Trailer: Central Intelligence
Posted on March 23, 2016 at 8:00 am
It looks a little bit “The In-Laws,” a little bit “Spy,” and a lot every Kevin Hart movie ever made, but it also looks like it might be fun.
San Andreas
Posted on May 28, 2015 at 5:55 pm
Another summer blockbuster-by-the-numbers, another dad who needs redemption and re-connection with his family, and the only way he can get it is via massive, catastrophic disasters lovingly created via CGI that feels more real than the emotions, characters, or dialog. And that brings us to “San Andreas,” the latest in schlock disaster porn.
This time, it’s an earthquake. Before the tectonic plates start to shift, we get quick intros to our two heroes, the brain (Paul Giamatti as Lawrence, a Caltech seismologist) and brawn (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Ray, a military rescue specialist turned LA Fire Department rescue specialist). This job is easier, because “no one is shooting at us.”
These scenes give the professor a chance to lecture his class and establish the scale of damage a quake inflicts and the impossibility of predicting when one will occur (until….). And it gives Ray a chance to rescue a pretty girl whose car has been knocked off a cliff, accompanied by a TV news reporter (“The Good Wife’s” Archie Panjabi) and cameraman. This is also the only clever twist in the film as the pretty girl is speeding along a narrow mountain road, reaching behind her for her water bottle and checking a text, either of which we assume are going to cause an accident. But this is not a Driver’s Ed cautionary video. Her car is knocked off the mountain by boulders, crushing it and wedging it precariously between rocks on the side of the cliff.
Fortunately, Ray and his wisecracking crew arrive to save the day, explaining what they are doing to the reporter so we can power through some more exposition and see the reporter’s notes on one of the team: “Cute but not smart.” Yep. That prepares us for what is coming all right. Except it’s not that cute. Example: two characters crash land in a baseball field and she says to him: “It’s been a while since I got you to second base!” How hilarious and quippily romantic in the midst of the entire state falling into the ocean!
We quickly establish Ray as a devoted father and estranged husband. Final divorce papers arrive in the mail and his ex, Emma (Carla Gugino — please get a better agent) is moving in with Richie Rich, I mean Daniel (Ioan Gruffudd), who has a mansion and a private plane and says that the skyscrapers he builds are his children. To sharpen Ray’s sense of being displaced, Daniel offers to fly Ray’s daughter Blake to her volleyball tournament in San Francisco, instead of driving with her dad.
As if to manifest Ray’s internal upheavals, the earth begins to shake, first in Nevada, where the Hoover Dam collapses, and then on the West Coast, when the fault line of the title, overdue for a major quake after more than a century, seizes, shifts, and heaves.
The special effects are so extensive that it amplifies their unreality. The movie is more concerned with the individual windows exploding out of the buildings than it is about the underlying mechanics of what is actually happening. It is preposterous enough that the professor not only predicts the second quake but hacks into the television networks. Wi-fi, electricity and broadcast channels are still operating, apparently, which is a long shot, but also people are actually watching the television news to find out what is happening, which is even more unlikely. And then, odds fast plummeting below zero, San Francisco is evacuated in a pretty orderly fashion (some folks stopping to loot flat-screens — why it it always flat-screens?), presumably so we can relish all the destruction without worrying too much about the people, the opposite of the neutron bomb. This is PG-13 “action violence,” designed to be exciting, not terrifying.
Goodbye, Golden Gate Bridge, cables swinging vertiginously. Goodbye Coit Tower. All those pretty pixels and algorithms, so cleverly arranged. California is shredded with the same glee the boys who played at our house used to have in wiping out the Sims with every possible kind of catastrophe.
What is terrifying is the Randian twist that has Ray abandoning any duties he has in LA to rescue just two people, both of whom are in his family. And in the middle of Armageddon, he somehow finds time for a heart-to-heart with his ex, after the scales drop from her eyes to understand what a selfish monster Daniel is. For all the literal flag-waving and reference to rebuilding at the end, this is a curiously sour portrayal of disaster as family therapy.
Parents should know that this film concerns a major earthquake affecting Nevada and California, with many collapsing buildings, roads, and bridges, fires, floods, looting, fighting, gun, characters injured and killed, references to death of a child, some disturbing images, and some strong language.
Family discussion: What does this movie teach us about skills and plans we should have for emergencies? What did Emma and Ray learn about one another and why did it take an earthquake for them to reach that understanding?
If you like this, try: “The Towering Inferno” and “The War of the Worlds”
Fast & Furious 6
Posted on May 23, 2013 at 6:01 pm
The storylines of the “Fast and Furious” franchise may be preposterous, but what’s even harder to believe is that, contrary to the history of just about every other multi-sequel series and what I thought were the laws of nature, these keep getting better. There’s something of a pattern at this point. Our happy gang of outlaw car racers gets into mischief of one kind and another in one movie, and then in the next the government asks them to take on some big bad guy in exchange for expunging their records. This being an even-numbered entry, it’s expunging time again as the gang, a Benneton ad of gorgeous and racially diverse people with a love for fast cars and a habitual narrow-eyed facial expression that either says, “Don’t even think of trying to mess with me” or maybe “I’m trying to remember which episode we’re on, but it probably doesn’t matter.” The talking part (I can’t bring myself to elevate it to the term “dialog”) is basic and repetitive. Anyone who’d like to liven it up with a drinking game will do very well going for either the word “family” or some variation of “that’s who we are.”
In the classic mode of motley crew of outsider stories from “The X-Men” and “The Avengers” to “The A-Team” and “The Bad News Bears,” the “Fast and Furious” movies are about a self-made family comprising people with a range of very special skills, including martial arts, weapons, tactics, interpersonal communications, technology, and banter. At the center are Dom (Vin Diesel) and his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster), now blissfully married to Dom’s one-time nemesis-turned BFF, one-time cop-turned-outlaw Brian (Paul Walker). These guys are very, very good at making law enforcement go bad.
In the last episode, our gang took a lot of money from a very bad man. Now they’re enjoying their money in highly photogenic and conveniently extradition-free locations. But then another very bad guy (with an English accent, so we know he’s both smart and evil) is stealing the component parts to some very important something or other and must be stopped. He’s far to smart for Interpol, so it’s time to get the band back together.
But it’s really all about the stunts, and there are some lulus, expertly staged by returning director Justin Lin. There is so much going on at the same time that it gets a little confusing, but you can’t miss the wow moments . There are even a couple of OMGs and a did-I-just-see-that or two. The one thing about which there will be no suspense is who they’ll be facing in #7 — just stick around for the credits.
Parents should know that this film features non-stop action with chases, explosions, shooting and fights, characters in peril, injured and killed, some strong language including one crude epithet, and drinking.
Family discussion: Do you have a code? What is it? How do we decide who counts as family?
If you like this, try: The first five “Fast and Furious” movies and – to prepare for #7 – the “Transporter” series
Pain & Gain
Posted on April 25, 2013 at 6:00 pm
“Unfortunately, based on a true story,” we are warned as this film opens. In case we forget, or, more likely, in case we assume the usual Hollywood embellishments, we are reminded, when things get really bizarre and really, really, really disturbing, that it is, indeed, still true.
Director Michael Bay is known for big movies with big explosions, big special effects, and big, big budgets, including “Armageddon” and the Transformers series. So “Pain & Gain,” a passion project he planned for seven years with only a $40 million budget, is his version of a quirky little indie. Quirky, it is, and his feeling for the material, the too-bizarre-to-be-fictional story of three body builders who got involved with kidnapping and murder is palpable. Bay’s ability to give the audience the same sense of connection to the story is less effective.
Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg, who will be on screen in Bay’s next blockbuster, the fourth installment of the Transformers series) is a body builder who believes in the American Dream. No, not the dream of freedom and democracy; the dream of getting rich without earning it. With two pumped-up compadres, the just out-of-the-clink born-again Paul Doyle (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and steroid-injecting Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie), they create a sort of Dumbfellas posse so they can kidnap a prosperous South American immigrant named Victor Kershaw (Tony Shaloub, playing a composite character based in part on Florida businessman Marc Schiller
The movie is darker than the marketing makes it seem, with very graphic scenes of torture and dismemberment, but it does include some very funny moments as our hapless anti-heroes continually overestimate their own abilities and underestimate those around them. All of the performances are excellent, but Ed Harris steals the film as a former cop-turned detective and Emily Rutherford is a stand-out as his wife, by far the movie’s most appealing character. Bay, with screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (the next “Thor” and two “Captain America” films) and cinematographer Ben Seresin (the upcoming “World War Z”) skillfully evoke the world of protein shakes, motivational platitudes, and a deep wellspring of resentment. “If I believe I deserve it, the universe will serve it,” Lugo says like a mantra. He also talks about eating a “shame sandwich,” and, in his most revealing moment, tells Kershaw, “I don’t just want everything you have. I want you not to have it.”
Bay is less successful in tying all of this to larger themes worthy of its more than two-hour running time. It feels like a very personal story about his own struggles with ambition and dignity, but a struggle he still does not understand well enough to convey in more than superficial terms. Like its main characters, it has a lot of muscle but not much upstairs.
Parents should know that this film is based on a true story of crimes that include kidnapping, torture, murder, dismemberment, fraud, and drug use. The movie also includes crime and law enforcement violence, graphic wounds, very explicit and crude sexual references and situations, nudity, and constant strong language.
Family discussion: More than one character in the movie talks about what being an American means — which do you agree with and why? What took the police so long to realize what was going on? Do you agree with the punishment ordered by the court?
If you like this, try: “Fargo” and “Welcome to Collinwood” and read the story of the real-life case by Pete Collins
Snitch
Posted on February 21, 2013 at 6:00 pm
“Snitch” tries to be three things at once, but it doesn’t do any of them very well.
First, it wants to be a drama about fathers and sons. John Matthews (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) is a good man who who risks everything, even his own life and the lives of his family, to save his teenaged son from a ten-year prison sentence. John owns a construction company that is solid but struggling a bit because of the economy. His son is Jason (Rafi Gavron), who lives with his mother, John’s first wife (Melina Kanakaredes), and uses her last name because he is angry at his father for leaving them. Jason makes a foolish mistake and agrees to accept a shipment of some pills from a friend. It is a trap.
Three of the key characters in the story make big sacrifices to help their sons, but the theme is heavy-handed and the dialog so clunky it feels like an after-school special.
Second, it wants to be an action film, because John finds that the only way to get Jason out of prison in less than ten years is to deliver an important arrest to the federal prosecutor. Jason refuses to entrap any of his friends (as he was entrapped by the friend who sent him the drugs), even to reduce his sentence. So, John decides to go undercover in a very high risk sting operation involving criminals at the top of an international drug cartel. He gets badly beat up the first time he tries to make a connection to a drug dealer. But with the help of an employee who is now determined to go straight after two prison terms for narcotics distribution, he is introduced to Malik (Michael Williamson), a typical movie drug dealer — black, gangsta, and living in a house with almost no furniture and loud rap music. John has no street cred whatsoever. But he does have big semis and a legitimate business to give him good cover for transporting big, heavy bags in them. And even the suspicious Malik understands that the economy is lousy, and is persuaded that a law-abiding citizen like John could be desperate enough to fill some of those cement bags with cocaine.
So there are some shoot-outs and chases, but they are poorly staged and uninvolving. So as much as the movie tries to make us believe he is just a good guy from the suburbs who does not know anything about guns and criminals, this is The Rock. We never feel the sense of peril that would create some tension, and we miss the expected sense of satisfaction when no cans of whup-ass are opened.
Third, the movie tries to be an issue film, taking on the unintended consequences of the mandatory minimum sentences legislation that was supposed to reduce the unfairness in assigning penalties for drug-related offenses and get tough on drugs but instead created a whole new level of unfairness and got tough only on low-level users. When judges no longer have discretion to assign prison terms based on individual circumstances, the only mitigating factors are the defendants’ ability and willingness to turn over bigger fish. Susan Sarandon, once again stuck in a role far beneath her, plays the ambitious US Attorney and political candidate who is so over-the-top that it undermines the institutional pervasiveness of the problem the filmmakers are trying to convey. They do more to make their point with a credit-sequence note about the impact of mandatory minimums than they accomplish through the film. And the recent documentary “The House I Live In” addresses the issue far more compellingly.
It’s a triple disappointment. But most of all, it is just dull.
Parents should know that this film includes characters are drug dealers, drinking, smoking, drug use, violence including knives, fights, shoot-outs, and chases with characters injured and killed, and some strong language.
Family discussion: How did being a father of a son change the decisions made by three characters in the movie? Why did John say his son taught him about character and integrity? Do mandatory minimum sentencing laws do what they were intended to do?
If you like this, try: “The House I Live in” and “Narc”