22 Jump Street review

                Phil Lord and Chris Miller have a made a career out of meta-absurdism, first in their short-lived Mtv cartoon “Clone High” and then later with their feature-length animated films “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” and  this year’s  “The Lego Movie.” While primarily working on high concept, half-thought adaptations, these guys know exactly how to approach a project with enough creative distance to see Hollywood cynicism for what it is and point it out on screen, while still living up to their end of the bargain. This puts them in the unique position where they can make fun of their own movies and be as subversive as they want as long as they still make a profit.

                Like their animated features, nobody expected a “21 Jump Street” movie to be anything worthwhile, but because of their devil may care self-awareness they managed to wrangle an adaptation of a forgotten 80s high school drama into being a pretty relevant and effective comedy. The sequel—an even harder pill to swallow conceptually— doesn’t deliver as much heart or as much insight into the modern American teenage experience, but it does maintain the first movie’s quick wit and the skewering of its own commercial purpose.

                After a disastrous drug pinch, undercover agents Jenko (Channing Tatum) and Schmidt (Jonah Hill) are placed back into their student personas, now enrolled in University to find the source of a new street drug called WhyPhy. While there, they each find a new niche to fit into. Jenko finds his fit as a super-jock football star, and Schmidt finds love as a sensitive poetry slammer.

                While the plot is peripherally interested in the drug case they’re supposed to be following, the movie tends to focus more on the two’s relationships and the awkwardness of masculine bonding in male dominated crime-comedies. The Lord/Miller meta-humor is prevalent throughout, including many fourth-wall shattering in-jokes about the franchise itself as well as pop-culture references surrounding both actors’ celebrity. However, instead of the perceptive commentary surrounding teen trends that peppered the first movie, this installment delves more into homoerotic tension inherent in cop movies and post-Apatow buddy flicks. As Jenko finds kinship with a dreamy football meathead and Schmidt falls for an artsy creative writing major, the two begin to drift apart, causing jealousies and comedic set-pieces based on clichés and set-ups from American rom-coms.

                 The gay jokes become even more punctuated when Tatum’s character berates a drug dealer for using the three lettered ‘F’ word, in a scene that could be interpreted as a sign that casual homophobia is officially intolerable or that straight Hollywood has to find craftier ways to get away with it. This double-sided suspicion can be read throughout the film’s entirety, but because it kept me laughing and because I am still on board with the unlikely comedic screen chemistry between Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill I am willing to give the questionable social politics within movie the benefit of doubt. Others may not be as forgiving.

                As a pop-corn comedy “22 Jump Street” does exactly what it says on the box, it’s funny, it’s fast moving, and while it’s constantly winking at the camera it manages to surprise with quick plot shifts and mini-jokes hidden underneath the folds of the major set-ups. What it doesn’t do as well is tell a coherent story that moves effortlessly from point-A to point-B. Between the jokes and the character work, the framework of the story is occasionally muddled from too many gags and too many call-backs to the previous movie. In poking fun at the excessive nature of unwarranted sequels Lord and Miller have--maybe intentionally?--created an excessive sequel that, intentional or not, still suffers from the same trappings.

Grade: B-

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/June-2014

Edge of Tomorrow review

               Historically there has never been a great videogame film adaptation. Sure, some might argue that movies like “Mortal Kombat” or “Prince of Persia” are watchable, but given their competition within the genre that simply isn’t saying anything. Regardless, videogame aesthetics in production design, special effects and level-boss-level-boss plot structuring have definitely infiltrated the action movie genre, especially in the last 10-15 years.  “Edge of Tomorrow”—not based on a game property—is an action sci-fi that not only understands the appeal of videogame logic, but, more importantly, it understands how to integrate it into a compelling narrative without having to shoehorn fan-bits from a known franchise.

                Tom Cruise plays Cage, a propagandist for the new world military after a meteor landing sets loose a full-on alien takeover.  After paying his dues around the edges of the war he is drafted in by his superiors and thrown into battle, only to quickly die on the beaches of an ambush, finding himself returning to the same day and the same battle over and over again until he can learn from his mistakes well enough to find the source of the Alien hive-mind. In discovering the best ways to avoid his demise he meets Rita (Emily Blunt), a war hero who once shared the same deja-vu experience and who can best help Cage accomplish his existential mission.

                “Edge of Tomorrow” is an exciting, well-constructed action movie that doesn’t assume the worst of its audience. While I would hardly call it an intellectual experience, it’s at least formally interested in breaking down the genre in terms of its use of temporal space within its stop and start-over conceit. In creating a ‘game’ like narrative with something similar to a save points and boss-battles, the movie subtly challenges the notion of action movie death and the meaningfulness of second chances. Walk of characters such as Bill Paxton as the barking drill Sargent is afforded the choice to change his reactions and his line delivery a little bit every time the story rewinds, as well as other characters whose parts, had they only been on screen the one time, would have registered as incidental at best.  Impressively, by the very nature of its mechanics the movie forces us to get to know background characters, see things from multiple perspectives, and analyze the structure of the plot, and, to its credit, it does so without ever feeling fussy or overtly experimental.

                Cruise and Blunt have just enough screen chemistry to keep the ball rolling and the special effects and the world building are adequately high-tech and cleanly presented, if not somewhat underwhelming in terms creating a visual experience original enough to comfortably call this movie a modern classic. But while “Edge of Tomorrow” may not break the mold visually, its tight script, its considerate storytelling and its light comedic touch elevates this film from summer movie CGI-pulp to something at-least worth giving a second look.

Grade: B+

Originally published on the Idaho State Journal/June-2014

A Million Ways to Die in the West review

                 Seth McFarlane has created a brand of comedy full of endless in-jokes, references, and absurdist asides that have cemented his popular animated sitcoms like” Family Guy” and “American Dad” as the “Simpsons” for the ADHD generation.  Last year his first feature “Ted”, about a foul-mouthed magic teddy bear voiced by McFarlane himself, proved for many that his raunchy non-sequitur style of humor could play just as well in a long-form three act structure. But underneath all his frat-bro bravado and his edgy envelope pushing, McFarlane is a traditional genre enthusiast. Like Matt Stone and Trey Parker of “South Park”, he writes a lot of his own music, he’s a Broadway song-and-dance geek, and the majority of his best jokes owe everything to the classic Hollywood references he liberally pulls from.

                Unlike “Ted”, which I found to be mildly funny when it wasn’t being obnoxiously sexist and homophobic,  “A Million Ways to Die in the West” has a slightly better sense of consistency and engaging storytelling, without having to sell out the dignity of his characters for a joke.  Moreover, it seems to celebrate its comedic influences—specifically the western parodies of the ‘70s such as “Three Amigos”,and even more specifically “Blazing Saddles”—in a way that projects a fanboy-ish glee built from feely-good memories of McFarlane’s youth.  And like an excited fanboy, Seth occasionally puts the minutia cart in front of his comedic horse and struggles to find the balance between his usual bawdy humor and the innocent joy for the genres he’s sending up.

                McFarlane plays Albert, an awkward sheep farmer who feels alienated from the dangerous lifestyle led by the other cowboys during the 1860s wild wild west. His girlfriend Louise (Amanda Seyfried) has just left him for a mustachioed dandy named Foy (Neil Patrick Harris), leading Albert to stupidly schedule a duel with his enemy without having any knowledge of how to shoot a gun. Luckily, his new mysterious friend Anna (Charlize Theron), the secret wife of a traveling Bandit played by Liam Neeson, helps prepare him for the worst by teaching him the basics of gunplay while at the same time unpacking his guarded masculinity.

                From the opening credits, accompanied by an original song by the director himself, it becomes obvious that this film is meant to be a throwback to a simpler style of spoof comedy, and for the most part, as a story, the movie moves easily and without much narrative fuss. Unlike his cartoons, McFarlane tempers his urge to jump to asides and tangents and admirably keeps the story about his characters and their—admittedly cliché—motivations.  Uncharacteristically, rather than trying to build a story around a pile of pre-written jokes, as is usually the Seth McFarlane way, it’s the comedy in the film that’s often forced and, at times, poorly integrated. What results is about a 40% laugh to joke ratio.  Neil Patrick Harris steals every scene he’s in and there are a handful of visual gags that inspire a decent chuckle—that is if the movie’s trailer didn’t already spoil them for you—but just as many gags fall flat and sometimes Seth’s pandering to the  lowest common denominator peeks through, especially in a series sorely unfunny sequences featuring Giovanni Rabisi as Albert’s virginal best friend and his prostitute girlfriend played by a wasted Sarah Silverman, whose making him wait for their wedding night.   

                Though this film will eventually find a life in mid-afternoon cable programming, “A Million Ways to Die in the West” is a well-intended mixed bag. McFarlane’s natural confidence and good looks slightly miscasts him as a believable nebbish, but he has genuine on- screen chemistry with Theron and I would love to watch these two in a classical Hollywood musical parody someday (come on Seth, you know you want to). Ultimately, this comedy is more fun than it is funny. 

Grade: C+

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/June-2014