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Catch-Up Reviews
for Early Summer 2006:
A genial, casual
independent comedy trying to cash-in on the similar ethnic-antics of Nia
Vardalos’ My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Keeping up with the Steins
is as witty as a good sitcom, if never much more. It follows the days
leading up to young Benjamin Fiedler’s (Spy Kids’ Daryl Sabara)
bar-mitzvah, which prove mighty testing on the obsessive-compulsive
personalities of his family. Theme-wise, Keeping up with the Steins
embraces only the “be yourself” conventionalities which typically
consume this type of material. However, it redeems itself by offering
quite a few big laughs, which are cleverly scripted by Mark Zakarin.
Viewers will often find themselves celebrating Zakarin’s uncanny humor,
especially during the film’s opening sequence, in which a boy enters his
Titanic-themed bar-mitzvah party playing the role of Leo DiCaprio,
as an audience of his friends and family admire his sheer
ridiculousness. While not anything to rave over, Keeping up with the
Steins is a pleasant diversion from everyday life; it can be enjoyed
by even those who know not the least bit about Jewish Culture.
Brett Ratner’s
X-Men: The Last Stand is about as different a movie from Bryan
Singer’s X-Men and X2 as a third installment in the popular
franchise could’ve possibly been. However, contrary to what my instincts
had suggested when I first watched its extended-trailer, this change in
style did not turn out to offer a boost in quality. Singer’s hefty,
overwrought approach in the first two films has been abandoned by Ratner;
this X-Men’s running-length clocks in substantially shorter than
those of the other ones. Unfortunately, the new director’s different
methods take fixing the flaws found in The Last Stand’s
predecessors to an uncomforting extreme. Ratner’s efforts have contributed
to a leaner final product, but by no means have they created the triumph
that this film needed in order to function as a worthy conclusion to the
series. As I watched the movie, I felt as though I was simply witnessing
stills flow through a projector; never was I moved by the fact that it
would mark the last time that I would see all of the X-Men together,
kicking butt on a single, giant cinema-screen. In fact, there were only a
few times throughout the film’s duration that I became truly immersed in
the material and entertained. (However, this goes without saying that
Magneto moving the Golden Gate Bridge is something else entirely.)
The Last Stand’s special effects are consistently amazing and the
cast always seems to be jived up about the material, but I couldn’t get
into the majority of it. I entered the screening of it that I attended
optimistically, but as I walked out of it, my knowledge of the fact that
there may be Wolverine and Magneto movies on the way left me
with only one expression in tow: rolling eyes.
You can say what you want about Jared Hess’
Cultural Phenomenon of a debut film, Napoleon Dynamite, but its
success speaks for itself. The movie—which was made for less than a
million dollars—first took Sundance audiences by storm, was then screened
for anyone who reserved free online-tickets for showings of it (that’s
where I first met up with it), and finally ended up making Fox Searchlight
a killing on both box-office sales and DVD rentals and purchases. Now,
Hess, who is only twenty-six-years-old, has made his second feature,
Nacho Libre. This time, his budget is considerably bigger—sixty
times bigger, in fact—and rather than small-town dry-charmer Jon Heder
at his side to fill the starring role, he has big-time funny-man Jack
Black.
For the most part, Nacho Libre, which
parodies the sheer nuttiness of Lucha Libre Mexican Wrestling,
works. It doesn’t have the “out of left field” surprise-effect that
Napoleon Dynamite did—its promotional materials have been storming
primetime TV-commercials and cinema trailer-reels for the past few
weeks—but it is often just as hilarious. Black depicts Nacho, the
closet-wrestler Friar of a protagonist, as quite the lovable loser. His
performance, in tight harmony with Hess’ clever direction, allows Nacho’s
character to always remain likable, if equally as pathetic. The audience
cares for him, but never has a problem laughing at his gut-wrenching
stupidity.
Structurally, Nacho Libre is about as
close to a series of sketches featuring the same characters and themes as
a linear film can possibly be, but the aimlessness provoked by this never
bogs it down to an extent at which it becomes boring. There is enough
humorous ridiculousness found in the material that the movie remains
consistently amusing throughout its duration. And while it may not offer
much more than such amusement, Nacho Libre is certainly the most
original and effectively deadpan comedy I have seen since…well,
Napoleon Dynamite.
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