Movie Review RV

RV (2006) 

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld

Written by Geoff Rodkey 

Starring Robin Williams, Cheryl Hines, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Chenoweth, Josh Hutcherson

Release Date April 28th, 2006

Published April 28th, 2006 

Robin Williams stopped being cool around the time he cleaned up and got off drugs. That is a horrible thing to say but it's true, his maniac comic genius was fueled by cocaine and though at times it was too far out it was often remarkably, vibrantly, brilliant and he has only rarely captured that brilliance since getting cleaned up.

I'm glad he got off drugs, it saved his life. And that maniac part of Williams is still there occasionally, especially in his most recent comedy special on HBO in 2003. In movies those occasions of Wiliams' brilliance have become few and far between. Reduced now to the neutered family comedy genre like his once brilliant colleague Eddie Murphy, Williams stars in R.V, a mainstream machine meant to convert safe forced comic melodrama into cash.

In R.V Williams stars as Bob Munro, father to two ungrateful kids, daughter Cassie (JoJo Levesque) and son Carl (Josh Hutcherson) and husband to a loving stay at home wife Jamie (Cheryl Hines). Sad that his family has grown so far apart that they watch TV in four different rooms and I.M each other that dinner is ready. He launches a plan to bring the family close again.

Canceling a planned vacation in Hawaii, Bob puts the vacation funds into renting an R.V for a cross country family camping trip. What Bob doesn't mention to the family is that part of the trip includes a stop in Colorado for a business meeting.

If you guessed that along the way the family reconnects, lessons are learned and hugs shared, congratulations, you've seen a movie before. Predictable doesn't begin to describe the plot of R.V. Golly do you think Bob's secret business meeting will drive a wedge in the family? Do you think that maybe that weirdo family headed up by the mugging duo of Jeff Daniels and Kristen Chenoweth will turn out to be good people and great friends?

Garsh!

Director Barry Sonnenfeld has hit a rather unexpected career low. After Get Shorty and two pretty good Men In Black movies, Sonnenfeld seemed to have a golden touch. However, having been away from directing since the last Men In Black film, Sonnenfeld's golden touch has turned to lead. Lead that Sonnenfeld and Williams use to pound home every predictable slapstick joke.

As much as I dislike R.V I must admit to a few laughs all of which come from Williams whose hard work does occasionally wring laughs from this lame script. That hint of mania behind William's eyes is still there and when he isn't suppressing it in an ill-fitting dyspeptic character like Bob, he can't help but let loose a few non-sequiturs. Robin Williams is a comic genius. That madness is still there just below the surface. That madness that makes him a brilliant, at times uncontrollable comic whirling dervish, still simmers inside him. Movies like R.V do not bring out his best side but when he finds the right project he will back.

Movie Review: Big Trouble

Big Trouble (2002) 

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld 

Written by Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone, Dave Barry 

Starring Tim Allen, Rene Russo, Ben Foster, Stanley Tucci, Johnny Knoxville, Tom Sizemore, Jason Lee

Release Date April 5th, 2002 

Published October 14th, 2002 

Of the many things to be lost in the shuffle after 9/11, one of the strangest was the movie Big Trouble. 

A comedy based on a book by humorist Dave Barry and directed by Men In Black’s Barry Sonnenfeld, Big Trouble stars Tim Allen as a Dave Barry-like newspaper columnist who becomes involved with a plot to buy a nuclear weapon. Because the nuclear weapon was at a certain point in the film on an airplane, the film became a hot potato and was pulled from it’s September 2001 release. After nearly 8 months on the shelf the film finally made it to the big screen on April 5th and tanked badly. Now the film is available on DVD, and it deserves a second chance.

Tim Allen stars as Eliot Arnold who, after being fired from his job writing for a newspaper, takes up advertising only to find his sense of humor unappreciated by clients who believe naked flesh is the best way to sell products. Outside of work Eliot is dealing with a divorce and a teenage son who thinks he is a loser. Ben Foster is Eliot’s son Matt who is constantly making fun of Dad for driving a Geo Metro, a perfectly Dave Barry bit.

Matt is pursuing a girl in his school named Jenny Herk, whose father, Arthur (Stanley Tucci), is jerk who is in trouble with the mob. Jenny’s mother, Anna (Rene Russo), is slowly realizing that she hates Arthur and can’t remember why she married the jerk. After Matt attempts to shoot Jenny at her house with a water gun as part of a twisted high school game, Eliot comes to pick him up and he and Anna hit it off. 

Meanwhile Arthur is being pursued by two hitmen, played by Dennis Farina and Jack Kehler, and Arthur is attempting to get back at the mob by purchasing a nuclear weapon from a pair of Russian bar owners. As Arthur is making his purchase at the bar, two moron thieves, Johnny Knoxville and Tom Sizemore, decide to rob the place and end up stealing the nuclear weapon. All of these people come together when the morons kidnap Arthur and go to his place to rob it. 

Also in the cast are Patrick Warburton and Janeane Garofalo as cops, and a very funny cameo by Andy Richter as a bumbling mall security guard. Also, Jason Lee as the film's narrator Puggy, a homeless guy who witnesses everything while living in a tree outside the Herk’s home. Let us not forget Heavy D and Omar Epps as FBI agents with an executive order that allows them to do anything they want.

The film is often very funny, but it’s also very muddled. There are numerous moments where the film's story could have been tightened up. For instance, though I thought Andy Richter’s cameo was funny, it has nothing to do with the main story and easily could have been cut without affecting the central story. Director Barry Sonnenfeld likely had to keep the Richter cameo just to keep the film feature length. The film is a mere 89 minutes long.

Despite the running time and the occasionally lackadaisical scripting, Big Trouble is still a very funny movie. It’s all in the dialogue, screenwriters Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone smartly retain most of Dave Barry’s original dialogue. It is the dialogue and the spirited cast that make Big Trouble so much fun. Given the release date shenanigans and the unfortunate 9/11 related issues, it's a wonder that Big Trouble made it to release at all. Now that it is available on home video, I hope people forget the trouble and give this movie a chance. 

Movie Review Men in Black 2

Men in Black 2 (2002) 

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld 

Written by Robert Gordon, Barry Fanaro 

Starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Rosario Dawson, Lara Flynn Boyle, Johnny Knoxville 

Release Date July 3rd, 2002 

Published July 2nd, 2002 

The original Men In Black was a fresh and funny surprise. The film came out of nowhere and based on its charm and its appealing stars, the film scored 600+ million dollars at the box office. Charm, however, can carry a film only so far and it is no match for the disease known as sequelitis. If you think about it I bet you could count the number of good sequels on one hand. Sequelitis is why almost all sequels suck. Even the great Will Smith seems no match for it.

MIB2 has Smith and Tommy Lee Jones back in their black suits and Ray Bans. Of course if you recall the original, Jones' agent K was neuralized and returned to a normal life. Smith as Agent J is investigating the murder of an alien by another alien who has taken the form of Lara Flynn Boyle. Only K knows the secret to stopping this new alien threat. 

So J and his new partner Frank the Dog go to a small Massachusetts town where K is now a postal worker, a situation ripe for comedy but not taken advantage of in this film. Once K is returned to headquarters he is to be de-neuralized, but once he gets his memory back he still can't remember what happened to the object that the bad guys are looking for. K's memory block is the film’s only clever subplot as the duo search the clues K left for himself in case of such an emergency.

Where the original MIB had a bouncy pace with a new surprise around every corner MIB 2 has just the opposite; dull, lifeless transitional scenes that lead nowhere. There are no surprises in the alien creatures created by the effects team and the legendary Rick Baker. It's probably George Lucas's fault, his aliens are so visually interesting that most everything else pales in comparison. Lucas's Star Wars creatures make MIB 2's aliens look like the work of amateurs.

The biggest disappointment about MIB 2 is director Barry Sonnenfeld who directs the film with a dull cynicism. The film is constructed of dull transitory scenes broken up every 5 or 10 minutes by a special effect, probably to keep the audience from falling asleep. The film plays like a commercial for itself. The few laughs of the film are easy to cut out and put into a commercial or a trailer, with no need for context or much of a setup.

The film is well crafted but not memorable. MIB 2 is the kind of film that five years from now will be airing on TBS Superstation; you’ll stop for a moment then change the channel when a commercial comes on and maybe flick back later to see if it's still on.