Posts Tagged ‘Peter Dinklage’

Metro: Why Hollywood thought the world needed an Angry Birds movie

Are you among the 200 million people that play Angry Birds on your smartphone? If so you’re in good company.

Angelina Jolie, Jack Black and Jon Hamm are fans and British Prime Minister David Cameron has admitted to being “mildly addicted” to the game. Since December 2009, folks have been flinging flocks of birds at pig’s fortresses, downloading more than 3 billion versions of the app.

This weekend the Angry Birds game takes the next logical step, catapulting onto the big screen with their very own movie.

Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad and Maya Rudolph star in The Angry Birds Movie, a story that tells us why the annoyed avians — like flock leader Red Bird, Bomb the Black Bird and Slingshot Stella the Cockatoo — are so angry. Turns out they feel betrayed by the tittering piggies that pretend to be their friends but are really only interested in stealing their eggs. Cue the catapults and mountains of TNT.

It’s a brand with a built-in audience, a combination Hollywood finds irresistible, and while it has colourful, easily marketed characters, the game itself doesn’t offer much in the way of story. But that has never stopped producers before.

Remember Super Mario Bros? Siskel & Ebert gave that one two thumbs down and star Bob Hoskins, who played Mario, called it “the worst thing I ever did.”

Despite brutal reviews and box office failure, Nintendo Power magazine praised the film, calling it a trailblazer in the genre of videogame movies.

Which leads us, 23 years after Mario and his brother Luigi stunk up movie theatres, to The Angry Birds Movie. Why is a game from a developer in Espoo, just outside Helsinki, Finland, popular enough to take flight as its own movie?
The success of Angry Birds has to do with something called schema formation, a five-dollar term for mentally grasping and embedding how the game’s interface works the first time you play it.

The addictive part comes in as the action of the game changes. In Play at Work, engineer Charles L. Mauro explains the appeal: “These little birds are packed with clever behaviours that expand the user’s mental model at just the point when game-level complexity is increased.”

The game’s genius is in adding playing details at just the right moment to increase user engagement. In other words, it’s fun. I guess that’s why gamers spend 200 million minutes a day flinging Angry Birds at various targets.

According to marketers AYTM, that’s “equal to 16 years of gameplay every hour of every day.” They also note that players have flung over 100 billion angry birds, a number equal to the amount of real birds on the planet. Those are the kind of statistics Hollywood can’t ignore.

One person unlikely to pass the time with Angry Birds is U.S. communications surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden. In 2014 he claimed the app was “leaky,” and was vulnerable to the harvesting of information by outside groups.

Mikael Hed, CEO of Rovio Entertainment, the makers of Angry Birds, denied Snowden’s claims.

“We do not collaborate, collude, or share data with spy agencies anywhere in the world,” he said, which must have come as a relief to another of the game’s biggest fans, former Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney, who, apparently, also enjoys hurling a bird or two in his spare time.

THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE: 3 STARS. “as plot heavy as an app based movie can be.”

200 million people play Angry Birds on their smartphones every day. More fictional birds have been flung in the name of the game than there are real birds in the world. It’s the first app to sell movie rights to the movies and if just a fraction of the people who play the game everyday go see the movie it should be a rousing success. Keep in mind though, that if “The Angry Birds Movie” doesn’t lay an egg at the box office it is inevitable that “Candy Crush: The Saga” and “Fruit Ninjas” movies won’t be far behind. The choice is yours.

This weekend the furious feathered friends catapult onto the big screen accompanied by a classic rock score—this may be the only kid’s flick to feature Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid”—and plenty of bird puns—”Pluck my life,” says Red (Jason Sudeikis) when he is sentenced to anger management class.

Sudeikis, Josh Gad and Maya Rudolph star in “The Angry Birds Movie,” a story that tells us why the annoyed avians—like flock leader Red Bird, Bomb the Black Bird (Danny McBride) and Slingshot Stella the Cockatoo (Kate McKinnon)—are so angry. Turns out they feel betrayed when Bird Island is invaded by pigs—including one named John Ham—who arrive uninvited but soon win over the birds. “We mean no harm,” says Leonard the Pig (Bill Hader). “We saw your island from the sea and thought, I wonder what’s going on there?” Only Red who is suspicious of the porcine interlopers. “Something isn’t kosher with these pigs,” he says, “and it’s up to us to figure out what it is.” Seems the pigs are only pretending to be friendly. In truth they’re only interested in stealing all the eggs on the island. To save the eggs Red assembles the troops—“We’re birds were descended from dinosaurs,” he says, “we’re not supposed to be nice.”—the catapults and mountains of TNT.

“Angry Birds The Movie” is about as plot heavy as you’d imagine a movie based on an app would be. It’s an underdog tale with messages of never giving up and being true to yourself but mostly its an excuse for bad bird jokes—Free Rage Chicken anyone?—and lots of finely feathered action. Breezy in the extreme, it is padded out with frenetic chase scenes and music numbers. The colourful animation is designed to attract the attention of young eyes but for many adults the story will be as about as appealing as a case of bird flu.

THE BOSS: 2 STARS. “time to admit that “The Boss” is not always right.”

Melissa McCarthy is funny. Committed to wringing every last laugh out of her scripts, she’ll do anything to get a giggle and I think that’s what makes her latest film, “The Boss,” kind of an uncomfortable watch. You can tell she’s working on overdrive trying to mine jokes out of as script that is unwilling to give them up. Few bosses have ever worked this hard for this little return.

She plays Michelle Darnell, a mix and match of Leona Helmsley and Martha Stewart. A child of neglect, she’s now the ruthless ideal of the virtues of greed whose brash attitude and potty mouth have made her a “cash champion” and the 47th wealthiest woman in America. When her ex-lover and nemesis Renault (Peter Dinklage) leaks information to the SEC a conviction for insider trading brings down her empire. After a jail sentence she’s freed, homeless and without a dime to her name.

Her former assistant Claire (Kristen Bell) grudgingly gives Michelle a place to stay, allowing her to move into the small walk-up apartment she shares with her preteen daughter Rachel (Ella Anderson). With the new living arrangement comes a new business opportunity in the form of Claire’s delicious home baked brownies. “This is my way back,” she says. “You’re looking at Darnell 2.0.”

A mix of vulgarity, slapstick and sentimentality, “The Boss” starts slow and despite a funny-ish midsection never fully recovers. McCarthy pulls out all the stops, leading the violent charge in a turf war between Darnell’s Darlings and a Girl Guides troop called the Dandelions and never misses a pratfall, but the material just isn’t there.

Her trademark is making unlikeable characters likable. We’ve seen her do it in everything from “Tammy” to “Identity Thief” and beyond, but she’s met her match with Michelle Darnell. She’s so terrible she was returned to an orphanage by three sets of adoptive parents. Later in life she’s told at a country club, “no one at this table likes you,” and it’s not hard to see why. The warmth of her previous characters is AWOL and no amount of late movie sentimentality will change that.

Coming off a career high with the very funny “Spy” makes “The Boss” an even bigger disappointment. A capable and agreeable cast surrounds her—but I wish they had given Bell something more interesting to do—and certainly the idea of unchecked avarice is ripe with comedic possibilities but it never gels. When the best you can say about it is that it’s better than “Tammy,” the last film she made with director (and husband) Ben Falcone, it’s time to admit that “The Boss” is not always right.

Metro: Pixels could be Adam Sandler’s last chance after a string of flops

From a career point of view, Pixels may be the most important movie of Adam Sandler’s career. The big-budget action comedy sees the comedian help save the world from aliens who attack using classic video arcade games like PAC-MAN, Donkey Kong and Centipede as models for their assaults.

In real life, it’s not Donkey Kong Sandler needs to battle, but audience apathy. A string of box office flops, controversies and terrible reviews — critic Liam Maguren was so horrified by Sandler’s 2011 “comedy” Jack and Jill he wrote, “Burn this. This cannot be seen. By anyone” — have threatened to torpedo his career.

Even his own studio seemed to have turned against him. In last year’s Sony email hack, one employee complained, “we continue to be saddled with the mundane, formulaic Adam Sandler films.”

Movies like Billy Madison, Happy Gilmour and Big Daddy were hits that established his persona as the angry but sweet everyman, a misfit character he trotted out for two decades. Occasionally he’d get serious in pictures like Punch-Drunk Love or Reign Over Me and soak up some good reviews, but by and large, the Sandleronian oeuvre has been ripe with anger management issues and jokes of … how to put this delicately: a gastrointestinal nature.

Not highbrow, but that’s OK — not everything has to be Noel Coward — as long as audiences care.

But at some point, it seemed they stopped caring.

Perhaps it was the inconsistent nature of his movies. Just when you think he’s turned a corner with the excellent Reign Over Me into interesting adult roles he slaps you in the face with the zero-star rated follow-up I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

Or maybe it’s quality control issues. Last year Kevin Nealon told me about being offered a role in the Sandler-produced Grandma’s Boy.

“It was so lowball and crass,” said Nealon. “I thought it might be a little embarrassing to be in that one. So I told Sandler I’d probably pass on it and he called me and said, ‘I really hope you do this because if you don’t do it and it’s a big hit I’ll feel bad, but if you do it and it’s not a big hit, no one is going to see it anyway.’”

That attitude may be realistic but it doesn’t exactly speak to high standards. More than that, however, is the static nature of Sandler’s comedy. His everyman character hasn’t changed much throughout the years. Usually these days he lives in nicer houses or has more money but it’s the same old shtick.

The old saying, “He got bigger, but didn’t grow up,” perfectly applies to Sandler.

He may have matured (chronologically at least) but the urination gags and rageaholic jokes that characterize his comedy haven’t.

We don’t need to feel sorry for Adam Sandler. He has movies in the pipeline and a new deal with Netflix, but Pixels is still an important moment for him. Rolling Stone called his last film, The Cobbler, “beyond awful and beyond repair,” and it went on to become his biggest flop to date.

If Pixels is a hit, and it may be, the trailer generated 34.3 million views worldwide in its first 24 hours online, he will be redeemed — at least until his next movie’s new round of toilet humour and cleavage shots.

PIXELS: 1 ½ STARS. “There are Donkey Kong games with more laughs.”

It’s Arcadegeddon.

Imagine Donkey Kong meets “War of the Worlds” and you’ll get the idea behind the new Adam Sandler comedy. Question is, Will it be the end of the world or the end of Sandler’s career?

The “Billy Madison” star plays Sam, a Nerd Brigade television installer who, as a teen was part of a gang of video game obsessed kids, Will (Kevin James), Ludlow (Josh Gad). While Sam’s dreams of becoming an international gaming star were crushed when he lost the 1982 worldwide arcade game championships to Eddie “The Fire Blaster” Plant (Peter Dinklage), his best friend Will went on to become the President of the United States. “I’m just a loser who’s good at old videogames,” he says.

Now it looks like all those hours spent saving the world from Galaga and Centipede may finally have some real life application. An alien race has misinterpreted old arcade video game signals for a declaration of war from earth. In retaliation they have created an army of invaders based on1980s style characters like PAC-MAN, Donkey Kong and, of course, Space Invaders. Sam’s plans for world domination in his “sport” may have been pushed aside, but when he gets a call from the President, he and his friends use their skills to save the world from the pixelated predators.

There might be some 1980s “Pac Man Fever” nostalgia for those who came of age during the Reagan years but as good-natured as the movie is, there’s not much here to recommend it as a comedy. There are Donkey Kong games with more laughs than “Pixels.” Sandler’s man-child with a heart of gold character is now as creaky as an arcade game joystick after a Battlezone binge.

There is an interesting story in how pop culture can have a massive impact on people’s lives, but the movie is content to stick to the Sandler template, using the inventive premise as a frame for another of the comedian’s tired romantic hook-ups. Predictable and not nearly heart warming enough to make you care about the characters, “Pixels” feels lazy, as though it was too much work to make the video game warrior aspect anything more than a sentimental gimmick. It’s Game Over for “Pixels.”

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN: 2 ½ STARS

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe had the most ungainly title of 2005 but that didn’t stop audiences from shelling out upwards of 700 million dollars to see the story of four children who travel through a wardrobe to a magical land where animals talk and an evil ice queen has taken power. In the inevitable sequel (expect lots of Narnia in your future—there’s seven books of source material) the same kids are catapulted back to the wondrous world of Narnia.

This time around, however, the world isn’t so wondrous. In the one year they lived in the human world, 1300 years passed in Narnia and the once lush place is now ravaged by war. The four kids—teenagers in England, Kings and Queens in Narnia—are summoned by the deposed true king of Narnia, Prince Caspian. Together they form an uneasy alliance to defeat the evil Telmarines, protect Narnia and place Caspian on throne, where he belongs.

Despite the lion king Aslan’s sage words, “things are never the same way twice,” The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian follows the template set by the first movie, for better and for worse.

On the plus side, like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian is a classic tale of good verses evil.  This time around though, the story is lumbering and takes far too long to get in gear. Aslan is largely absent—the subtitle Waiting for Aslan wouldn’t be too far off the mark—and while there are some whiz bang action sequences sprinkled throughout, the long connecting passages drag. When Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage) asks young Lucy (Georgie Henley) where she’s been for the last 1300 years, she says, “It’s a long story…”

It’s hard to disagree with her as the movie chugs past the two hour mark, with wooden performances making it seem even longer. As in the first movie director Andrew Adamson, who previously helmed the Shrek movies, is more at home with the animated characters than the flesh and blood actors. New additons, including a mouse whose personality seems cribbed from the Puss In Boots character in Shrek 2, add some dashes of humor, but overall the tone is much darker than the original.

This installment doesn’t skimp on the violence—a massive slaughter of Narnians trapped in a castle may be a tad too intense for a movie featuring cuddly, talking animals—but, like The Forbidden Kingdom, another recent family friendly action film, the brutality is bloodless. There’s loads of gouging, stabbing and general mayhem, but not one ounce of blood squirts or dribbles from any of the wounds. It takes some of the edge off the violence, and, I guess, smoothes out some of the viciousness, but make no mistake, this is a violent movie with as high a body count as any of the Lord of the Rings movies.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian presents interesting ideas about loss of innocence, courage and chivalry but those messages are overshadowed by a movie that is overlong and relies too heavily on action scenes.