Adam Sandler might be the most perplexing movie star working today. He churns out a movie or two a year, makes a decent grab at the box office and occasionally even earns good reviews. The thing that makes him so bothersome to me isn’t the boy-man character he’s perfected in movies like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmour or his penchant for bathroom humor, it’s his inconsistency. Just when I thought he had turned a corner with the excellent Reign Over Me from earlier this year into interesting adult roles he slaps me in the face with his follow-up, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
Here’s the best thing I can say about this movie: at least it’s not a sequel (it is, however, a remake of the Australian film Strange Bedfellows). It’s the story of two straight beer-guzzling New York City firemen, played by Sandler and Kevin James, who pretend to be a gay couple to receive domestic partner benefits. After the insurance company sends investigators around to determine the veracity of their relationship the men hire a lawyer (Jessica Biel) to protect their rights. Of course Sandler falls for her which jeopardizes their whole scheme.
I’m not sure what aggravated me most about this movie. The critic in me was irritated by Sandler’s backslide into lowbrow comedy. The movie goer in me was annoyed by the almost complete lack of humor on display here and the human in me was disappointed that a movie like this, one that claims to support equal rights for everyone could be so deeply homophobic. What could have been an interesting and funny look at how the soulless government and insurance company bureaucracy can force people into compromising situations instead becomes a repository for the kind of crude stereotypes that kept Rock Hudson in the closet for his entire career.
The idea for this movie might have come from a noble place. Perhaps the writers were trying to create a mainstream ode to tolerance and acceptance, but, in a confusing turnaround, seem to have embraced the very kind of narrow-mindedness it preaches against. After almost two hours of gay caricatures and fat jokes one speech at the end about the dangers of poking fun at people who are different from you doesn’t qualify as justification, it’s simply hypocritical.
In this Year of the Recession much has been written about the impact of a slowed economy on Hollywood. Jonathan Taplin of Film In Focus reports that “last year the Sundance Film Festival reported 3,624 feature film submissions composed of 2,021 U.S. and 1,603 international feature-length films. Assuming they all expected to make it to a theater that would mean 69 films released each week… we must acknowledge that there are too many feature films being made in America.” Here, here Jonathan. Let’s start with Paul Blart Mall Cop.
When we first meet Paul Blart (Kevin James) he’s about to do the physical portion of his State Trooper’s exam. He’s noticeably heavier, shorter and sweatier than the other candidates and sure enough, he doesn’t make it through. It’s back to the rather humbling life of a security guard—excuse me, security officer—at a New Jersey mall. He’s a love sick loser, unlucky at love and life. He “eats his pain” using “peanut butter to fill the cracks in his heart.” He has a crush on Amy (Ugly Betty’s Jayma Mays), a pretty girl who sells hair extensions at a kiosk in the mall called Unbeweavable. She’s out of his league, but he may be able to win her over when a group of thugs take over the mall and hold her hostage on Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year.
Paul Blart Mall Cop was produced by Adam Sandler’s company Happy Madison Productions. They specialize in cheap and cheerful comedies usually banking on one recognizable star backed by Sandler’s reliable crew of regulars. This time Kevin James, best known as TV’s King of Queens, takes the lead. He’s a likeable sitcom actor who seems to have based Paul Blart on the kind of character John Candy focused on; the loveable guy beaten down by life.
It would have been interesting to see what Candy could have done with a character like Blart. Kevin James plays him as all doe eyes and physical humor, two things Candy excelled in, but Candy knew where the line between real life and caricature was and rarely ever crossed over. His characters had huge dollops of humanity that made them likeable no matter how badly they behaved. James isn’t quite that skilled. In his hands Blart isn’t a real person, just a collection of traits that are supposed to add up to someone that the audience will care about. Trouble is, we don’t. We don’t care about him or the predictable story.
James does pull off some impressive physical work. For a big guy he’s sprightly, not Chris Farley agile, but his stunts are the movie’s best gags. The scene where he goes all Rambo in the mall’s Rainforest Café provides a glimmer of hope for the rest of the movie, but alas, it doesn’t sustain.
Paul Blart Mall Cop is essentially a sitcom played out to feature film length. Unfortunately there aren’t enough laughs or interesting characters to justify the extra hour.
In “The Dilemma,” the latest from director Ron Howard, Vince Vaughn and Kevin James star as car designers trying create a new, sporty hybrid automobile. It’s a fitting job for them as the movie is kind of a hybrid itself, two parts screwball comedy to one part drama.
Vaughn and James are Ronny and Nick, best friends and business partners who relate to one another mostly by speaking in football metaphors. By day they work together, creating a new hybrid car for Dodge; at night (in the beginning of the movie anyway) they and their significant others, girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Connelly) and wife Geneva (Winona Ryder), hang out, tight as peas in a pod. Everything changes one day, however, when Ronny sees Geneva kissing another man, the muscle-bound stud Zip (Channing Tatum). Enter the dilemma. Does he tell his best friend that his wife is having an affair and risk ruining their marriage and adding stress to Nick’s life when they are on the cusp of the biggest business deal of their careers?
At the heart of “The Dilemma” is Vince Vaughn, once the charming actor of “Swingers” and a series of comedies like “Wedding Crashers,” now a one-trick-pony who relies a bit too heavily on his uncanny ability to string together long uninterrupted phrases of hip back talk. It was funny in 2005, amusing in 2007 and has now worn out its welcome. What happened to the actor capable of interesting work in movies like “Into the Wild”? He’s become guilty of recycling the same character from movie to movie with only small variations.
Here he plays a self-centered meddler who sticks his nose where it doesn’t belong. Sure there are a few laughs — and only a few — along the way, but they come with a been-there-done-that feeling of déjà Vaughn.
Otherwise it’s an adult sit-com whose idea of humor is to have the stocky Kevin James deliver lines like, “Love can be very filling, like a warm stew.” The serious stuff, and there’s more than you would expect in a movie marketed as a comedy, doesn’t really ring true, but at least Jennifer Connelly brings an air of authenticity to the relationship end of her story.
Most of “The Dilemma’s” best moments are in the trailer, a two-minute synopsis of the story, which benefits from the lack of Vaughn’s motor-mouth riffing. Come to think of it, the entire movie could have benefitted from less Vaughn and more jokes.
“Zookeeper,” or as any Kevin James movie could be called, “Fat Guy Falling Down… A Lot,” plays like “Dr. Doolittle” if “Dr. Doolittle” was a romantic comedy for kids.
James is Griffin, a schlubby zookeeper who has never really recovered from being dumped by his girlfriend (Leslie Bibb) five years earlier. When she turns up in his life again, he is determined to win her back. Problem is, he has no confidence. When the zoo animals catch wind of his dilemma they decide to help him out by becoming his life coaches. After all, animals are experts in mating.
Your enjoyment of “Zookeeper” will depend on two things. One, your tolerance for talking animals. Two, whether or not you find Kevin James charming. If your answer to either is yes, or if you are under ten years of age, then “Zookeeper” might hold some promise for you. If not, go see “Tree of Life.” It has dinosaurs but none of them speak.
“Zookeeper” carefully adheres to the Kevin James Comedy Template ™: goofy guys tries to get the hot girl and even though it may seem like an un likely pairing, he’s sweet and inevitably irresistible. This is basically “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” with animals and Rosario Dawson. That means it’s a sweet-natured if largely forgettable. There are good messages for kids about accepting people for who they are and respect for animals, but mostly this is an old school comedy with pratfalls for the kids and a bit of romance for the parents sitting next to them in the theatre.
There are a couple of very funny scenes. There’s visit to TGIFridays that no veterinarian would condone and the monkey from “The Hangover 2” (starring in his second big film of the year! Who is this primate’s agent?) has some of the film’s best lines. Adam Sandler, who also produced the movie, provides the monkey voice, but also listen for the vocal work of Cher, Nick Nolte, Don Rickles and Sylvester Stallone.
“Zookeeper” is harmless family fun, with a few more giggles for the kids (who might not get the romantic stuff) than the parents (who might not care about the poop jokes). Luckily for Kevin James, and “Zookeeper’s” audience almost everyone laughs when someone falls down.
