Movie Review: Underdog

Underdog (2007) 

Directed by Frederik Du Chau

Written by Adam Rifkin

Starring Jason Lee, Jim Belushi, Peter Dinklage, Patrick Warburton, John Slattery, Taylor Momsen

Release Date August 3rd, 2007

Published August 3rd, 2007

Was there any need to make the 60's cartoon Underdog into a big budget live action movie? I've heard no clamor or call. No one outside the official Underdog fan club has even thought of Underdog in the near 20 years since the last reruns were exorcised from TV screens. And yet, here we are with Disney dusting off this forgotten pop culture relic with visions of the family dollar dancing in the heads of Disney accountants.

I hope they got their money's worth because we, the movie-going public, certainly do not. This 88 minute cash grab is one of the most dreary projects to come out of the Disney company since the bastardized sequels of their Pixar and other animated properties. Underdog is a deeply misguided, mercenary effort where profit trumps good taste, and stock prices are calculating on box office returns. 

Jason Lee stars as the voice of Underdog a former K9 cop turned lab rat who, after getting zapped by some chemicals, develops super powers. Escaping the lab of the evil doctor Simon Barr Sinister (slumming Station Agent star Peter Dinklage), Underdog ends taken in by a security guard (Jim Belushi) and his troubled son (Alex Neuberg). Nicknamed shoeshine for his proclivity for licking shoes, Underdog slowly learns that he has powers before the boy helps him become a superhero.

No points for for guessing that the troubled boy is healed by his new best friend and that father and son are brought closer together as they are forced to team up against Barr Sinister and his henchman Cad (Patrick Warburton). You could guess how this plot plays out without having to sit through this mind-numbing cliché of family movie drivel.

The key to such a predictable plot is trying to reinvent, or at the very least dress up, your familiar elements with jokes, action or effects. Underdog fails in all three of those attempts. The jokes of Underdog are limited to eye rolling dog puns about what dogs like to eat, where they like to poop and how they interact i.e the butt sniffing joke you can anticipate well before it comes.

The action is even more lame than the jokes. Mirroring the equally painful family dog picture Firehouse Dog, Underdog is just a series of bad CGI talking dogs against ugly fake green screened environments. The action and the effects of Underdog are inextricably linked thus if the action is lame, the effects must be as bad or even worse.

Looking at the cast of Underdog you can't be surprised to see the name of Jim Belushi on the cast list. What is shocking and sad is the career destruction of Jason Lee. Yes, it's only his voice in the role of Underdog but nevertheless, you have to dock him a bunch of cool points for his willingness to utter such lame jokes. Worse yet, Lee will follow Underdog by starring as Dave in a live action Alvin & The Chipmunks. Ugh.

I've already heard from one former Jason Lee fan who has completely written him off now that he seems to be taking the Eddie Murphy path to the easy family movie paycheck. Even more desperate than Lee is Peter Dinklage who truly lowers himself to play the villain in Underdog. The man who became an actor to watch after his terrific performance in The Station Agent, is now flailing and gesticulating desperately as he tries to cover up this failure with wild gesturing.

I'm sure that someone thought that making a live action version of Underdog would be fun but most of the people behind this lame adaptation likely only saw dollar signs. There was no call for a live action update of Underdog. No large contingent of fans lying in wait for Disney to wake up and realize the property they held was so valuable. Like the brutal Rocky & Bullwinkle movie from a few years back, Underdog is not a cartoon that cried out for live action adaptation. Rather,Underdog is a 60's relic barely notable enough to require a DVD collection.

Even a straight to video launch would have been too much for this waste of screen space.

Movie Review The Last Movie Star

The Last Move Star (2018) 

Directed by Adam Rifkin

Written by Adam Rifkin 

Starring Burt Reynolds, Ariel Winter, Clark Duke, Ellar Coltrane, Chevy Chase 

Release Date March 30th, 2018 

Published March 29th, 2018 

The Last Movie Star turns a bold and daring eye on an aging Burt Reynolds and never looks away. Writer-Director Adam Rifkin has crafted a tribute to the movie star Burt Reynolds and a deconstruction of the actor and person Burt Reynolds. It’s a strange and fascinating piece that is equal parts funny, emotional and sit-comic. Reynolds is rather incredible throughout even as the direction lets him down here and there.

Vic Edwards (Reynolds) was once the biggest movie star in the world. That was a long time ago. Today, Vic is a lonely has-been in a large house whose dog just died. No, lie the opening scenes of the movie with Vic having to put his elderly pooch down at a vet’s office legit broke my heart as a dog lover, not to mention just feeling sorry for this old man we’re just meeting and will come to know.

Vic gets invited to a film festival in Nashville, Tennessee where he will be honored with a lifetime achievement award. His buddy, played by Chevy Chase, seemingly playing his creepy self, encourages him to accept the invitation, he’s heard that Eastwood, Pacino and DeNiro have all been honored at this festival in the past. The promise of an all-expense paid trip and the fact that Vic is originally from Tennessee convince him to accept.

Upon arrival however, Vic finds the festival may not be as prestigious as promised. After a painful coach plane ride, Vic is met at the airport by Lil (Modern Family star Ariel Winter), who is loudly arguing with her terrible boyfriend and driving what can kindly be considered a car, Vic was expecting a limousine. Finally, Vic arrives at the festival, hosted by Lil’s brother Doug (Clark Duke) in the back of a bar.

Desperately unhappy, Vic proceeds to get drunk and the next day forces Lil to take him back to his hometown in Knoxville rather than return to the festival. From there, Vic will reminisce and regret, ruminate and accept where his life is now. It’s quite a journey filled with some surprisingly big laughs from both Reynolds and Winter. But. The Last Movie Star has something more than just some TV sitcom ready punchlines in store 

It is perhaps more than a little manipulative to have the aged Burt Reynolds acting out portions of his own life story through the character of Vic but damned if I wasn’t moved by it. Portions of the film are even told using Reynolds’ real life movies as those of his characters. A pair of dreams find the Reynolds of today chatting with Bandit Burt and Deliverance Burt. These scenes are admittedly maudlin but Reynolds gives them real weight.

Later dramatic scenes in which Vic is reflecting on his childhood, his marriages and his career are equally moving and while the direction isn’t spectacular and the set ups are obvious and forced, Reynolds is so good that I could not help but get sucked in. The final moment of the film is by far Reynolds crowning jewel as an actor and as Burt Reynolds the movie star. Watch his eyes, watch that smile; it’s really something to see.

I have mixed feelings about The Last Movie Star but not about Reynolds. Despite the pushy, borderline amateurish direction, he is magnetic and deeply sympathetic. That’s not something I have ever thought of Burt Reynolds, sympathetic. He’s always been that Bugs Bunny like character to me, the quick-witted charmer with that killer smile, and always one step ahead of the man.

Later in his life he was a sad shell of a movie star, slumming it on TV, glaring from tabloid magazine covers and only occasionally, as in Boogie Nights, flashing the chops that he’d so often hidden behind that façade of a movie star charm. He was perhaps a pathetic figure from that tabloid perspective, the focus on his legendary hairpiece, which gets no call outs here, but never someone I was called to feel sorry for.

Here however, in The Last Movie Star, Burt Reynolds is deeply sympathetic. Downright moving in how sympathetic he is. Genuine vulnerability has come with his aging and withered his charm along with his handsome features but the actor remains. Sure, the movie cheats by using Reynolds’ real life as shorthand but man does Burt lean into that and make it something more than just an ego trip down memory lane.