The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

Posted on September 17, 2015 at 5:51 pm

The first Maze Runner movie had an arresting premise and a solid structure, literally and metaphorcally. Thomas (Dylan O’Brien), with his memory wiped, arrived at a mysterious facility called The Glade, populated entirely by teenage boys. It turned out to be an enormous maze that re-arranged itself every night, when horrible monsters called The Grievers came out and one sting from them caused madness.

Thomas figured out how to escape from the maze at the end of the film, but the triumph was tempered by indicators that his worst problems were just beginning and by our knowledge that there were two more books in the series by James Dasher scheduled to be made into movies. “The Scorch Trials” is the second.

This sequel is very much a transitional film, with non-stop action and not much story. It’s as though Dasher decided to throw just about every bad thing possible at Thomas and his small band of escapees from The Glade.

They are greeted warmly by a man whose first indicator of untrustworthiness is that he does not introduce himself. When asked, instead of saying his name, he says, “You can call me Janson” (Aiden Gillen). But the teenagers are so happy to have a shower, food, and real beds that they are not inclined to question the bleak, prison-like structure with high security doors. And Janson’s promise to send them to a place free of the virus and blight that wiped out most life on earth sounds so good that they believe it, especially when they see the other teenagers in the facility cheering each night as another group is selected to leave for the haven he described.

But Thomas is skeptical, and when Aris (Jacob Lofland), a boy who has been at the facility for weeks, takes him on a tour through the air ducts, they discover that instead of being brought to a wonderful new home the teens who have a genetic immunity to “the flare” disease that wiped out most humans are being taken to a medical facility to be drained of their blood for doctors working to find a cure, even at the expense of the kids’ lives. Thomas leads yet another escape, though Janson taunts him that no one can survive the Scorch, the wasteland conditions outside the bunker. Thomas and his friends, including Aris, battle sandstorms and lightning, zombies, and outlaws.

So much happens that it gets repetitive. If a major character appears trapped and you hear a bang, you can bet the bang is a last minute save from behind the bad guy. Some red shirts don’t make it and there are some twists of alliances and betrayals, but eventually it is more video game than story, raising questions that are more “how does this make sense?” than “looking forward to the answers in part three!”

Parents should know that the film has constant very intense peril and extensive violence including zombies, lethal medical procedures, guns, and explosions, suicides, some very disturbing images, many characters injured and killed, a kiss, some strong language, and teen substance abuse.

Family discussion: How is Thomas different from the other characters in the way he evaluates his options? Why did Teresa make her controversial decision?

If you like this, try: the books and the first movie in the series, the “Hunger Games” and “Divergent” movies

Paper Towns

Posted on July 23, 2015 at 5:37 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some language, drinking, sexuality and partial nudity -- all involving teens
Profanity:	Some strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Teen drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Dead body, references to suicide, some bullying and peril
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	July 25, 2015

Everyone has one. That unobtainable dream we longed for when we were first learning what it felt like to be in love. For most of us, these impossible-to-attain objects of our desire are like training wheels to keep us from wobbling as we begin to understand our feelings. Like the Garth Brooks song, “Unanswered Prayers,” we end up grateful to apply the lessons we learned in our wiser choices. But movies often grant us the magical chance to make our fantasies a little more real by showing us characters who do find a way to love with the ones they adored from afar.

So we have certain expectations when Quentin (Nat Wolff) tells us in the beginning of “Paper Towns” that (1) everyone is entitled to one miracle and (2) that he has been deeply in love with his next door neighbor Margo since she moved in when they were kids. And those expectations are confirmed when he tells us what good friends they were as kids and how, now that they are about to graduate from high school, they barely speak. She has passed out of his league. “Her life had become a series of unbelievably epic adventures.”

Think of all the high school movies where this led to an ending that surprises everyone on the screen and absolutely no one in the audience and yet leaves us all warm and happy. But John Green (“The Fault in Our Stars”) is not about delivering warm and happy. He is about wise and illuminating and human and heartfelt, and this film is all of that.

Margo (supermodel Cara Delevingne) appears in Quentin’s bedroom window one night, as she used to when they were kids. She invites him on an adventure. “I have nine tasks to accomplish and more than half of them require a getaway car.” It turns out that her handsome athletic star of a boyfriend was cheating on her with one of her best friends and she wants revenge. “We are righting wrongs and then we are going to wrong some rights,” she promises. “Basically, it’s going to be the best night of your life.”

She soon has him feeling like a knight or a ninja as they carry out her plans, which are well thought out and involve only minor mayhem and semi-major embarrassment for the transgressors. He finally gets to bed, happy and looking forward to seeing her in school the next day.

But she has disappeared. She has run away before and her parents are ready to give up. But Quentin is not. He is certain she has left clues behind and with the help of his friends Radar (Justice Smith) and Ben (Austin Abrams) and Margo’s friend Lacey (Halston Sage), they try to figure out where she is. When Quentin thinks he knows, they all decide to drive there together and find her, and Radar’s girlfriend (Jaz Sinclair), even though it is 1200 miles away and everyone but Quentin really wants to make it back in time for the prom.

It turns out that this trip is the best part of the film, and it turns out there’s a reason for that. Each of the characters is real and interesting and appealing. Each has some self-awareness and each approaches the lessons along with road with grace. The guys have an easy chemistry, the kind people have when the most important thing they have in common is their history, and they know, in their hearts, that once they leave for college that won’t be enough to hold them together the same way again. That poignance turns out to be essential in setting the stage for what Quentin will find at the end of his journey. The best thing about giving up those early romantic dreams, whether about people or about love or about getting what we deserve, is that it opens up our hearts for something even better, and it is good for people of any age to see how that story is told.

Parents should know that this film includes teen drinking and drunkenness, crude sexual humor and other sexual references and non-explicit situations, some nudity, strong language, suicide, gun, and some pranks and law-breaking.

Family discussion: How big is your comfort zone? What is your miracle?

If you like this, try: the book by John Green and “The Fault in Our Stars” and find out what DFTBA means

Exclusive Clip: Underdog Kids

Posted on July 2, 2015 at 8:00 am

Underdog Kids is family film about a karate team of misfits, available on VOD and DVD July 7, 2015. Adam Irigoyen (Disney’s “Shake It Up!” and “Wizards of Waverly Place”), Ryan Potter (Big Hero 6, Nickelodeon’s “Supah Ninjas”), Cade Sutton (Disney’s “Kirby Buckets”), Mirelly Taylor (“Lost”), Patrick Fabian (“Better Call Saul”), Tom Arnold (Shelby, “Sons of Anarchy”) and Beau Bridges (“The Millers,” “White Collar,” The Descendants) star in the story of a struggling Mid-City Community Center’s karate team that loses their instructor a week before the big tournament. former MMA champ Jimmy “The Lightning Bolt” Lee (Rhee) returns to his old neighborhood and reluctantly agrees to train the misfit bunch. Despite the struggles they face, the washed-up fighter and group of urban underdogs bravely take on the undefeated Beverly Hills Junior National Karate Team in the ultimate karate showdown at Nationals, and learn confidence, courage and honor along the way.

Max

Posted on June 25, 2015 at 5:51 pm

“Max” is a good, old-fashioned story of a boy and a dog who mend each other’s broken hearts. It is heartwarming without getting treacly, and frank without getting too disturbing. And it has adventure, romance, loss, and something to say about what we should ask of ourselves and each other. It is one of the best live action family films of the year.

Justin Wincott (a terrific Josh Wiggins) is an unhappy teenager who lives in Texas with his parents (Thomas Haden Church as Ray and Lauren Graham as Pamela). His older brother Kyle (Robbie Amell of “The DUFF”) is a Marine in Afghanistan, working with a dog named Max, who protects the troops and sniffs out danger, locating hidden bombs and caches of weapons. Justin won’t even stop playing a video game when Kyle is Skyping with his parents. Kyle gently teases him for not coming to the computer screen to say hello. “I’m just over here dealing with a minor insurgency. He’s trying to save the whole universe.”

But Kyle is killed, and Max is severely traumatized. The Wincotts are devastated, though proud of Kyle’s service for his country. Ray, himself a wounded veteran, is stoic and firm in his beliefs about patriotism and manhood. Justin is angry, bitter, and hurt. He is not interested in helping a damaged dog. He does not know yet that the best way for him to heal his spirit is to find a way to help someone else. He and Max share a great loss and need to learn how to process what they have experienced.

Kyle’s best friend, who served with him, was released early and goes to work for Ray. And Justin has a best friend, Chuy (Dejon LaQuake), who has a spirited, brave cousin who loves dogs named Carmen (Mia Xitlali). With Carmen’s help, Justin helps Max feel at home. But as a Marine tells him, “These dogs were born to work. Take away that sense of purpose and they’re lost.”

Justin needed a sense of purpose, too. He finds it when it turns out their town has some bad guys with guns and rottweilers. Justin and his friends find out that Max’s sense of purpose means he will do anything to keep them safe. Yakin keeps a lot of moving parts moving smoothly. Justin’s relationship with his dad, with Max, with Carmen, and with the bad guys all come together as a part of his growing understanding of his own sense of purpose.

Parents should know that this film includes wartime violence, a sad death, dog fights, adults and children in peril, weapons dealers, brief strong language, and a teen kiss.

Family discussion: Why was it hard for Justin and his father to get along? Why did Justin’s father wait to tell him the story of his wound?

If you like this, try: the “Lassie” movies and “Remember the Titans”

Interview: Boaz Yakin and Josh Wiggins of “Max”

Posted on June 24, 2015 at 3:11 pm

Boz Yakin wrote and directed “Max,” the story of a weapons-sniffing military dog whose human partner is killed. So traumatized he can no longer work, he goes to live with the grieving family and is cared for by their younger son, played by Josh Wiggins. I spoke to Yakin and Wiggins about the film and got to see Jagger, one of the five dogs who play the title character, too.

“I felt like it had been a while since someone made a movie about the human/animal dog human bond in particular,” sais Yakin. “A story that was was exciting and adventurous and harkened back to some of the things that excited me when I was younger. I wanted to make a family movie but not just for kids. I approached my friend Sheldon (co-writer Sheldon Lettich), who was a Marine and a Vietnam vet. He brought the idea of making it about a MWD, a military working dog. Once that came in the family that Josh is apart of and all that just kind of started to create themselves and it all started rolling from there.”

Josh Wiggins is also experienced with dogs and has three dogs himself, a Rottweiler, a Lab and a little Chihuahua Wiener dog mix, “every level, small, medium, and large.” His father is a K-9 dog handler, who trains dogs to locate bombs. “Before I left to go shoot for the video I ran the dogs and it helped a lot. You learn how to hold the dog and how to compose yourself and stuff like that.” Then he spent some time with the dogs in the movie so they would be comfortable with each other. “Before we started shooting I went to this facility where they were training. We would run around on bikes and get into cages with them, run around trees back and forth. I love dogs, so I was very comfortable bonding with them. It’s just like with a person. When you spend months and months with someone you get pretty close to them.”

Yakin said the dog trainers were as much a part of the making of the movie as the cinematographer and stunt coordinator. “They train a lot of the animals you might see in a lot of movies. And they’re just so specific and so well organized and it really makes your life easy. The dogs respond to that kind of environment so well. It really was remarkable for both of us to see what they were able to make them do.” The two main dogs were named Jagger and Carlos, but each of the five dogs used to play the role of Max had special skills. They had to use a female dog to play Max in the fight scenes because males are not permitted to fight each other. Carlos was unpredictable but uncannily was the best “actor.” In one scene, he had to convey a new sense of respect for one of the characters and he added tip of the head that was all his own. And “there was a moment at the beginning of the movie where in order to show that he’s found the weapons, he is supposed to just sit where they are. So Carlos comes and sits and does this with his head and I was almost tempted not to yell. Like people are going to think it’s like cute dog added right you know. But in fact Carlos was just his jittery self got on the thing and went here ok and sat down on it and I went man this dog is unbelievable. He kept doing stuff like that throughout the film. So a lot of what gives Max his personality is Carlos’ personality.”

Wiggins is terrific as Justin, an unhappy kid who resents his father (Thomas Haden Church) because he is demanding and undemonstrative. And because Justin blames his father for sending his older brother, Kyle, to war. “He’s definitely overshadowed by his brother but I think there is definitely some jealousy, whether he would accept it or not, because his brother is kind of his dad’s perfect image of what a son should have been and Justin is not like that. So I think there is definitely some jealousy. I think Kyle fits in much better with his family than he does. But that doesn’t mean there is resentment towards him. It’s jealousy you know, not resentment. He has to find himself.” There are a lot of stunts in the film, as Justin and Max get involved with illegal weapons dealers. There were stunt doubles, but Wiggins said, “I did a good amount of the bike riding. All the jumps and stuff were my stunt double, Keith Schmidt, Jr., and did an awesome job with it. Of course I’m a teenager, I’ve ridden a bike before but nothing to that extent , with rocks and tree branches and all that. It was really cool to be able to go outside of my comfort zone a little bit which is the cool thing about acting. You do a lot of stuff you really wouldn’t do otherwise.”

Television veterans Church and Lauren Graham (“Gilmore Girls”) play Justin’s parents. Yakin talked about working with them. “Thomas is so close to this character. He comes from Texas and his father who is a “Great Santini”-like a military man. So in some ways the challenge for Thomas was to make something imaginative for himself in that space. For Lauren coming from where she does feeling like a part of this family was a little bit more challenging. She felt a little bit more like an outsider. It was a little bit less clear to her how to get into it. I think she marvelously managed to work her way into this situation.” But, “the whole movie hinges upon Josh,” he added. “With a movie like this it’s easy for it to slip into sentimentality in the wrong situation. You know you want it to be emotional but not sentimental and when we saw Josh’s work one of the things that really stuck me about it was that it’s perfectly appropriate for the scene, it’s honest and it has emotion in it but it never tries to hand it to an audience and it’s never sentimental. Once we know that we had that core we can cast the other kids around him.”

The movie raises some important issues about families and about the military. Yakin wanted the movie to be more than just a boy and his dog. “For me the exciting part and the challenging part is making a family movie that provokes and challenges kids to think about and feel things that they aren’t necessarily asked to think about and feel and that allows adults to enjoy it even though it’s a movie that a young person can see. It allows adults to enjoy it for what it is without just feeling like they have to be there for their kids. So we’re trying to make a movie that can provoke and challenge while entertaining because it’s an adventure movie. And this country has been at war for how many years since 1991, and it’s a pressure that’s laying over everything that we do and feel about all the time. It’s always there and while trying to make a movie that’s entertaining and fun to a degree you know this war and the pressure of what it means to be a man, an American man in an environment where your manhood and masculinity are defined by how you react by this particular stress is always on you. That to me was interesting. Making the movie, it’s a family movie and I’m not trying to lay it on too thick but being an American man in the age of constant war. What the choices are in within the Justin character. That’s what the movie is about.”