Resident Evil: Extinction

Posted on September 20, 2007 at 11:52 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for strong horror violence throughout and some nudity.
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Marijuana
Violence/ Scariness:	Explicit graphic violence and peril, slashing, impaling, shooting, exploding, zombie humans, dogs, and birds
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters, very strong women
Date Released to Theaters:	2007

Those meanies at the Umbrella Corporation are at it again in the third chapter of this series based on the popular computer game. That pesky virus they allowed to escape has wiped out nearly all life on earth except for raging feral zombies.

The corporate bad guys somehow all have clean shirts, a little English girl hologram to tell them what is going on, and working computers in those underground offices, the ones with the spooky mirrored corriders and intricate booby-traps. Bad guy number one talks like this: “their hunger for fleshhhhhh.” He is releasing a series of Alice clones (which have scars for some Lamarckian reason), but he needs the real thing to get her special blood for his anti-virus.

Meanwhile, Alice (Milla Jovovich)-in-anti-wonderland is riding around on a motorcycle like Mad Maxine, fighting off feral humans and those inside-out zombie dogs. She meets up with a hardy group of survivors led by Ali Larter (TV’s “Heroes). They all say a lot of brave and hearty things to each other in between rapping out commands about securing the perimeter and evac-ing the bus. The group includes a cute guy with an English accent (Christopher Egan), a cowboy, a girl named K-Mart, a guy good at tossing off wisecracks (Mike Epps), a warm-hearted medic (Ashanti), and a guy Alice likes a lot (Oded Fehr).

And Umbrella Corp’s Dr. Isaacs (Iain Glen) is trying to track down Alice to use her blood for an antivirus.

True to its video game origins, the movie is basically one set-piece after another, all going something like this. Alice (sometimes another character) enters a new environment. It is quiet. Too quiet. Then something scary and gross happens. And Alice (sometimes another character) responds by fighting back with knives, guns, explosives, a fireball, or kicking and punching. Cue “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”

The scary and gross things include not only the ever-popular zombie dogs, but also zombie ravens and a tentacled zombie mutant, as well as the normal, everyday zombies. The environments include a broken-down gas station and a deserted Las Vegas. That’s deserted in both senses of the word. No one is there and “the desert has taken it back;” everything is buried under sand.

It is still more shooting gallery-style videogame than movie. The Resident Evil games themselves have far more by way of plot and characters. And it has to do without the interactivity that adds vitality, so it all seems rather remote, underscored by the cardboard dialogue. The best you can say is that it tries to provide some variety in all of the various battles with zombies, and that Epps, Larter, and Fehr seem to forget they are in a video game movie and for a moment when watching them we can forget it, too.

Parents should know that this movie has extremely gross and graphic violence, with many disgusting deaths and gross monsters. There are a lot of “ewwwwww” moments with spurting blood, sliced-off body parts, and disgusting sounds of pulverization. Characters are in extreme peril and most of them are killed. There is some strong language and non-sexual nudity and a joke about porn. Characters smoke cigarettes and a joint. A strength of the movie is the portrayal of exceptionally capable and courageous women, though of course they dress for combat in scanty clothing.

Families who see this movie should talk about the challenges of turning a game into a story. What can keep a corporation from becoming as powerful as Umbrella Corp? One difference between the good guys and the bad guys in this movie is shown by who is — and is not — willing to sacrifice himself or herself for the others. Where do we see that?

Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy the first twothe much better The Fifth Element, also starring Milla Jovovich, and zombie movies like 28 Days Later and Dawn of the Dead, and the “zom-rom-com” (zombie romantic comedy) Shaun of the Dead. They may also enjoy trying the the games.

Illegal Tender

Posted on August 21, 2007 at 11:20 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for violence, language and some sexuality.
Profanity:	Very strong language, n-word in song lyrics
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Characters are drug dealers, drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and graphic violence, shoot-outs, torture, beatings, suicide
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	2007

There’s a chance, but a very slight chance that 20 years from now this could be one of those films whose pulpiness overcomes its dopiness. But I doubt it.

Oh, it is fun to see Wanda de Jesus get all Pam Grier and shoot off two big guns at once after making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for her son. But the big dumb story and the big dumb dialogue keep getting in the way.

It begins in 1985, when drug dealer-but-nice-guy Wilson De Leon (Manny Perez) is killed on the same night his son, Wilson Jr., is born.

Fast forward to the present day. Wilson Junior (now played by the always-appealing Rick Gonzalez) is a student at genteel Danbury College. He lives with his mother (de Jesus as the older Millie) and little brother Randy (Antonio Ortiz) in a luxurious home in the suburbs of Connecticut. But everything changes when Millie runs into a friend from the old days. She knows this means that the men who killed her husband will be coming after her and her sons. She takes Wilson down into the cellar and opens up the safe. Inside are enough guns to arm a militia. “It’s called weight,” she explains.

But that is about all she explains. When he refuses to go on the run with Millie and Randy, she leaves him a gun and tells him to protect himself. Soon he is practicing his shooting face and taking aim at some tin cans. And soon after that he is taking aim at some assassins who come to his house, where he is staying with his girlfriend Ana (Dania Ramirez).

Her role in the story is to keep asking what is going on in a loud voice as the drug lord’s goons are tramping through the house shooting everything and call at inconvenient moments to tell Wilson she is worried. I’d be worried, too — Wilson and his mother return to the house when the bad guys are after them. Then, when they are after the bad guys, they stop for some retail therapy to pick up some bling. Millie’s explanation of her income (“You bought Microsoft?”) and justification for her late husband’s career choice (“everyone has stains”) is as silly as the rumble on the soundtrack that always seems to alert her to impending danger. A couple of developments near the end are intended to be plot twists, but there is so little to qualify here as plot that they are more like plot nudges. There isn’t much dialogue, either. At least a third of it seems to be various people saying “Wilson” when they speak to him, as though we need to be reminded who he is. And the other two-thirds is soapy tripe like, “Oh, God, I want this to end!”

Yeah. Me, too.

Parents should know that this is an intense and violent film with graphic images of shoot-outs, beatings, and torture. Characters are in peril and many are injured and killed and a character commits suicide. Characters are drug dealers and gangsters and some drink wine, champagne, and alcohol. They use strong language, including the n-word in song lyrics. The movie includes sexual references and brief explicit situations, dancers in skimpy clothes, and brief nudity.

Families who see this movie should talk about what Wilson and his mother told each other and did not tell each other.

Audiences who enjoy this movie will enjoy Pam Grier classics like Coffy.

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Transformers

Posted on July 1, 2007 at 2:42 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action violence, brief sexual humor, and language.
Profanity:	Some crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Brief references
Violence/ Scariness:	Action, violence, a lot of peril and property damage but no serious injuries or on-screen deaths
Diversity Issues:	Strong female character
Date Released to Theaters:	2007

The surprising transformation here is not from machines into enormous robots but from a modest Saturday morning cartoon based on a line of toys into 2007’s most exhilarating summer movie, able to transform audiences of all ages into 12-year-old fanboys.

The robots are just so cool.

The humans are cool, too. This summer’s Most Valuable Player, Shia LeBeouf (already in the season’s best thriller, Disturbia and the adorable animated Surf’s Up) plays Sam, grandson of an arctic explorer who may have uncovered a cube of great power. His new car seems to have a Herbie-esque mind of its own, expressing itself through the songs on its radio.

A race of giant robots who can transform into ordinary-looking machinery like boom boxes and cars has come to earth in search of the cube. The good guy robots are led by Optiumus Prime and like humans. The bad guy robots are led by Megatron and would be fine with the result of their capture of the cube being the destruction of all human life as well. Most of the movie consists of their fights with the humans on and in their way and with each other and the adventures of the humans who try to stop or help them.

Director Michael Bay ably manages the pacing of the action, comedy, and romance, never letting us get tired despite an almost 2 1/2 hour running time. He knows how to hit the sweet spot between the nostalgic affection felt by kids who grew up back when we still called the shows “cartoons,” not “animation” and winning over those who have no previous connection and just want to see some slam-bang robot-on-robot action. He knows the movie is about the robots and gives us robots to swoon over, brilliantly constructed, every rivet filled with both personality and possibilities. The special effects wizardry is seamless, every movement logical and believable, every interaction with the surrounding environs magestic and weighty. And each of them has his own utterly engaging personality. One can only speak through clips recorded from songs and movies. Another has feet with wheels and races along like a speed skater. Another talks like he’s been listening to hip-hop. And the good guy robots have such friendly and expressive eyes. I admit it, I got a little misty when it looked like one of them might not make it.

And Bay gives us humans who are every bit as engaging as well. LeBoeuf is superb as Sam, struggling with parents who want him to improve his grades and do his chores, trying to figure out how to talk to a pretty girl (Megan Fox), figuring out why his new car seems to have a mind of its own, oh, and being entrusted with the future of the planet. Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson as survivors of a robot attack on a US military outpost in Qatar strike just the right note of conviction and all-American heroism. John Turturro as a bully from a secret federal agency and John Voight as the Secretary of Defense provide additional depth and interest.

The Transformers, like other kid favorites Power Rangers, Pokemon, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as well as comic book superheroes from Captain America to the Fantastic Four, tap into the fascination and the fantasy of being able to tap into a hidden source of transformational power (“more than meets the eye”). This idea has special appeal to kids, who are very aware of their vulnerability and curious about the power the adults around them exercise, the power they may have as they get older, and to young teens, on the brink of their own transformations. When a young human character inspires the devotion and loyalty of the powerful creatures (think of Aladdin, or even Elliot and E.T.), that adds to the story’s attraction, another way to tap into the dream of hidden strength.

And then there is the idea of The Ghost in the Machine, the personality that we project on to the gadgets and equipment that make modern life possible, it is we who find ourselves transformed, into fans — who will never look at our cars, boom-boxes, and cell phones the same way again and who, for 2 1/2 happy hours, will believe in enormous, friendly robots.

Parents should know that this film has non-stop “action” violence, which means a lot of peril, robot-on-robot action, and property destruction but no blood, serious onscreen injuries, or deaths. There is some potty humor, there are some crude double-entrendres that middle-schoolers will find edgy (and funny), and there are some vulgar sexual references and brief drug and alcohol references. A mother asks her son if he has been masturbating. A character gives the finger and characters use some mild language (“bitch,” “ho”). Parents should also be aware that while the movie is PG-13, it is being heavily marketed to younger children through the sale of toys and other tie-ins. The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, asking them to work with the media and toy industries to establish a consistent set of ratings for toys and the media they are based on and to establish clear, enforceable guidelines for the marketing of PG-13 movies.

Families who see this movie should talk about what Optiumus Prime thinks makes the human race worth saving and what has made the Transformers popular over the years. What things will you look back on in 50 years and be glad that you did?

Families who enjoy this film will also enjoy some of the earlier versions of the Transformers and movies like The Iron Giant, Men in Black and the animated The Transformers movie.

Live Free or Die Hard

Posted on June 26, 2007 at 2:57 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for intense adventure action and some scary moments.
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Reference to medicinal morphine
Violence/ Scariness:	Extreme and intense peril and violence, machine guns, missiles, explosions, many characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters -- both good guys and bad guys
Date Released to Theaters:	2007

Just as Entertainment Weekly picks the 1988 Die Hard as the greatest action movie of all time, Bruce Willis comma-ti-yi-yippies it up again for NYPD’s John McClane’s fourth explosion-and-wisecrack-fest. Number three is still my favorite, but this latest installment has all the essentials: over-the-top money-shot stunts (even a few that weren’t in the trailer), juicy banter, a world’s-at-stake-and-only-one-man-can-save-us storyline dire enough to explain the action without being too complicated to get in its way, and a lot of stuff that gets blown up.

Once again, McClane gets drawn into a very big mess that the bureaucrats can’t handle. He is asked to pick up a Matt, a young hacker (Justin Long of the Mac commercials) and bring him to Washington. But it turns out that the bad guys want Matt, too. He was one of several hackers who unknowingly assisted the bad guys in setting up the biggest computer meltdown of all time and they want him out of the picture. McClane rescues Matt and from then on they are pretty much getting chased or shot at or chasing or shooting at someone for the rest of the movie.

Willis and Long have great chemistry and work the old school/new school angle with relish. They have different but highly complementary natural rhythms that put just the right understaded snarky spin on smartass commentary.

The script keeps things lively with a variety of locations and characters, though Timothy Olyphant is on the bland side as the head bad guy. And the stunts are everything popcorn movies are all about.
Parents should know that the fourth “Die Hard” movie is the first in the series not to be rated R, but it is as close to an R as the MPAA would allow, with extensive, intense, and graphic peril and “action” violence, explosions, shooting, crashes, missiles, many deaths, reference to medicinal morphine, some strong language, and a college-age couple making out (with the girl setting some firm limits). Characters use some strong language.

Families who see this movie should talk about what it means to be “that guy.” How have these movies changed over the years?
Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the previous Die Hard movies, True Lies, and Enemy of the State (all rated R), and “Independence Day” (middle schoolers and up).

Ocean’s 13

Posted on June 6, 2007 at 3:31 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for brief sensuality.
Profanity:	A few strong words
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Some peril and violence, no one hurt
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	2007
Date Released to DVD:	2007
Amazon.com ASIN:	B000W1V5VU

The first one was fun for them to make and us to watch. For the second one, clearly the Oceanists were having more fun than the audience. George Clooney has joked that the third “Oceans” film should be called “The One We Should Have Made Last Time.” Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and the rest of the group are still having fun making them, but this time, thank goodness, it’s fun for us, too.

In Ocean’s Eleven, Danny (Clooney) and Rusty (Pitt) assembled a team of specialists to rob three Las Vegas casinos run by Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) and not coincidentally get back Danny’s wife from Benedict, too. Ocean’s Twelve was the uneven sequel about Benedict’s revenge, a romance for Rusty with an Interpol agent, and a complicated European heist.

The third episode might as well have a “No Girls Allowed” sign. The characters played by Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta Jones in the last two episodes are briskly dismissed in the first couple of minutes with a quick “It’s not their fight.” And we’re off on a new adventure in which our anti-heroes will have to come up with a new fiendishly clever way to separate some nasty character from his money in a manner that allows for some choice wisecracks, some silly disguises, and enough “That’s impossible” and “It can’t be done” warnings to merit a drinking game.

Hotelier Reuben (Elliot Gould), who financed the first heist, has had a bad case of movie-disease-itis, meaning that it is one of those cases where the central casting doctor gravely stands by the bedside and tells the assembled loved ones that “it all depends on his will to live.” In other words, we have to have a reason to set up another Mission Impossible-style heist, and this time, it’s personal. Okay, it was personal the last two times, too, but this time it’s even more personal. We have to take care of Reuben.

Reuben has been snookered (In Las Vegas! Imagine!) by Willy Bank (Al Pacino), who has built an ostentatious new casino (In Las Vegas! Imagine!). So the gang gets back together to put on a show in Grandma’s barn, I mean to steal from Bank everything that really matters to him.

This means several cons and heists at once. It has to be more than money. Bank wants a five-diamond rating for the hotel. This results in a plot line somewhere between a sit-com episode and a summer camp prank. Next on the list is fixing the games at the casino, each category (slots, blackjack, roulette, craps) with its special challenges that send our guys off as far as Mexico (where the dice are made) and France (it has to do with digging the chunnel; you really don’t need to know about it).

They also have to go to Terry Benedict for some upfront money, and while they are in it for honor and loyalty, he, of course, wants the diamonds that Bank has stored in an “it’s impossible” burgle-proof room at the top of the hotel. And of course Saul (Carl Reiner) has to show us a new accent, Frank (Bernie Mac) has to show off some smooth talk, Basher (Don Cheadle) has to speak inscrutable rhyming slang and blow stuff up, Linus (Matt Damon) has to prove he can grift with the best of them, and Yen (Shaobo Qin) has to say things in Chinese that somehow everyone in our perfectly attuned group can understand.

It’s all glossily entertaining, but there are too many distractions that are not as cute as they think they are. Did we really need to see one of the Ocean-ites turn into Norma Rae? We come back to the five-diamond checker too many times for too little pay-off. Repeats of the gags and plot twists from the first two are not in-jokes; they’re just unimaginative. Once again, Yen’s only English vocabulary words are bleep-worthy. Once again, the Ocean-eers have colorful code words for their various scams and dodges: the Billy Martin, the Susan B. Anthony, the Gilroy, the reverse Big Store. It is not an homage, it’s just a lack of imagination to repeat the exact same major plot twist from one of the earlier movies. It is even at the same point in the script. Worse, the film wastes the wonderful Ellen Barkin on an underwritten role.

But the movie’s biggest mistake is making the guys into a bunch of softies. When they’re not rallying the troops because “Reuben would do it for any one of us,” they’re weeping through Oprah or giving money to needy children. The cast is so watchable that we cannot help but enjoy seeing them enjoying themselves. And Bank is such a rat that we can’t help rooting for them. But it was more fun when they were a little bit hungry and more than a little bit greedy. Let’s hope they remember that before the next one.

This time around, the characters are motivated by loyalty rather than money, but parents should know that this is a movie about a group of rogues, con artists, and thieves — and they are the good guys. Characters use a few strong words and there are brief mild sexual references and a comic (non-explicit) sexual situation.

Families who see this movie should talk about why audiences enjoy movies about robberies.

Families who enjoy this movie will also enjoy the first two and other heist classics like the original Thomas Crown Affair, Topkapi, and How to Steal a Million.

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