CAPSULE REVIEW MEGA-POST (PAGE 2 OF 5):
"FAMILY" ENTERTAINMENT
As one who grew up—and continues to do
so—watching movies, I’ve been able to reflect on the ways that film has
affected me at different points in my life. With each passing year, I
think that my tastes become more defined, more acute to what actually
excites them. During my childhood, I enjoyed practically every picture
that I watched, no matter what it was. Sure, there were exceptions, but
for the most part, I was capable of being entertained by just about
anything that I was old enough to understand. Now, the story is different.
Going to the cinema has become more tedious for me over the years,
although I’ll be the first to admit that I take far more pleasure in
watching movies that I dislike than I should. I see my progression as a
viewer as being slightly more rapid than the average person—if it wasn’t,
then wouldn’t I be watching Bad Boys II twenty-five times with the
rest of the population of teenage boys?—so each time I walk into a film
that is geared at children, I try to maintain the perspective of a more
mature cinemagoer. Kids will enjoy whatever is put in front of them; my
job, as a reviewer of motion pictures targeted at the family, is to
critique them from the eyes of an adult. Over the past three months, I
have caught eight theatrical releases which have been deemed optimal for
family viewing by their respective studios.
The animated film is always a tough
one to make, as filmmakers are forced to find strong stories that can
accompany and live is symbiosis with the type of visual imagery. Acclaimed
Japanese Animator Hayao Miyazaki, whose recent Howl’s Moving Castle
is so far superior to the films that I am about to discuss that I have
decided to write an entirely separate review of it, always manages to
capture this very harmony. However, such is not the norm of the animated
projects which major studios outside of Pixar take on, these days.
20th Century Fox was hugely
successful in the month of April with Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha’s
Robots, which takes place in a world composed entirely of personified
machinery. As I first immersed myself in the picture, I was amazed by its
detailed, intricate, colorful cityscapes and characters. In fact,
throughout its entirety, I couldn’t help but admire the complex, layered
beauty of the extensive CGI, especially during the scenes which featured
aerial shots of the Wizard of Oz-esque “Robot City” and those
containing a supporting-character surfing on humongous waves comprised of
thousands of dominos. Unfortunately, the visuals only provided me with
what I like to call a “movie-high” for so long. Whenever the greatness of
the images seemed a usual characteristic of the film to me, I looked to
the story for entertainment. In this area, Robots comes up far
short of adequate, as it follows a very basic, conventional
fish-out-of-water formula, borrowing from just about every other movie in
its genre. The finale, which experiences the same fate as the
barely-better Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, is particularly
unbearable, simply because of its overbearingly giddy, clichéd feel. Not
even the terrific, expressive voice-cast—which includes Robin Williams,
Drew Carrey, Ewan McGregor, Amanda Bynes, and Halle Berry—can liven up the
dullness of the narrative arc. The amount one enjoys Robots will
depend entirely on how long and how much its appearance is able to impress
them.
Late May brought Dreamworks’
Madagascar, another animated film. It was held on the shelf until all
of the Robots-craze amongst kids died down. And unsurprisingly, the
movie eclipsed its predecessor and is still going strong at the
box-office. Unfortunately, what it has made in cash it’s lacking in
quality. The picture’s central story, which follows a group of three
animals who escape from the Central Park Zoo and find themselves
shipwrecked on the coast of Madagascar when being deported to their
wildlife-home of Kenya for bad behavior, is entertaining for all of about
fifteen minutes. Most of the material that takes place in the zoo is
actually rather witty, cleverly personifying the animals to create a kind
of inspired, human social satire. However, the second the cast sets foot
on Madagascar, the quality of the entire exercise falls downhill rapidly.
Every animated-movie-cliché is explored in the film’s second and third
acts, leaving the audience begging for something within the realm of being
as creative as the material in the opening to reappear. And, unlike with
Robots, the visuals, which are done in a uniquely blocky style, and
the voice cast, which includes the talented Ben Stiller and Jada Pinkett
Smith, are never enough to entertain by themselves. Madagascar will
occasionally pop an amusing reference to an old movie, but that’s about
all it’s good for, considering it has such a rotten narrative. Had the
whole of the film taken place in the zoo, it might’ve had the potential to
be a good movie (maybe that concept would work for a Madagascar 2?).
Unfortunately, due to its nightmarish “animated-travelogue” sort of style,
Madagascar is almost unbearable to watch.
Jesse Dylan’s Kicking & Screaming,
on the other hand, uses its best assets correctly and the result is a
fairly good movie, despite having a fairly uncreative script. Will Ferrell
stars as Phil Weston, the uncompetitive son of his intimidating father,
Buck (Robert Duvall), who strictly coaches a youth soccer team. In fact,
he’s so competitive that he trades his grandson to the worst squad in the
entire league, The Tigers. Because of this, Phil is understandably
enraged, and when the Tigers’ coach bails on the team, he decides to step
up. And while everything starts as fun and games, Phil, like his father,
becomes madly enraptured in the idea of winning.
For most of Kicking & Screaming’s
duration, Will Ferrell and Robert Duvall are able to carry the otherwise
blasé material. They have great comedic chemistry together, making a
likable and all-too-realistic father/son team. The fact that they were
able to make some of the lines in the movie, which were penned by Leo
Benvenuti and Steve Rudnick, sound so much wittier than they actually were
on paper, is a testament to their abilities as actors. This is not to say
that they aren’t helped in doing so; most of the child-stars in the movie
are very good, as well. Elliot Cho, the Jonathan Lipniki of Asian kids,
deserves special mention for his work as Byong Sun, the adorable adoptee
of two clueless lesbian mothers.
It’s when Kicking & Screaming
becomes overly caught up in its story that it becomes a chore to watch.
The sort of adlibbed, random feeling of the inspired sketches in the film
is what works most about it; the screenwriters’ push to institute anything
akin to an actual narrative was an outright mistake on their parts. All
that a conventional story does for this type of movie is muddle it up with
predictability and uninteresting excess. Kicking & Screaming
would’ve been better off without any plot than it is with its overly
derivative one. Still, I can forgive it for its clichés, just because of
director Dylan’s enjoyably easy-going approach and the mere fact that
Ferrell and Duvall made me laugh.
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The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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If there is such thing as the polar
opposite of Kicking & Screaming, then The Hitchhiker’s Guide to
the Galaxy is it. Adapted from Douglas Adams’ whimsical and intensely
admired science-fiction novel by Karey Kirkpatrick (The Little Vampire,
Chicken Run) and Adams himself, the movie takes all of the risks it
possibly can, and the payoff is a product that is 75% hysterically funny
and 25% annoying as hell. For the standard family, the film is probably
best left rented, but for those who dig the subject-matter or Adams’ book,
it should make for a solid time spent at the cinema. Perhaps the best
trait of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is that it
plays both as fantasy and social commentary, making it ideal for children
and adults alike.
As someone who has never read Adams’
novel, but is very aware of its following, I wasn’t sure what to expect of
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. As a result, the opening
material left me genuinely speechless, mostly due to the fact that I was
unable to utter a word when chuckling as hard as I was. The first scene is
priceless; becoming immersed in Adams’ world is an indescribable
experience. However, once I became acquainted with the movie’s sense of
humor and was fully aware of the material’s freshness, the exercise seemed
more and more normal to me. Almost everything past the “hour-in”-mark
ceased to impress me, as it was so strikingly similar to what I had
already seen in the first half of the film. While imaginative, the script
fails to be diverse, which is a hugely important aspect of
creativity, itself. As a result, what once was funny becomes boring, and
what once was boring becomes immensely irritating. Sam Rockwell’s
performance, in particular, is profoundly insufferable to watch.
Despite its shortcomings, The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is diverting entertainment for the
whole family. There’s no doubt that director Garth Jennings is fully aware
of what spectacle is and the abundance of vision required to achieve it.
The movie looks amazing. Not to mention, Jennings’ wide variety of
stars—Martin Freeman, Zooey Deschanel, Mos Def, and Bill Nighy in
particular—deliver on most counts. Trite as the ideas which the film
embodies may be, there’s no question that the its presentation is
interesting. This fact alone is just reason enough for me to recommend the
sum of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s parts.
British cult-film director Danny Boyle
made a PG-rated film just as imaginative as Hitchhiker’s Guide, but
far more practical. Entitled Millions, its protagonist, Damian (a
terrific Alex Etel), is a seven-year-old imaginative idealist. His mother
has died and he, his father (James Nesbitt), and his brother (Lewis
McGibbon) decide to move into a new house. One day, after they settle in,
Damian finds himself playing inside a big, empty brown-box in an open
field nearby. There, he crosses paths with a bag that flies of a train
traveling on the tracks bordering the field. It contains 265,000 Pounds.
Damian believes it to be a gift from God which he must use to better the
world. His brother, the only other person he tells of the money, thinks
that they should use it for their own personal gain. Either way, keeping
the money brings many complications. For one, “E-Day” is one week away, in
which the official currency of Great Britain will change to Euros. All
Pounds must be converted before then or they will be, as the
corrupt-general put it in last year’s Hotel Rwanda, “only good for
wiping your ass with.” And if that’s a problem for Damian, then the fact
that the robber—who stole the money and dropped it in the field thinking
that no one would notice it before he came by later to pick it up—is
willing to do almost anything to get it back, is a catastrophe. To help
him with his many dilemmas, Damian looks to the Saints, who he knows much
about and believes he can communicate with, throughout the film.
Millions fails to wrap up some
threads of its central story by its ending, particularly the one involving
the robber, but plotting is not the point of the exercise. The movie is
all about the way the story is told, as Boyle is so wonderfully
imaginative, both visually and emotionally. Damian’s inner-dilemma is one
of stunning complexity; its deeply human side is highlighted by the
movie’s vividly enchanting command of its thematic depiction of innocence.
Like 1971’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Millions
is always comforting and uplifting, but never ignores the realities of
life, offering a true and down-to-earth version of fantasy. It’s the
little subtleties that make the movie; critic Jack Moore was of the exact
same thinking as me when he points out a beautiful scene in his review.
“…I remember the moment when Damian walks into his father's room late one
night, mumbling that he's not used to having his own room. He is lonely.
Dad obliges and rolls over, removing the two pillows he was embracing on
his wife's side of the bed. Damian doesn't say a word, and he doesn't need
to,” Moore writes. It’s scenes like that which craft Millions,
gently, simply, and touchingly. By the time the end rolls around, it
doesn’t much matter that everything isn’t wrapped up perfectly; the
picture’s natural charm has already won the audience over.
Herbie: Fully Loaded has all of
the visual color and vibrancy as Millions, but none of the
emotional or narrative depth. Starring Lindsay Lohan as Maggie Peyton, a
recent college graduate who is given the choice of a car from a local
impound by her father (Michael Keaton), only to find everyone’s favorite
famous VW bug from the late 1970’s and early ‘80’s, it’s perky and sugary
but not very easily consumable. Herbie: Fully Loaded is the perfect
example of how a visually energetic film can be utter dullsville to watch.
Once Maggie learns that the car that she picks out is actually named
Herbie and possesses extreme racing power, the movie takes to cliché.
Maggie and Herbie begin to enter street races secretly; for
plot-convenience’s sake, it just so happens that she was almost killed in
one of these in the past, and if Dad were ever to find out that she was
racing again, he would have her head. The movie’s plot escalates as it
moves along and, in the third-act, Maggie finds herself racing Herbie in a
real NASCAR competition.
The movie’s director is Angela
Robinson, whose super-spy parody D.E.B.S. currently sits at #3 on
my “Worst Movies of the Year” list and doesn’t look like it’s about to
come off anytime soon. Here, she has a greater command for creating a
playful atmosphere than she did in that film, but her work still leaves
much to be desired. Herbie: Fully Loaded is a gimmick-movie and
Robinson does nothing to make it come off as more pure; everything about
it is insincere, right on down to Lohan’s ginormous—but still supposedly
CGI-deflated—breasts. I’m all for making contrived films—as long as
they’re pleasant and fun, the specifics don’t really bother me—but there
is no point behind this one. Kids’ time is better spent watching better
movies with similar plots. The only thing that adults have any possibility
of enjoying in the movie is the nostalgia-factor of being able to
reminisce about Herbie’s good ‘ol days. Herbie: Fully Loaded might
be mildly diverting when it plays on HBO in the future, but for the $30 it
costs a family of four to buy tickets to see it and the potentially even
more expensive visit to the concession-stand, it’s not worth dedicating a
night at the movies to.
Documentaries are often thought of
as a type of film with a very select audience, but The Wild Parrots of
Telegraph Hill and Mad Hot Ballroom offer more proof than ever
that the genre has its fair share of family-suited motion pictures.
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph
Hill is Judy Irving’s delightful little movie about Mark Bittner, a
typical free-spirited San Franciscan who dedicated years of his life to
caring for the wild parrots in his city. The documentary is structured
fairly simply and isn’t particularly thoughtful, but Bittner is an
interesting, eloquent man who we are happy to be in the company of for the
short eighty-five minute running length. He has a real passion for the
parrots and observes and understands the social dynamic between them in a
way that is actually rather fascinating. Although they could all live in
the wild on their own, Bittner provides the parrots with food and care
and, in exchange, he is able to enjoy observing them. And the audience
does, too; with Bittner as our guide, we are able to understand the
strangely human relationships between the birds, which involve
partnership, estrangement, and play. The movie is quite a gem—calm,
confident, and independent counter-programming to the big explosions and
melodrama found in Hollywood’s offerings. Sure, The Wild Parrots of
Telegraph Hill may be just as pleasant on when it comes to cable as it
is in theatres, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s certainly an
easy-going and amusing family film.
“In 1994, a ballroom dance
program was introduced to fifth graders in two New York City public
schools. Today, 6,000 kids from over sixty schools in Manhattan, Brooklyn,
the Bronx, and Queens are required to take this 10-week course. In the
final citywide competition, only one school’s team will be left standing…”—The
Opening Introduction to Mad Hot Ballroom.
With this premise set, Mad Hot
Ballroom dives into the calamity of the competition, documenting the
journeys of three schools vying for the title. Students learn all kind of
dances in limited amounts of time—meringue, salsa, tango, you name it—and
very well, I might add. Many critics have, in fact, called the picture the
Hoop Dreams of ballroom dancing.
While I found the movie fascinating
in many respects and very likable at heart, I detest that comparison. The
greatest thing about Hoop Dreams, the one which distinguishes it as
one of the greatest films of all-time and the best documentary ever made,
regards the area in which Mad Hot Ballroom falls short: the ability
to convey the way in which our passions are influenced by everyday life.
William Gates and Arthur Agee, to me, will always be teens who had to
struggle through life in the inner-city before they were teens who played
basketball in high school. The cast of Mad Hot Ballroom—I would
cite names if I could remember them—on the other hand, dance a whole lot,
but barely get enough time to open up to the camera for the audience to
get to know them. Had they been world-class performers, this
editing-technique might’ve worked, but the truth is that they’re simply
very fast learners with knacks for dancing.
Director Marilyn Agrelo is
ultimately the one responsible for the aforementioned shortcomings of the
film (although her editor, Sabine Krayenbühl, could’ve helped in bringing
them to her attention), but this is not to say that she doesn’t also
benefit it in many ways. Her greatest achievement in Mad Hot Ballroom
is being able to capture the atmosphere of the setting, truly allowing the
audience-member to feel welcome in the New York City School environment.
Even though we do not know a lot about the kids, we undeniably feel their
warm, youthful presences. For the most part, this is enough to make Mad
Hot Ballroom a movie worth seeing, despite the regret viewers will
feel realizing how great it could’ve been had it just spent a few more
passages focusing on the individual lives of the kids featured in it.
In all honesty, I would probably
admire the parental decision to use films as babysitters, if the video
they were popping into the player was Millions. However, what they
are renting is motion pictures like earlier this year’s Are We
There Yet?. While kids may enjoy such movies, they are no substitute
for superiors like the aforementioned Danny Boyle film. The true mark of a
good movie for children is the adult’s ability to enjoy it with them,
making the whole concept of leaving the kids in front of the television
and then checking up on them every so often an unnecessary one. Hunting
and pecking may be necessary to find films like these, but they’re out
there, as my movie-viewing over the past few months has proven.
Unimaginative as the standard family movie may be, there is still
imagination left in the genre, which is precisely what allows true
artistry to continue to be created.
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