SYNOPSIS: In “Despicable Me 4,” the latest adventure in theatres from former supervillain Gru and his Minions, Gru’s former adversary Maxime Le Mal has broken out of jail and his hunger for revenge upsets Gru’s family life, which now includes a newborn son, Gru Jr. To keep his family safe, Gru and his Minions join forces with aspiring supervillain Poppy.
CAST: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Pierre Coffin, Joey King, Miranda Cosgrove, Stephen Colbert, Steve Coogan, Sofía Vergara, Renaud, Madison Polan, Dana Gaier, Chloe Fineman and Will Ferrell. Co-directed by Chris Renaud and Patrick Delage.
REVIEW: The first “Despicable Me” instalment in seven years comes to theatres with amped up action but a deaccelerated imagination. Fast paced and silly, in an economical 90 minutes, it rips along like a cheetah chasing after a Lamborghini with plenty of fun Minion mayhem and supervillain slapstick.
That’s the good stuff.
The absurdist Looney Tunesesque comedy and a Minion version of the Fantastic Four entertains the eye, engages the funny bone and earns the price of a ticket. The rest of it—a heist, Gru’s heartwarming family dynamic, and some meddling neighbors—feels formulaic, as if those segments are just the place holders between the Minion scenes.
The character design, particularly the creepy half-man, half cockroach villain voiced by Will Ferrell, is inventive and the voice work by Carell, Wiig, Ferrell and Coogan is committed and enjoyable.
This isn’t the most original story of the franchise, but who goes to these movies for the story? You go to see the fun and frivolous Minions tear it up and “Despicable Me 4” lets them run free to great effect.
Your enjoyment of “Bullet Train,” a new action adventure now playing in theatres, will depend directly on your enjoyment of star Brad Pitt. He’s having fun punching, shooting and generally behaving badly throughout, but it’s possible he’s having more fun than the audience.
Based on the Japanese novel “Maria Beetle,” “Bullet Train” stars Pitt as assassin “Ladybug.” Plagued by mishaps—“My bad luck is biblical,” he complains.—he wants out of the criminal life. “You put peace into the world and you get peace back,” he says.
When his handler, Maria Beetle (Sandra Bullock), needs a replacement for a quick job aboard a bullet train heading from Tokyo to Kyoto, she reaches out. He gives her the “peace” line. Her response? “I think you’re forgetting what you do for a living.”
She ropes him in with the promise of an easy gig. Grab a silver briefcase full of cash and get off at the next stop. “What’s the catch?” “There is no catch,” Beetle says.
Of course, there is a catch. In this kind of movie there is always a catch.
In this case the world’s fastest train is packed with some of the world’s most highly trained killers, and every one of them has some kind of tie to a psychotic crime syndicate boss known as the White Death. “He doesn’t need a reason to kill people like you,” says a passenger. “He needs a reason not to.”
Among them are Cockney killers Tangerine (Brian Tyree Henry) and Lemon (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), The Prince (Joey King), a British assassin posing as a schoolgirl and The Wolf (Benito A Martínez Ocasio), a Mexican murderer with a vendetta against Ladybug.
Cue the darkly comedic action.
For all its high-speed antics, “Bullet Train” feels been-there-done-that. It’s as if Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie met in a head-on collision. Director David Leitch and screenwriter Zak Olkewicz borrow elements from both filmmakers, but despite the flash and sass, the quick edits and even quicker quips, their film lacks the gusto of its inspirations. It’s a familiar tale told with flashbacks, revenge motifs, pop culture references—one of the assassins endlessly quotes “Thomas the Tank Engine”—pop songs layered over violent fight scenes and Ninja swords.
It is, I suppose, a great example of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, except other than the reductive script, Leitch doesn’t actually reduce anything. Reuse and recycle, for sure, but the film’s commitment to ultraviolence, sprawling cast and excessive 126-minute running time don’t suggest a reduction of any kind.
Pitt appears to be having fun, but the character’s New Age journey—he’s a nonstop font of “let this be a lesson in the toxicity of anger” style platitudes—grows wearisome and it’s hard to shake the feeling that the actor is revisiting his Cliff Booth character in the “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s” LSD fight scene. It is a hoot to see him cold-cock a giant Anime character, but his befuddled killer act gets old quickly.
“Bullet Train” is a derailment. It’s a movie with the odd highlight—Lemon and Tangerine’s banter is a hoot—but despite its desperate need to entertain, it ultimately goes off the rails.
“Going in Style” is a blistering social commentary disguised as an old coot caper comedy. Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin play factory workers who did all the right things only to have the system give them the middle finger in old age.
A remake from the 1979 George Burns, Art Carney, and Lee Strasberg adventure “Going in Style,” the movie begins with Joe (Caine) confronting his condescending bank manager (John Pais). The older man’s mortgage has tripled and he will soon be evicted from his home. As they argue, outside the manager’s office armed masked men invade the bank, scooping handfuls of cash from the tellers. Joe is unharmed in the heist—one of the thieves tells him, “It is a culture’s duty to take care of the elderly.”—and later excitedly tells his family and friends Willie (Freeman) and Al (Arkin) about the robbery.
The afternoon’s excitement aside, Joe’s financial situation is still dire. His old company, now in the midst of a takeover, has frozen all pension cheques. He needs to come up with a way to get his hands on some cash. Ditto for Willie, who needs a new kidney and Al who can barely afford to feed himself.
When their favourite waitress gives them a free piece of pie with the truism, “Everybody deserves pie,” it dawns on Joe that she’s right. “We should be having our pie and eating it too,” he says, hatching a plan to steal back their pensions. “These banks practically destroyed this country and nothing ever happened to them,” he says. “If we get caught we get a bed, three meals a day and free healthcare.”
“Going in Style” then drops the social commentary and becomes a heist flick. Think “The Italian Job” with electric wheelchairs and you’ll get the idea.
Much of the charm of “Going in Style” comes from watching Caine, Freeman and Arkin glide—OK, it’s more like shuffle—through this material. There’s nothing particularly new here, we’ve seen loads of elderly men take back their lives on film in recent years, but subtext and actor goodwill elevate this slight story.
Caine, Freeman and Arkin are formidable actors but expertly portray the invisibility that can come with old age. As eighty-somethings they are unseen—banks take advantage of them, the police ignore them—until they take their future into their own hands. The story is implausible but by the time the heist happens you want the best for these grandpas, no matter how silly the story gets.
“Going in Style” is part knockabout comedy, part rage against the machine. Director Zach Braff adds in just enough sentimentality and slapstick to frame the film’s message of “having a pie of pie whenever the hell I want to!”
