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CAST: Dave Franco, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Mason Thames, Kiernan Shipka, Nicholas Braun, Peter Dinklage. Written, produced, and directed by Macon Blair.
REVIEW: Despite its title, “Idiots” is a smart cultural commentary that examines the haves and the have-nots.
Dave Franco and O’Shea Jackson Jr. play unemployed odd couple Mark and Davis. Mark’s poor impulse control cost him his call centre job while the earnest and awkward Davis was cut loose from his church after subjecting the Bible Studies kids to a screening of Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist,” mistakenly thinking it was an educational movie about the life of Jesus.
To make ends meet they take jobs as drivers for a shady transport service. “You know what we do here? Drive rich kids to rehab.” It’s a tricky gig with lots of loopholes. Chief among the one-sided rules were the provisos that they, and they alone, would be legally responsible for their cargo from the beginning of the trip until drop off and they won’t be paid until the job is over.
Their first assignment pairs them with Sheridan Kimberley (Mason Thames), an amoral trust fund kid who’ll do anything to avoid going to rehab. A delay caused by a flat tire sends them off on an odyssey that sees the unlikely trio up against Irina (Kiernan Shipka), an exotic dancer who makes house calls, a militia that includes Peter Dinklage and Pricka Bush Da Werewoof (Nicholas Braun), a lycan-obsessed SoundCloud rapper who is convinced the drivers have kidnapped the troublemaking teen. “That kid made a fool of me,” Mark, “and I will take his scalp for that. And that is not a metaphor.”
“Idiots” isn’t exactly a buddy comedy. It’s not consistently funny enough to earn that title.
Instead, it’s a dark, unpredictable look, with some funny, raunchy moments, at privilege, inequality and decency. Director and screenwriter Macon Blair isn’t afraid to play some scenes for sheer comedic shock value, but he’s also unafraid to weave some bleak social commentary in the story’s fabric.
Mason Thames plays Sheridan Kimberley as the poster boy for toxicity, a smirking rich kid whose consequence free behaviour has made him an internet sensation with one million followers. Sociopathic and remorseless, he forces the “idiots”—Mark and Davis—to confront their place on the food chain. Despite despicable behavior, Sheridan is insulated by money against any repercussions. Mark and Davis, however, are left to pay the price for Sheridan’s actions.
The social commentary isn’t subtle but Thames, best known for his work in “The Black Phone” and the live-action “How to Train Your Dragon,” doesn’t play Sheridan as a moustache twirling baddie. Instead, he’s even more insidious, someone who feigns vulnerability, who lies and cheats through a smile.
The secret sauce, however, is the relationship between Mark and Davis. Polar opposites, there is comedy to be mined from the differences, but it is in the unlikely bond that grows between them that the movie finds its heart.
“Idiots” feels stretched in its final third, but up until then is a sporadically funny socially aware reinvention of the buddy comedy.
SYOPSIS: in “How to Train Your Dragon,” a new live-action remake of the 2010 animated film of the same name, a young Viking boy named Hiccup goes against his village’s traditional belief that dragons are “the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself,” when he befriends a Night Fury dragon named Toothless. “Dad, I can’t kill dragons,” Hiccup admits to his father, Stoick the Vast.
CAST: Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Nick Frost, Julian Dennison, Gabriel Howell, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, Ruth Codd, Peter Serafinowicz, Murray McArthur, Gerard Butler. Written and directed by Dean DeBlois.
REVIEW: At the movies, it seems that everything old is new again.
Even if it’s not that old.
It was just 15 years ago that the animated “How to Train Your Dragon,” based on the 2003 novel by Cressida Cowell, earned two Oscar nominations and launched a franchise that includes sequels, short films, a television series, a video game and an arena show adaptation featuring 24 animatronic dragons.
This weekend it gets a live-action treatment that includes all the familiar characters, situations plus 27 brand new minutes of story.
It’s new, but it isn’t necessarily improved.
On the plus side Canadian director and writer Dean DeBlois, who has been involved with the franchise as a director since the first film, brings a darker tone to the story. It’s still family friendly (although the finale with the Queen Dragon may haunt younger viewers) but the live action brings with it more exciting aerial action scenes, even if the CGI is sometimes murky in the big sequences.
It also adds complexity to the characters, particularly in the relationship between Hiccup (a terrific Mason Thames) and his father (Gerard Butler, who returns from the animated films).
Also welcome is the return of the emotional core of the original. The animated film’s allegory to 9/11 feels even more poignant today as a message of tolerance. As Hiccup cuts through his father’s Viking jingoism with kindness and compassion, the movie reverberates with the franchise’s humanistic themes.
The heart of the film, the relationship between the boy and his dragon, beats loudly. Thames is up against it, reinterpreting Jay Baruchel’s classic voice work, but he brings an earnestness to the character that works.
Toothless the friendly dragon is lovingly rendered in photorealistic CGI, and even with no dialogue, expresses himself as easily as any of the real-life actors.
On the downside, it feels been-there-done-that. Several scenes are shot-for-shot from the original, which, depending on your level of fandom, will either be an homage or a display of a lack of originality.
“How to Train Your Dragon” will likely entertain original fans, and may win over some new ones, but I missed the snappier pacing of the original. The extra 27 minutes brings with it some impressive look-at-me moments—particularly in the final battle scene—but I found it less charming than it animated counterpart.
