Step-Up Revolution review

             Why is 80’s nostalgia so in vogue right now? Lady Gaga, neon color schemes and shutter shades all harken back to maybe a simpler, if not more outrageous time. What’s stranger, is that this grasp for the past is celebrated by an entire generation who wasn’t even born in the 80’s , or were at least too young to really remember it.

I have a theory. The 80’s was a stylistically overindulgent time of excess but done so with a certain amount of naivety. Because of that innocence, it appears like everyone was having ridiculous fun and didn’t care if they looked stupid. Unfortunately, now, in the post-modern world we live in, we aren’t allowed to have that kind of fun anymore. Everything has to be ironic, sarcastic, cross advertised and fed back into the mainstream, only to reexamined, parodied and uploaded to youtube hours later.  Maybe this is why, against my better judgment, I just can’t hate the Step Up movies. Sure, they’re not “good” but they are what too many movies don’t try to be anymore, innocent fun.

“Step Up Revolution” is now the fourth in this long standing series. Starting with mild ambitions, the first “Step Up” was a small unassuming genre film and it wasn’t bad or good. “Step Up 2: The Streets”—perhaps the best name for a sequel since “Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo”—brought in the young director Jon M. Chu, who infused this franchise with a Pop-Rocks and Coke sugar-high sensibility that reinvigorated the dance movie genre. In “Step Up 3D” Chu did his thing yet again and has made maybe the best argument for 3D films, with what I regard as the strongest movie of the four.

                This time the movie takes us to a beach community in Miami. Sean (Ryan Guzman) and Eddy (Misha Gabriel Hamilton) are best friends who work part time at a hotel, but moonlight as the leaders of a secret dance group called The Mob, who hijack public settings to perform their tightly choreographed dance numbers, in hopes of making money from a youtube contest.  There, Sean meets Emily (Kathryn McCormick), the daughter of the hotel owner (Peter Gallagher) who plans on constructing a new resort location, forcing all of the local businesses to close down or move. Emily Joins The Mob and declares “Enough with performance art, it’s time for protest art.” 

                Okay, so how does this one step up to its predecessors? Well, Jon M. Chu, has stepped down from the directing seat and you can really notice it. The dance sequences are edited a bit choppier and the energy between those numbers is not as vibrant or well-paced. Also, this story is weirdly trying to be a little too political and socially relevant for its own good.  What we have here is an occupy-era movie that is masquerading as a Florida beach, dance-flick—or perhaps the other way around. That would be interesting if “Magic Mike” hadn’t already done that a few months ago and did it a lot better.

                With all of that said, did I hate “Step Up Revolution”? Absolutely not. Sure, the performances were laughably weak, the love story doesn’t work at all and it’s too slow in spots, but that stuff isn’t the reason we go to see these movies. The dancing is still very impressive, the staunchly dubstep soundtrack is entrancing, and the cinematography is very nice to look at. These movies are doing over-produced cinematic trash better than anyone else and for that they will always get have my money. I had fun and I was still able to enjoy my guilty pleasure, even if this one is definitely no “Step Up 3D”.

Grade: C+

Originally Published in The Idaho State Journal/Aug-2012

Savages review

               Oliver Stone is a director who is known by most to be a “serious” filmmaker. His movies are usually heavy loaded with social and political messaging and his style is usually dower and nose thumbing. However, from time to time we can get a different Oliver Stone who just enjoys his popcorn and explosions as much as any other dude. This would be the Oliver Stone who wrote the “Scarface” remake and who directed movies like “Natural Born Killers” and “Any Given Sunday”. I like that Oliver Stone but it’s been a while since we have seen him do any work, since he has been too busy doing failed attempts at politically important pictures like “World Trade Center” and “W”. So with the opening of “Savages” this weekend—a violent drug-dealing thriller—It seems like maybe he could cleanse his pallet away from Oscar-bait and remember how to entertain people again.

             “Savages” is based on a popular pulp novel of the same name and stars a cast of young new hopefuls, as well as established Hollywood veterans.   The story follows Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Johnson who play Ben and Chon, two So-Cal burnouts who have manufactured the best weed ever produced in the west-coast and who find themselves at odds with the Mexican cartel, who wants a cut of their success. Ben’s a peaceful hemp-wearing Phish enthusiast, whereas Chon is an emotionally wounded Iraq vet with a short fuse. Ben wants to make peace and give up but Chon insists that he call his sniper palls and start an all-out war for their turf.  Midway through the film, Blake Lively’s character Ophelia—joint girlfriend to both dealers--is kidnapped by the cartel and Ben and Chon have to figure out how get her back and split the country before they get killed.

             One of the major problems with this film is that Blake Lively as Ophelia is the focus character throughout duration of the story.  She narrates much of the first and second acts and we see everything through her perspective. Unfortunately she is the least interesting person on screen and her stilted narration is laughably bad. Aaron Johnson, known to most people still as “Kick-Ass”, is unrecognizable in this role and has a lot of charisma that hints at a bigger career in the future. After seeing Taylor Kitsch fumble his way through “John Carter” and “Battleship” earlier this year, I wonder why and how he has managed to find his way into movies he has no business being in. Unfortunately he is equally less appealing in this film. However, when the grown-ups get to play and we see Selma Hayek and Benicio Del Toro chewing it up as the blood thirsty drug lords and John Travolta as a double-crossing DEA agent, the movie kicks into a much more comfortable mode of B-movie hysteria that reminded me of the kind of fun in Stone’s other desert noirs like “Natural Born Killers” and “U-Turn”.

            Though it would be easy to say that “Savages” isn’t a good movie, it’s certainly an entertaining one. Having recent television shows like “Weeds” and “Breaking Bad” treading this territory with more gravitas and success, what you have instead is a fast-paced genre exercise with some fun editing and cheesy performances. Even though so much of this screenplay is unbelievably dopey and the choose-your-own-adventure ending is downright frustrating, I can’t hate this movie because it gave so much visceral joy. What’s more, “Savages” is a hard-R rated movie released in the middle of June and it doesn’t have any robots or superheroes in it and we should to support more diverse programming like this.

           Full of hammy acting and ridiculous dialogue, this A-budget exploitation thriller keeps things moving and bleeding along, even if your eyes will be tired from rolling by the time it's over. Oliver Stone does everything he can to keep you entertained with style and ultra-violence, and usually he is doing his job, but the pointless voice-over and the befuddling ending(s) keeps me from fully recommending this sometimes fun, sometimes infuriating piece of summer sleaze. But this is what DVD rentals are made for.

Grade: C+

Originally published in The Basic Alternative/Aug-2012

Ice Age: Continental Drift review

Sometimes in professional animation you can get some inventive and emotional storytelling. Films like “Toy Story”, “Beauty and the Beast” and even “How to Train Your Dragon” were all wonderful examples of clever narrative crafting, combined with an innovation visual design. Sometimes when you go to see a movie with your kids you don’t have to take out your grown-up brain to enjoy it. Unfortunately, more times than not, you get “Ice Age: Continental Drift” instead. 

Of course, this movie is a sequel to a ten year old, inexplicably popular CGI animated franchise from Twentieth Century Fox.  Actually, this film is the fourth in the series and as you would expect the energy is tepid, the performances are uninspired and the plot is on autopilot. 

Within “Ice Age: Continental Drift”  the old cast of characters have returned, including Manny the mastodon (Ray Romano), Diego the saber-toothed tiger (Dennis Leary) and Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo). Scrat the saber-thoothed rat is sprinkled in there as well.  Early in the story we are also introduced to some new teenage mammoths voiced the by famous hip-hop artists Nicki Manaj and Drake, neither of which ever sing or rap in this movie.

The situation here is simply a reverse “Finding Nemo” story where Manny gets separated from his family after getting into an argument with his teenage daughter over how much freedom she should be allowed. The earthquake effects of continental drift divides their ice-burg home and sets Manny and his friends adrift in the ocean, where they encounter a hostile bunch of animal pirates, voiced by the likes of Nick Frost, Peter Dinklage, and Jennifer Lopez. In order to get back home they have to figure out a way to steal the pirate’s ship while also dealing with Diego’s growing interest in Lopez as a female saber-tooth.  At the same time they have to drag along Sid’s wildly obnoxious grandmother, voiced by the wildly obnoxious comedian Wanda Sykes.

This cartoon is peppered with star voice talent and in just describing the plot one ends up dropping enough names to require a Dirt Devil by the time you’re done. However, this movie doesn’t utilize any of these voices in a way that allows for any of those celebrities to bring whatever appeal it is that led them being cast. The plot is slight and lazy, the steaks are low and the climax resolves with a gigantic face-palming dues-ex-machina.

Despite the story having nothing to engage me, did I find any of this funny or laugh worthy? The answer to that would be not very much. I chuckled a few times at Nick Frost as a mentally deficient elephant seal and at the idea of Drake’s mammoth character having bleached tips. Scrat brings some enjoyable slapstick as well and it’s somewhat encouraging to see chunks of this animation that doesn’t rely on dialogue. Unfortunately the rest of characters do talk and there’re all needlessly loud and sarcastic through most of the film.

Nothing in this fourth Ice Age is really worth recommending for adults, but the kiddies are more than likely to be happy with this. The animation is fine, but not noteworthy and the action scenes are frenetic and frequent enough to keep the wiper-snappers from getting fussy in their theater seats.  But you should do yourselves a favor and save your money for the eventual DVD rental and instead take the kids to see “Brave” again.

Grade: D+

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/July-2012

The Dark Knight Rises review

                “And why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.” These are the famous lines uttered by Bruce Wayne’s father in 2005’s “Batman Begins.” These are also the lines that echo back to us now in the final chapter of director Christopher Nolan’s epic Batman trilogy. After rescuing this franchise from dismal lows, Nolan forever changed the superhero movie and raised the bar for anyone else working in this genre. Having shown us that a Batman movie can be treated as seriously as any other ensemble crime thriller and can create legitimate Oscar buzz, perhaps he raised the bar too high for even himself to reach again.

                “The Dark Knight Rises” takes us eight years after the events of 2008’s “The Dark Knight.” Christian Bale returns as Batman/Bruce Wayne, who has retired and now lives as an injured hermit in the Wayne manor. Gotham city has been rejoicing in a renaissance of peace created by new laws based on the false assertions of the supposed heroic death of their old District Attorney Harvey Dent (who was actually a murderous psycho) and the violent crimes of Batman (who was actually the real hero). This all changes when a new villain played by Tom Hardy, a mysterious madman named Bane, comes into town with an evil plan to destroy the city from its entire bureaucratic infrastructure, out into the streets. Batman is then forced to return when the prisoners are set free, the law has been shut down, and an entire island section of the city becomes abandoned by the government as a hostile war-zone. 

Other plots include Anne Hathaway as the slinky burglar Catwoman, who seems to be playing both sides, a young police officer played by Joseph Gordon Levitt, who inspires Bruce Wayne to dawn his cape and cowl again and Marion Cotillard as a Wayne-Corp share-holder, who has her interests in Bruce as well as a recent nuclear power source developed by Wayne-Tech. How this movie handles all of these different plot threads is sometimes jarring and in the wrong proportions.

                This movie is a worthy companion to its predecessors but it is certainly the weakest of the three and it feels the least like a Batman movie. Much of the first act spends too much time reminding the audience what has taken place before hand and setting up all of the plot-dominos that have to fall into place. The eight year jump between this film and the last is unnecessary and just creates more hoops the story has to go through to get to what it really wants to do. The third act becomes a twist-o-rama, which then begins to fuse these disparate parts together but at the expense of the first two thirds of the movie that feels a bit convoluted and confusing at times.

                 Ultimately, this film seems to be thematically muddy. “Batman Begins” was a character study about a man’s search for identity in the face of tragedy. “The Dark Knight” was about the uphill fight between order and anarchy and their effects on the nature of mankind. “The Dark Knight Rises” never seems to be as focused.  Is it about a fallen hero and his redemption? Is the subtext about the occupy movement? Is it about when the fight is worth fighting for? The answer to all of these questions is yes and no. It is an ambitious film and when it’s good it’s really good, but much of it is frustrating and it feels like Christopher Nolan had hijacked his own franchise to make a politically taut action film that incidentally has Batman in it.

Grade: C+

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/July-2012

The Amazing Spiderman review

                Time flies by when you’re having fun, and since 2002, when Sam Raimi first realized “Spider-Man” for the big screen, we have had a glut of superhero franchises rise and fall in its wake, culminating in the record shattering success of “The Avengers." “Spider-Man 2” was met with high praise from both fans and critics and was widely considered to be one of the greatest superhero movies ever made up to that point. “Spider-Man 3” was marred by highly publicized studio interference, making for a messy film that left fans and critics disappointed and was widely considered one of the worst superhero movies ever made up to that point. After having his vision for the franchise ripped away, Raimi left Spider-Man and the same studio has now recruited “(500) Days of Summer” director Mark Webb to take over with a new reimagining of this iconic character.

                “The Amazing Spider-Man” takes us back to the familiar territory of Raimi’s origin story back in 2002. Andrew Garfield, costar of  “The Social Network”, now plays Peter Parker as he clumsily tries to get the attention of a girl (again), while dealing with high school bullies (again) as well as trying to fit in his at-home responsibilities with Aunt May and Uncle Ben (again). What this movie does change is slight things such as a subplot dealing with Parker's abandonment from his parents, his father’s secret past, and instead of the more-familiar Mary Jane character, his puppy-dog affections are now directed towards Gwen Stacey, as played by Emma Stone.
               When trying to find out more about his father, Peter investigates a highly advanced lab ran by Dr. Curt Connors (Ryse Ifans), an amputee scientist who is working on the genetic splicing of animals, such as reptiles, to regrow limbs. During his investigation Parker finds himself in an enclosure of genetically modified spiders...and you can probably guess what happens from there.  

                The first 45 minute of this film slowly delays the action to delve into Parker's awkwardness and to set up his guilt-inspired vigilantism. Like Christopher Nolan’s Batman reboot, the tone of this movie is decidedly much more somber and serious than the previous incarnations. Instead of the earnest, dorky portrayal of Toby Maguire’s Spidey, Garfield plays him brooding, aggressive, and hot tempered. But what keeps this from being “Spiderman Begins”, is a script full of narrative inconsistencies, subplots that are raised to make the characters do things, only to be dropped entirely once they aren’t needed anymore, and a serious lack of development and proper motivation for Curt Connors as the slithering Lizard villain.
              Emma Stone is very nice to watch as Gwen Stacey and Martin Sheen is terrific as Peter’s Uncle Ben, but I found Garfield’s portrayal as Spider-Man to be uneven and confused, which I blame more on Webb’s shapeless direction and a screenplay that feels like it was built by committee. 

                Some fans seem to be rejoicing in the fact that this interpretation is less campy than Raimi’s trilogy, and certainly it does build a more grounded reality for this superhero to exist in. However, in trading wide-eyed enthusiasm for existential angst--by a director who frankly doesn’t have the experience or chops to pull it off-- what results is a slow moving, ponderous film that is far more interested in tonal exteriors than tightly crafted storytelling.
            In all, “The Amazing Spider-Man” rings enough of the expected genre bells to make an acceptable melody, but not without hitting enough wrong notes to keep me from wondering what’s amiss. 

Grade: C-

Originally Published in the Idaho Sate Journal/July-2012

Rock of Ages review

                 They say if you remember metal in the 80s, you didn’t live through metal in 80s. With that, I think this can be safely assumed for those responsible for “Rock of Ages”, a hair-metal mash-up-musical, adapted from a popular Broadway production.  Director Adam Shankman, still reeling from the surprise success of his musical adaptation of John Waters “Hairspray”, brings together a large all-star cast, a lot enthusiasm and a big budget. What he gets from all of this is a confused, underwhelming and expensive piece of Hollywood bad-idea backwash, that’s at best silly and at worst boring.

                It’s 1987 and Julianne Hough plays Sherrie, an Oklahoma girl who plans on moving to LA to become a rock star like her favorite musical icons. Right off of the bus ride she immediately gets a job at one of the hottest rock-clubs on the sunset strip, where she meets Drew, who also wants make it big. The Bourbon Club is run by Dennis and his longtime partner Lonny, played by Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand. This club, loosely based on the famous Whisky a Go Go, will go out of business unless they can book a performance from the erratic and eccentric Stacy Jaxx (Tom Cruise). Making things even more complicated, Catharine Zeta Jones plays a metal-phobic wife of a politician who plans to protest the club and do everything in her power to shut it down in her attempts to clean up the strip.

                The aim of this movie is to strike a chord with a certain kind of fight-the-man appeal. Unfortunately, this just isn’t that movie. In fact I don’t what kind of movie this is or even wanted to be. More importantly, I don’t know if the movie knows either. The problem starts with the tone. We open on a bus where Julianne Hough is belting out-loud Night Ranger’s Sister Christian, and we get the sense by her hopeful crooning and the following romance between her and her would be rock and roll boytoy that we are truly supposed to be emotionally involved with the moral complexities and personal struggles of these characters. There also exists a second layer of glittery camp and self-referential mockery--as represented by Baldwin, Brand, and Cruise and their over the top portrayals--that seems to be at odds with basic intentions of the plot. Does all of this keep us laughing? Yes, and only half of the time the film in on the joke.

                This musical also struggles with who the audience is, and what they want to see. There is a lot of racy raunch and hanky-panky to be had, suggesting that this is something like a sex comedy of sorts. But the doe-eyed love story and mournful turn at the end of second act keeps trying to tell us that it’s more of an all-ages tale about the against-all-odds success of the underdog. At one point Breaking Bad’s Brian Cranston, who plays the husband of Zeta Jones, is being dominated by his mistress in a church while being cuffed and bound by a catholic rosary. Now, I am not easily offended and I think that under the right context all religion is ripe for parody or lampoon. This scene wasn’t well earned and seemed to be particularly in-your-face for a movie that wasn’t cool or anarchistic enough to make such a broad gesture.

                Lastly, you might be thinking "bad plots and shoddy performances can be excused in a musical if the music is good". If there is anything that saves this mess it’s the music—music that I have never been a fan of, I might add. The cheesy hair-metal showcased here has a pop sensibility and anthemic quality that sometimes manages to pull this baggy and saccharine script together. However, if you were a fan of 80s metal this isn’t very rebellious, this isn’t badass, and this isn’t really all that sexy. This is a Hollywood focus group’s idea of what was happening in Motley Crue and Poison’s dressing rooms. Some might have speculated from the initial marketing that this would be Glee for grown ups. Unfortunately “Rock of Ages” is much more artificial and doesn’t even have a television show’s sense of how to use its jukebox catalog in a meaningful or thematic way. No, instead what we have here is more like “Guitar Hero: The Motion Picture”.

Grade: D+

Originally published in The Basic Alternative/July-2012

Men In Black III review

                 How many weekends does it take to displace “The Avengers” from the box-office top spot? It takes three apparently. It would seem that everyone has now seen Marvels mightiest superheroes defend the world enough times and are actively seeking something (maybe anything) else. Could “Men in Black 3” have won its weekend due to any real anticipation or public interest? Sure people like Will Smith, but “MIB” is a largely forgotten franchise, and director Barry Sonnenfeld really hasn’t had a memorable hit since the first installment back in 1997. The following sequel in 2002 did well enough commercially, but was largely seen as a disappointment. Ever since, Sonnenfeld has been slumming around in the worlds of television production and middling comedies like “RV” and “Big Trouble”.   Regardless, here we are in 2012 and we have yet another galaxy defending crusade, led by the unlikely duo of Will Smith as Agent-J and Tommy Lee Jones (kind of) as Agent-K.

                The plot of “Men In Black 3” (or cubed) deals mainly with the conceit of time travel and alternate paradoxical realities, not too unlike the plot of “Back to the Future II” or basically anything from television’s “Doctor Who”. After a violent alien criminal known as Boris the Animal escapes from a moon prison, he immediately seeks revenge on Agent-K. After an initial battle where Boris, played by “Flight of the Conchords” actor/musician/comedian Jermaine Clement, eludes the MIB, Agent-J wakes up to find that he now lives in an alternate reality in which K was defeated by Boris back in 1969--when before the paradox, he was originally imprisoned.  J then embarks on a secret mission to travel back to 1969, where he must find and kill Boris before he terminates the 29 year old K, now played by Josh Brolin.

                As with many of these late-in-the-game franchise re-launch’s, this feels less like a sincere creative effort and more like a frantic studio cash-grab. The first half of the movie is introducing us to everything we remember from the first two; the characters, the gizmo’s and of course the aliens, but unlike the first installment where there was a true sense of wonder and enthusiasm, this sequel feels a bit desperate, overreaching and ultimately over-polished. The second half rewards a bit more but not without a hefty amount eye rolling and flat attempts at hackneyed humor.

                Like “MIB II” this movie is more about effects driven sight-gags and less about the characters. Here we see Will Smith doing his familiar, smart-alecky Fresh Prince act. Knowing that he is nearly fifty years old and having seen him in much more weighty projects since, such as “Pursuit of Happiness” and “Ali”, this feels like a significant step backwards. Tommy Lee Jones has lost all interest in this character and instead seems to be doing a lazily rehearsed version of himself.  Josh Brolin looks like he’s having a lot of fun doing a very impressive Jones impression, but in the end that’s all it really is, a hollow impersonation. Jermaine Clement is so straddled by his make-up and CGI that he barely gets to do what he does best, and unfortunately the writing for his character doesn’t play to his strengths as a subtly eccentric comedian. I dare say the only legitimate performance in this movie is given by Michael Stuhlbarg as an omniscient alien—whose plot purpose is basically written in for expository reasons, but regardless he makes it into something strange and memorable.

                “Men in Black 3” isn’t great on many levels. The plot is convoluted, the characters and their chemistry are tired, and the special effects are showy and oftentimes downright hokey. Most of all, it doesn’t seem to have that same kind of dark comedic bite that the firsts one had. However, with all of that said, this movie won’t offend you either. It simply just is (think “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”). It hits all of its intended genre-marks and delivers enough moments of quirk and whimsy that you won’t get bored, even if a day or an hour later you don’t remember anything about it.   

Grade: C-

Originally published in The Basic Alternative/June-2012