rewind time. The story also has several distracting winks at current or near-current events, with complaints about taxes and a fruitless search for the ancient equivalent of weapons of mass destruction.

The settings are glorious. As swords are being wielded in a kaleidoscope of quick shots, we keep hoping for more of a chance to enjoy the scope and sweep and sumptuousness of the re-created ancient world of walled cities, palaces, and desert. Instead, it just serves to remind us of how undeserving the story that takes place there is by comparison.

Nanny McPhee Returns

Posted on August 19, 2010 at 5:58 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for rude homor, some language, and mild thematic elements
Profanity:	Some crude schoolyard language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	References to wartime violence and apparent tragic death of a father, bomb dropped on home, parental divorce, comic peril and violence
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 20, 2010

For the first half of this movie, the children in the audience were completely on board, laughing when the children on screen were covered with mud and various kinds of animal poop, delighting in seeing them naughtily fighting with each other and then, when Nanny McPhee (screenwriter Emma Thompson) stamps her magical staff on the floor, each fighting himself. By the time the piglets were doing an Esther Williams-style synchronized swim number, the kids in the theater were extremely happy.

And then something happened that took the movie in another direction and the audience enthusiasm evaporated. This sequel to the 2006 original places the character inspired by Christianna Brand’s Nurse Matilda stories in a WWII setting as Isabel Green (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is trying to keep the family farm going with the help of her three children while her husband is fighting in the war. It is quite a struggle, especially because her brother-in-law is doing everything he can to make her fail so she will have to sell the farm. He has to pay his gambling debts or, two female enforcers tell him, they will remove his liver. Isabel also has to care for her niece and nephew, sent out of London to keep them away from the bombing during the Blitz. They are snobbish and selfish and there is an instant war between the cousins.

Enter Nanny McPhee, all in black, with a body like a linebacker, two enormous moles, a snaggletooth, a jowly chinline, and a bulbous nose. She explains she has been sent by the Army and she goes to work, banging her staff and bringing on the magic to teach the children five lessons. When she is not wanted but needed, she must stay. When she is wanted but not needed, she must go.

Nanny McPhee teaches the children to stop fighting and to share and cooperate. But then things get much worse when they get some very bad news and they must show resolve, courage, and faith before she will be no longer needed.

The movie is very uneven in tone and in quality, with charming nonsense colliding with what appears to be devastating tragedy. Children young enough to enjoy the silly pratfalls will be uncomfortable and possibly upset by discussions of death, war, and divorce. There is something jarring, even in a fantasy film, about children having to defuse a bomb as the adults are helpless. The timing is off so that even some of the comic set-pieces fail, like an extended bit about disappearing pens and a gruesome all-female hit squad who wander in like extras from “Sweeny Todd.” Thompson is always magic on screen, but here she is more wanted than needed.

Furry Vengeance

Posted on August 17, 2010 at 8:06 am

Some movies are content to settle for the lowest common denominator, combining trashy ethnic stereotypes, bathroom humor and cheesy slapstick jokes in the hope of luring audiences for a cheap laugh.
But some movies aspire to go even lower. “Furry Vengeance” is that movie.
Keep your children far away from this odious film about an unscrupulous developer who is bulldozing a forest to make room for houses and ultimately, “a shopping mall with a forest theme.” Brendan Fraser plays the local manager for the developer. He has moved his
wife Tammy (played by Brooke Shields) and his son Tyler (played by Matt Prokop) from Chicago to the small town of Rocky Springs to supervise the construction of a few homes, not realizing that the master plan is to demolish the entire forest. The woodland creatures
(led by a wily raccoon) have figured out the sinister plot and launch an insurrection against Frazer and his company to protect their forest.
The movie “Idiocracy” imagines a future day when our society will be so dumbed down that we will be entertained by TV shows consisting of nothing but jokes about a man being hit in the crotch. Well, gentle readers, that day is here. Brendan Fraser not only suffers the predictable “I-landed- on the peak of a roof and it went right into my crotch” pratfall, but also the “a raccoon is biting me the crotch and won’t let go” and even some new ones: after he has been submerged in the pond Fraser announces, “I need to remove a leech from my no-no zone.” Then there’s the time his woodland foes adjust his lawn sprinkler to spray him in the crotch and the embarrassed Frazer announces ” look at Mr. Pee-Pee pants.”
It’s hard to think of who might not be offended by this wretched movie. Frazer’s ruthless Asian boss from the home office talks in a screechy sing-song voice, relies on calculators, electronic gadgets and hand sanitizers. The equally unscrupulous money men from India fare no better (“If my Indian investors wanted to be reminded of pollution they would stay home in Calcutta. Stinko!”) And of course, the movie doesn’t miss the opportunity to make fun of the difference between American Indians and citizens of India (“Wigwam? Teepee? Squaw?”) Then there’s the stereotyped Mexican laborer at the construction site, or the elderly teacher who is senile and annoys everybody with her slow pace and long lapses.
The entire movie is speckled with excrement, both literally and figuratively. Brendan Fraser gets trapped in a port-a-potty which rolls over and over and gets turned upside down. Birds with extreme digestive problems dive-bomb their enemies and spatter them with bird poop. When the Indian financier is about to sign the contract, a big wad of excrement spatters on the document and a discussion ensues about who is going to clean it off. And when it seems the prop department might have run out of excrement, skunks spew thick clouds of noxious fumes and animals spray other bodily fluids on their beleaguered foes.
Gender is treated in an equally appalling way. Fraser, with soap in his eyes, reaches out for a towel and ends up drying his face with his wife’s bra, which then unaccountably slips onto his arms so that it looks like he has been wearing it. At this moment, the woodland creatures raise the curtains so that the construction workers outside believe Frazer is a cross-dresser. The animals further cement this idea when they trick Fraser into wearing his wife’s pink exercise outfit (with the words “yum yum” written on the butt) out in public.
Normally, I try to find something good to say about each movie I review. Dear readers, I am speechless.

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Comedy Fantasy

Kick-Ass

Posted on August 3, 2010 at 8:00 am

“Kick-Ass” revels in its transgressive, nasty brutishness, and its audience will, too.
Of course, it’s one thing to have a 11-year-old girl in a comic book use very strong language and kill lots of people and it is another thing in a live-action movie, when the character is played by an actual 12-year-old. So let me say up front that I object to the rules allowing a child actor to perform this kind of role. If there are words an adult could be arrested for saying to a child, a child should not be permitted to say them on screen. Director Matthew Vaughn says that it is hypocritical for people to complain about the language used by a young girl, but not the violence. Well, first, I am complaining about the violence; I do not think children should be permitted to film graphic violent scenes whether they are the perpetrator or the victim (this movie has both). And second, the violence is fake but the language is real, so it is fair to take that seriously. So, for the record, to the extent I endorse this film, I want to be clear that I object to the involvement of a then-12-year-old in making it.
The problem is that it is getting harder and harder to find anything that is shocking or disturbing and having a child use bad language — in this case some crude sexual terms that are arguably misogynistic — and shoot bad guys in the face is one of the few remaining ways to provoke that delicious boundary-defying sensation. And — reservations aside — it works. Seeing Hit Girl, well, kick ass to the kicked-up-a-notch cartoon theme from the “Banana Splits” and then to Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation” is a tonic. And there is something undeniably heady about seeing a vulnerable young girl mow down the bad guys — like “Home Alone” on crack.
“Kick-Ass” is a knowing tweak on the comic book genre. Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) is a comics-loving high school student who dreams of being a superhero, but, as he says, “My only super-power was being invisible to girls.” Undaunted, he orders a diving suit, turns it into a uniform, and re-creates himself as Kick-Ass, defender of justice. And then he gets beat up, stabbed, and sent to the hospital. No radioactive spider-bites or gamma rays, but he does come out of the hospital with two helpful results from his injuries — nerve damage that lessens his ability to feel pain and some metal plates in his bones that make his x-ray look — at least to him — like Wolverine’s.
Meanwhile, a former cop (Nicolas Cage) is raising his young daughter to be a killing machine, a pint-sized Kill Bill he calls Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz). His superhero persona is Big Daddy and his uniform is reminiscent of both Batman and Night Hawk. What they don’t have in superpowers they have in training, equipment, very, very heavy artillery, and single-minded focus.
Director Matthew Vaughn (Stardust, “Layer Cake”) has a great eye and knows how to stage stylish, striking action scenes. Moretz (500 Days of Summer and Diary of a Wimpy Kid) has a great deadpan delivery and a natural chemistry with Cage, whose witty, skewed take is slyly funny.
The superhero genre has always been about transformation — the mild-mannered loser who contains within him (if only everyone knew!) a secret source of power. Here, the power is not x-ray vision or the ability to fly; just an extra dose of the hallmarks of adolescence: an affect of ennui about everything but smashing through limits and a sense of irony about everything but sex.

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Contest: Clash of the Titans

Posted on July 31, 2010 at 3:56 pm

It’s time to release the Kracken! I have FIVE copies of “Clash of the Titans” with Sam Worthington and some amazing stunts and special effects to give away to my beloved readers. The first five to send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Clash” in the subject line will be the winners.

And don’t forget the contests for James and the Giant Peach and Prime Suspect are still going!