For those who thought last year’s “WALL-E” was the last word in animated post apocalyptic entertainment along comes a dark fable about a war ravaged world populated by brave burlap dolls (numbered 1 through 9) and terrifying machines. Call it Sock Puppets Save the World if you like, but despite the kid-friendly lead characters, “9” isn’t as cute and cuddly as “WALL-E.”
Set ten years after the war to end all wars actually ended everything, “9” really picks up when the title character mistakenly awakens a terrifying machine with the ability to create other machines of destruction. As 9 and the other dolls fight the evil machines they discover the very essence of their existence; that they were created by a scientist who knew the end of life as he knew it was near. Rather than see all life disappear he created these limited edition rag dolls, each with a special skill, to continue life.
The basic idea behind “9” is something we’ve seen before—technology goes wild and machines turn on humans—but what makes this film unique is, bless their little burlap hearts, the rag dolls. Each has a well defined personality and while the voice work isn’t terribly strong—save for Christopher Plummer as 1, the king doll—they all bring something interesting to the story.
Jennifer Connolly voices 7, a kind of ninja beanie baby character. She’s a strong female presence in a genre that often lacks interesting roles for women. Other voices in this eclectic cast include Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover and Martin Landau.
“9” isn’t so much a story as it is a series of action set pieces bound together by ideas. The narrative is simple—man has been destroyed and now these little saviors must defeat the big bad machines or they too will be crushed—and little effort is spent developing the story past a certain point. Lots of effort, however, has been put into creating the elaborate action scenes that make up the bulk of the film.
The wild scenes—mainly of demonic looking machines trying to kill the little dolls—may be too intense for young kids. Ten and eleven year olds should be fine with the imagery—human skulls attached to winged metal skeletons and the like—but anyone younger than that might have trouble sleeping after these frenetic, violent sequences.
Of course, there is an environmental message attached to the story; this is, after all a movie aimed at the young. It’s not heavy handed, but lines like “This world is ours now… it’s what we make of it” subtly push kids to think about their surroundings.
“9” is cool sci fi for kids with imaginative characters and lots of action that doesn’t talk down to its audience.
“It’s the end of the world as we know it… and I feel bored.” Nothing like a quick paraphrase of a classic R.E.M. song to sum up my feelings toward the latest end of the world CGI spectacular from Roland Emmerich. Unlike the 1970’s disaster genre, which tended to focus on one particular mishap, like a boat sinking or an office tower bursting into flames, “2012” is an all-purpose disaster movie. Emmerich lays it on thick, utilizing earthquakes, tsunamis and every other natural catastrophe in the Master of Disaster Handbook, to bring life as we know it to a screeching halt.
The film centers around a global doomsday event coinciding with the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar’s current cycle on December 21, 2012. In other words, four days before Christmas, 2012, the world goes boom. California falls into the sea, the South Pole ends up somewhere in Wisconsin and the Himalayas are submerged underwater. Staying one step ahead of the devastation is divorcée Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), who pulls out all the stops to get his ex-wife, kids and a handful of stragglers to a lifesaving Noah’s Arc in China called Genesis.
The fifteen year old boy in me enjoyed watching the world blow up real good; the adult in me, however, wanted characters I could believe in. Or at least care about a little bit. It’s not exactly the actor’s fault that I didn’t warm to / care about anyone on screen, they were simply doing their best with a script that had been run through the Cliché-O-Matic before filming began.
Occasionally the cheesy dialogue raises a smile. During a lover’s spat one character says to another, “I feel like something is pulling us apart,” as an earthquake splits the floor between them but more often than not each and every character is saddled with dialogue that would make Ed Wood Jr beam with pride. As all hell is breaking loose the president says to his daughter, “you look just like your mother when you get mad,” and everything is the “most important (insert event here) in the history of mankind!” A thousand monkeys banging away on a thousand typewriters for a week could probably write this script.
But clever wordplay is not why we go see movies like this. We go to revel in a make believe orgy of destruction. Nothing much happens in the first forty minutes however—we meet the large cast, but by the time George Segal shows up the cameo quotient begins to resemble an episode of “The Love Boat”—but when the earth’s crust begins to destabilize at the forty minute mark many spectacular scenes of world demolition follow. Hope you have a huge appetite for destruction because for the next two hours that’s pretty much all there is. “2012” becomes an end of the world spectacle to end all end of the world spectacles, which, works if a doom boom is all you’re interested in, but after a while the elaborate special effects becomes visual white noise.
Emmerich could have kept up interest by adding some real drama beyond timers counting down to zero or placing the hero in life or death situations that he is most certainly going to survive, or by shortening the running time—at a butt numbing 2 hours and 40 minutes “2012” feels like the end of the world is playing out in real time—but instead was content to fill the screen with flashy CGI and little else.
Wikipedia defines survival as “the struggle to remain alive and living.” Next to that definition should be a picture of Aron Ralston, the poster boy for survival at any cost. His name may not ring a bell but his remarkable story of how he literally found himself between a rock and a hard place will make you wonder how far you would go to stay alive. You see, Ralston is the American mountain climber who was trapped by a boulder for five days in May 2003 and was only able to free himself by amputating his own arm. His story is told in unflinching detail in 127 Hours, starring James Franco, a film is so intense some audience members have suffered panic attacks and lightheadedness.
That reaction is the result of careful direction by Danny Boyle. Because we essentially know how the story is going to end Boyle keeps us along for the ride by building up tension slowly as he moves toward the movie’s Big Scene ®. It’s not always a pleasant experience, but it is rather masterful filmmaking. When he does get to the amputation scene (admit it, you’re curious) he creates a movie topping sequence (it starts to get grim at about the hour-and-fifteen minute mark) with visuals that leave something to your imagination and a jarring electronic soundtrack that is less grueling but more effective than any cutting scene from the “Saw” series. It may not show everything, but trust me, it’ll be a long time before you order a rare steak or beef tartar in a restaurant again.
Boyle fleshes out the bare bones of the story, adding in heartbreaking hallucinations of survival and a montage of soda commercials that illustrates what happens when thirst goes beyond the physical to become a mental thing.
It’s all tied together by Boyle’s visual sense. He uses a variety of shooting styles to really give us the idea of why Aron loves this terrain and how dangerous and extreme it can be. It gives us a feeling for both the isolated vastness and beauty of Aron’s surroundings.
At the heart of it all is James Franco as Aron. Like Ryan Reynolds in “Buried” this is a performance that isn’t limited by its physical circumstances. Reynolds spent ninety minutes in a box and gave the performance of his career while Franco, trapped by a boulder, alone in a tight uncomfortable space does some seriously good work. His choices of roles have been esoteric of late—playing Allen Ginsberg in “Howl” for instance—but in “127 Hours” he has found the part that should earn him some well deserved recognition from the Academy.
“127 Hours” isn’t an easy movie. When Aron tells himself “don’t pass out” during the amputation scene he could well be talking to the audience as well. Imagine the most uncomfortable you’ve ever been. Now multiply that by a thousand. No wait, a million. That’s the experience Boyle and Franco are offering up, a grueling but worthwhile story of survival against all odds.
The plot of “30 Minutes of Less” is simple. That’s a good thing because this movie burns along at such a clip there isn’t much room left for subplots, story arcs or narrative aesthetics. It’s a bottle rocket, a small but entertaining burst of bad taste and action adventure.
Very loosely on the Collar bomb case, a strange Erie, Pennsylvania bank robbery, the story involves a slacker pizza delivery boy (Jesse Eisenberg) who is kidnapped by two moronic criminals (Danny McBride and Nick Swardson) who strap a bomb to his chest and order him to rob a bank or, in ten hours, everything will go boom.
That’s it.
There’s more about a best friend (Aziz Ansari), his sister (Dilshad Vadsaria) and a psycho killer (Michael Peña) but their stories are add-ons to keep the action moving a bullet-like pace.
There’s nothing genteel about “30 Minutes or Less.” The presence of Danny McBride assures that. For me the “Eastbound & Down” star is a love-him-or-hate-him actor. There’s no middle ground. If you don’t find his brand of foulmouthed, anything-goes humor, then you’ll find very little to like here. He isn’t the star, per se, but his toxic style sets the tone for the movie.
But, if McBride turns your crank, you’ll find much to like here. “Social Network” star Eisenberg gets in a good joke about facebook, Ansari is a ball of manic energy and there’s way more wild action than you usually find in a comedy.
I guess “30 Minutes of Less” the spiritual, but foul mouthed cousin to Eisenberg’s “Zombieland,” a mix of unexpected action and jokes.
50/50, as Kyle (Seth Rogen) says, is pretty good odds. “If you were a casino game you’d have the best odds!” But he’s not a casino game, he’s Kyle’s best friend Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.
Twenty-seven-year-old Adam is a clean living guy. Doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, he even recycles but yet after having some back pain a routine check-up reveals he has a rare form of cancer. The main people in his life, girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), best friend (Seth Rogen) and mother (Anjelica Huston) all react in their own, distinct ways. Only two fellow chemotherapy patients (Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer) seem to understand what he is going though. A bubbly but inexperienced therapist (Anna Kendrick) provides some comfort, but may not be able to keep a professional distance.
Cancer is no laughing matter, we all know that. But “50/50” breaks taboos left and right, using Adam’s cancer as the basis for a comedy. Luckily it’s tempered with great performances, a smart script and real emotion. There’s no a false moment thanks to a script written by Will Reiser, the real life inspiration for the story. Reiser, a pal of Seth Rogen (who also produced the movie) and cancer survivor, finds just the right balance between mortality, romance and cancer jokes—one character says the more syllables the name of your tumor has, the worse it is—in a script that will have you laughing and crying at the same time.
Gordon-Levitt is the film’s centerpiece, giving a natural, authentic performance as a person facing his own mortality even though he can’t quite believe he’s in that situation.
Rogen, not surprisingly, is the comic relief. Once again, after getting sidelined by super hero movies and the like, Rogen is doing the work that reminds us why we liked him in the first place. As Adam’s skirt-chasing best friend he’s lewd and rude but he’s also brimming with warmth. His talent is his likeability.
The rest of the cast performs well. Bryce Dallas Howard, who seems to be making a career of playing villainess characters, brings her a-game. Ditto Angelica Houston who breathes life into Adam’s over dramatic mother. Kendrick also impresses as the therapist in over her head both professionally and personally.
“50/50” is a unique film. It takes a realistic approach in portraying a cancer patient’s life, but doesn’t forget to present a fully rounded view. It never pokes fun, but also doesn’t deny its darkly (and not so dark) humorous moments.
Like the name suggest “360,” the new film from “City of God” and “The Constant Gardener” director Fernando Meirelles, is a well rounded look at its subject. The film tells a complicated story that mixes-and-matches the lives of globe-trotting characters from all over the world into one intertwined narrative.
Familiar faces like Rachel Weisz, Jude Law, Ben Foster and Anthony Hopkins headline the cast, which also includes international stars Jamel Debbouze and Moritz Bleibtreu working from a script by “The Queen” scribe Peter Morgan. Based on themes of love, life, loss of life and infidelity, the story casts a wide net to include the story of a young Slovakian woman who looks to prostitution as a way of escaping poverty, an older man searching for his missing daughter and a Muslin man struggling with feelings of love for a married co-worker.
As well acted and compelling much of “360” is I couldn’t help but feel a better movie could have been made if fewer stories were essayed. Like so many of these attempts at multi-pronged storytelling what could have been a rich experience becomes muddled by the sheer volume of stories and characters. Instead, how about choosing any one of the story threads and fully exploring the characters and situations, sewing up loose ends and not worrying too much about weaving together all the disparate story elements?
“360” isn’t a bad movie, far from it, Meirelles is too skilled a director for that, but he’s also ambitious. This time it feels as though his storytelling ambitions got the best of him as he tries to bring too many stories to the table.
The trick to gauging your enjoyment of “21 and Over,” a new college comedy starring people you’ve never heard of and Skylar Astin, is to think deeply about your ability to sit through an extended vomiting scene. In slow motion. If you are game for that, read on, if not, “Wreck it Ralph” comes out next week on Blu Ray.
In a movie like “21 and Over,” which is sort of a “Hangover” for young adults, when a father character says to his son, “Be rested, be sharp and don’t embarrass me,” that, of course, is the opposite of what’s going to happen.
Miller (Miles Teller), Casey (Astin) and Jeff Chang (Justin Chon) are childhood BFFs whose lives have taken different courses. Miller is a smart-mouth troublemaker killing time at a state college while his friends are hitting the books at Princeton. On Jeff’s twenty-first birthday the three reconnect to celebrate. Trouble is, Jeff has an important interview the next morning arranged by his overbearing father (François Chau).
Against his better judgment Jeff agrees to go out, just for a beer or two before getting a good night’s sleep.
If Jeff had followed his better instincts we wouldn’t have much of a movie. But as it stands we don’t have much of a movie even though the trio goes on a rampage of body shots, beer pong and pants dropping, complete with angry sorority sisters, flashes of gratuitous nudity and a berserk buffalo. Soon Jeff is legless and it’s up to his pals to take him home, carrying him around “Weekend at Bernie’s” style. There’s just one BIG problem, they can’t remember where he lives.
“21 and Over” is a coming of immaturity story, a movie about a character who says, “I don’t need you to grow up, you need to grow down.” Each of these manboys gives credence to the old saying, “Just because you got big doesn’t mean you grew up.”
I don’t mind puerile behavior. As long as it is amusing, I’ll watch it onscreen and sometimes even still engage in it myself. My issue with “21 and Over” is that it isn’t funny. It tries for that elusive balance of vulgarity to heartfelt-hug-it-out-good-vibes but like everyone who tries this (except Judd Apatow), it’s lopsided.
Can a movie that uses a sanitary product as a snack ever be thought of as heartfelt? Even weaving subplots about the pressures of higher learning and the estrangement of friends as the teen years give way to the minivan years, isn’t enough to take the edge off the crude attempts at humor that characterize this movie.
Add to that Teller’s motor-mouth mimicking of Vince Vaughn and characters who say, “Do you have a better idea?’ when, of course, there are a hundred better ideas than the thing they are about to do, and you get a charmless hour-and-a-half at the movies.
“42” covers roughly two years in Jackie Robinson’s (Chadwick Boseman) life, the period in which he went from unknown minor league player to the man who broke the color bar in professional baseball. In 1947 there were 400 players in Major League Baseball, 399 white team members and Robinson. Recruited by Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford), owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the first baseman withstood racism from teammates, fans and opposing players to become an icon of the game and civil rights movement.
“42” is the Reader’s Digest version of Robinson’s history making career, a film that isn’t much different from the 1950 biography that starred Robinson himself.
It’s a melodramatic Hollywood biopic with one big moment after the next buoyed by a swelling soundtrack, but writer / director Brian Helgeland hasn’t shied away from portraying some of the harder edged aspects of the story.
From subtle racism—a radio announcer referring to Robinson as “definitely brunette”—to the time’s socially accepted hate—a young ball fan learns racism by watching his father chant terrible rhetoric at Robinson—to the baseball-bat-to-the-head hate of a Phillies coach verbal assault, “42” captures the tone of a shameful period in our recent history in no uncertain terms.
It’s often hard to watch—even though the vernacular was undoubtedly cleaned up from what might have really been said at the time—but it clearly shows the roadblocks Robinson had to overcome to succeed.
Boseman and Ford head up the large ensemble cast.
Boseman, previously best known for his television and stage work, bears an uncanny resemblance to Robinson, but there is more to the performance than looks. Bubbling under his calm exterior is the tenacity, talent and strength of character that made Robinson the first African-American baseball legend.
Ford hands in a considerably showier performance as the gruff old coot Branch Rickey. It’s cigar and eyebrow acting as Ford hurumphs his way through the role in an entertaining, but decidedly hammy fashion.
The onscreen baseball feels real, is exciting and nicely shot, but just as the best sports movies are never actually about the game, “42” is less about stealing bases than the overall effect Robinson had on baseball and race relations.
“42” feels old fashioned in its lack of cynicism. It’s the kind of biography Hollywood used to make; a pop culture hagiography about a celebrated figure. In this case the subject actually earned the bone fides. Robinson was an inspiration then and his story still resonates today.
“2 Guns,” a new action comedy from “Contraband” director Baltasar Kormakur, is what’s called a refrigerator movie. It seems to add up while you’re watching it, but later, when you’re at home in front of the fridge looking for a snack and thinking back on the movie, you realize it didn’t make any sense. Not a whit.
Twists, turns and double crosses are the name of the game here as Bobby Trench (Denzel Washington) and “Stig” Stigman (Mark Wahlberg) plan the robbery of a small town bank, thought to be a depository for Mexican drug lord Papi Greco (Edward James Olmos). They plan on walking away with $3 million in cash, but when the dust settles they bag over $43 million.
Turns out nothing is as it seems. (MILD SPOILER!) Unbeknownst to one another Trench and Stigman are a DEA agent and an undercover Naval Intelligence officer each working the same case.
Enter some twists, turns and someone more dangerous than Papi gunning to recover the money.
After the events described above the plot thickens to a gumbo like consistency, becoming a murky stew of story threads, double crosses and far-fetched contrivances.
Not that any of that matters much when you have Denzel and Mark spreading their movie star charisma all over the screen.
The movie was originally written for Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson after the success of “Wedding Crashers,” and although it has passed through several hands since then, it still has echoes of the original cast. Either that or Wahlberg does a mean Vince Vaughn impression. He displays his proficiency with both comedy and action here in a hybrid performance that bridges the gab between “The Departed” and “Ted.”
Denzel once again indulges his love of playing dark and dangerous characters. No other a-lister seems to be as comfortable with moral ambiguity as Washington, and once again, he plays a nasty man who is also one of the heroes of the piece.
He pulls it off with his usual aplomb, but the movie is a bit too in love with its own swagger. Like so many action movie of late, the heroes are little more than highly trained, cold-blooded killers, willing to blow away anyone in their path. (MILD SPOILER) In a wild blow-‘em-up scene near the end, Washington sets an explosion that not only destroys government property but also massacres dozens of people. And he’s the hero.
The morality of the wanton disregard for the collateral damage of their exploits is up for debate. It’s only a movie, I get it, and they have charisma to burn, good chemistry and bring a nice twist to a typical buddy movie, but a few less bullets and bodies wouldn’t have hurt this story one bit.
