“The Valet” is a remake of the French film “La Doublure,” but has been thoroughly Americanized. The romantic comedy aspect of the story has survived but the remake emphasizes, for better and for worse, the heartwarming aspects of what quickly becomes an increasingly scattershot story of friendship, family values and immigrant life in America.
“Ready or Not’s” Samara Weaving plays Olivia, a spoiled movie star who has a tendency to date married men, including richie-rich guy Vincent Royce (Max Greenfield). When the paparazzi catch a photo of the two of them having a lover’s spat on the steps of a tony hotel, Olivia fears the negative publicity will tank the box office for her upcoming film.
Luckily for Olivia, someone else also appears in the picture. Just as the camera snapped the damning photo, hard-working valet Antonio (Eugenio Derbez) crashed his bicycle into a parked car and was caught on film. “I never thought I’d get hit by a parked car,” he says.
With her career and reputation as a role model hanging in the balance, Olivia agrees when an assistant suggests, “What if we find the other guy in the photo and you pretend to be a couple?”
Antonio is incredulous when approached with the scheme, but agrees to the deal and a large pay cheque. Soon he is on the arm of one of the most famous women in the world, photographed at hot spots and appearing on TV. “What’s wrong with him?” asks his mother. “Why is he making that dumb face?”
But what begins as a sham for publicity, deepens as Olivia learns about Antonio and his family. “He’s decent and kind,” she says. “That is surprisingly hard to find.”
When “The Valet” isn’t trying to pluck at your heartstrings, the fun cast, featuring “CODA’s” Derbez and Weaving, find the funny in the one joke, culture-shock premise.
Derbez, whose work in “Instructions Not Included” honed his blend of heartfelt and humorous, knows how to get a laugh but also deepens Antonio’s working-class immigrant story. “You can’t imagine how hard it is when people hand me their keys,” says Antonio, “and don’t look me in the eye.” His character takes a man who felt invisible and puts the spotlight on him, a vulnerable, hardworking guy who has often been overlooked.
Weaving plays up the over-the-top Hollywood stereotype of a Hollywood actor whose is not was wholesome as her squeaky-clean image would suggest. In the beginning she’s willing to exploit Antonio for her own purposes but as the story progresses Weaving does a good job at making Olivia’s inevitable character arc from morally-challenged movie star to an accepting and understanding real person, believable.
By the time the end credits roll, ”The Valet” reveals itself to be not so much a romantic comedy as a morality tale of a sort about family values, being a good person and treating others with respect. Add in a few laughs and you have a farce that, while predictable, succeeds because of the talented cast.
For most parents reading this Dora the Explorer needs no introduction. The animated Latina superstar has a level of preschooler fame that has inspired a cottage industry that includes three dozen foreign language adaptations, books, play kitchens, cosmetics, hygiene products and anything else on which you can slap Dora’s adorable image. Nineteen years after her TV debut Dora makes the leap to the big screen in the live-action family-adventure “Dora and the Lost City of Gold.”
“Instant Family’s” Isabela Moner plays the explorer, an intrepid youngster who grew up in the jungles of South America with her archaeology professor parents (Michael Peña and Eva Longoria).
As her parents are on the cusp of their greatest discovery, the lost Incan city of Parapata, said to contain more gold than the rest of the world combined, the homeschooled adventurer is sent off to live with her aunt, uncle and cousin Diego (Jeff Wahlberg) and high school in Los Angeles. “I think it would be good for you to be out in the world, around kids your own age,” her mother says.
She’s rather be trekking through the jungles of Peru with her folks and sassy little monkey Boots (voice of Danny Trejo), but a much different adventure, involving mean-spirited teenagers who nickname her Dorka and metal detectors, awaits her in California. “I never felt lonely when I was alone in the jungle,” she says, “but now surrounded by kids I feel alone.”
When her parents disappear Dora, Diego and two schoolmates are kidnapped by some terrible people who want the kids to trek through the jungle, (“You have nothing to be scared of. The trouble is perfectly safe. Just don’t touch anything or agree it’s too deep.”) track down the parents and the location of the riches of Parapata.
A great deal of humour comes from Dora’s naïve approach to school life. “I hope this is a wild goose chase,” her class’s mean girl Sammy (Madeleine Madden). “I hope it is,” Dora replies. “I love chasing wild geese until I catch one. They are nasty.” It’s good situational humour that sets up Dora’s intelligence—the fourth wall lessons from the television show are also firmly in place. “Can you say neurotoxicity?”—her social ineptness and the character’s guilelessness.
The fast-paced film is part message movie featuring life lessons about how anything is possible if you believe in yourself how to do a poo hole in the jungle (“I tell you this to make you wiser,” Dora sings, “and because it’s natural fertilizer.”), part “Scooby-Doo style adventure. There’s even a trippy hallucination scene that pays direct homage to the movie’s cartoon roots.
Like the main character “Dora and the Lost City of Gold” is relentlessly upbeat, brought to live-action with fun, performances that, while broad, still have heart. It’s both an updating of thr popular character and a throwback to old-school family adventure films.
Mackenzie Foy, starring as Clara in the Disney fantasy “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms,” sits with Richard to discuss the film and her dream of directing a movie.
Based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” and Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” ballet, Disney’s newest fantasy also adds in large, frothy dollops of “Alice in Wonderland, “ “Narnia” and even “Pan’s Labyrinth.”
The action in “The Nutcracker And The Four Realms” begins like so many other Disney films, with the death of a parent. It’s Christmas and Clara (Mackenzie Foy) is still hurting from the recent loss of her mother. Her present is a beautiful ornamental egg once owned by her late mom. “To my beautiful Clara,” reads the attached card. “Everything you need is inside. Love Mother.”
There is something inside. Trouble is, she doesn’t have the key required to open the egg. A party game at her godfather Drosselmeyer’s (Morgan Freeman) Christmas party leads her to the key but it remains out of reach, snatched up by a tiny mouse who lures Clara into the strange world of three Realms: Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers and Land of Sweets. There, with Phillip (Jayden Fowora-Knight), a soldier, and an army of mice she learns secrets about her past and embarks on adventures in search of the key. Who will help her—The Sugar Plum Fairy (Keira Knightley)? The Snow Realm King (Richard E. Grant)? Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren)?—and who will conspire against her? “It won’t be easy,” says Drosselmeyer, “but it was her mother’s dying wish.”
The opulence of the set design, the whimsy of the story, the use of classical music and ballet will draw comparisons to “Fantasia” but this is different. It’s part steampunk Christmas, part power princess tale about a girl who discovers, as her mother wrote, “everything you need is inside.”
Foy capably holds the centre of the film but it is Knightley who has all the fun. She’s a glittery-pink-powder-puff with cotton candy hair and a Betty Boop voice. She’s in full pantomime mode, grabbing the spirit of the piece with both hands. Her spirited performance brings such much-needed oomph to the film.
“The Nutcracker And The Four Realms” has some fun moments—the Mouse King is cool but perhaps on the nightmarish side for very small kids—and a timely message that we are stronger together than divided but often feels like an expensive Christmas card—beautiful to look at but flat.
