Movie Review Happy Feet 2

Happy Feet 2 (2011) 

Directed by George Miller

Written by George Miller, Gary Eck

Starring Elijah Wood, Brittany Murphy, Pink, Hank Azaria, Brad Pitt, Common, Matt Damon, Sofia Vergara

Release Date November 18th, 2011

Published November 18th, 2011

Pop junk is a little harsh for a movie as harmless as "Happy Feet 2" but it is nevertheless a fitting pronunciation. "Happy Feet 2" is junky; filled to overflow with dull pop songs and boring perfunctory messages about finding your place, growing up, family and global warming.

The original "Happy Feet," also a fluffy piece of pop junk, followed Mumble (Elijah Wood) as he learned to dance with the aid of his pal Ramon (Robin Williams) and the love of a female penguin named Gloria (Brittany Murphy). Five years later, Mumble and Gloria, now voiced by pop star Pink, have a son (Ava Acres) named Erik who struggles to find his place in the world.

The plot kicks in when Uncle Ramon decides to return to his penguin flock on the other side of the mountain. Unknowingly, Ramon is trailed by Erik and his pals. They follow Ramon back to his old family where they make a fascinating discovery; a penguin who can fly.

While Mumble tracks down his son and also confronts The Mighty Sven (Hank Azaria) a massive glacier crashes into Mumble's home and traps his friends and family, including Gloria. With his home cut off from the ocean Mumble must find a way to get food to his friends and a way to get them out of the hole they're in.

In a minor and surprisingly entertaining subplot a pair of Krill named Will (Brad Pitt) and Bill (Matt Damon) leaves their swarm behind in search of adventure and an identity of their own. Will wants to become a predator and is determined to take a bite out of something; Will is along for the ride with his best friend.

This subplot is funny not because it's wildly inventive or well written but because Brad Pitt and Matt Damon throw dignity to the wind and give full throat to a pair of sweet, strange performances. How strange are they? Pitt and Damon each sing, quite badly but with complete abandon and joy.

Pitt and Damon are the standouts in an otherwise by the numbers effort that recycles cloying cuteness, boring, overplayed pop songs and good intentions. There's nothing wrong with the messages ``Happy Feet 2" intends to pass along. The problem is the method of delivering these messages has no freshness and thus lacks resonance.

Rather than waste the price of a movie ticket on "Happy Feet 2" I recommend you grab your DVD of the original off the shelf and toss that in the DVD player. All you're losing in the experience is the chance to pay big money at a movie theater for a movie you've basically seen already.

Movie Review Hunter Killer

Hunter Killer (2018) 

Directed by Donovan Marsh

Written by Arne Schmidt, Jamie Moss

Starring Gerard Butler, Gary Oldman, Common, Linda Cardellini, Toby Stephens 

Release Date October 26th, 2018

Published October 26th, 2018

Hunter Killer stars Gerard Butler as submarine commander Joe Glass. Glass has just been handed his very first command, aboard the USS Arkansas at a most inopportune moment. It is Joe’s task to take his hunter killer class sub crew into heavily guarded Russian territory and find out what happened to another hunter killer class sub which was sunk in the area, assumedly by a Russian sub that was also downed in the fight. 

What Joe and his crew find is something quite unexpected, both subs appear to have been attacked not by each other but by a third sub which subsequently begins attacking Joe’s sub. The Arkansas survives this encounter but having just sent another Russian sub to the bottom of the ocean, the international incident they were investigating may be exploding into World War 3 unless Joe can quickly figure out why this Russian sub has gone rogue. 

Meanwhile, back in Washington D.C, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Charles Donnegan (Gary Oldman) has tasked Rear Admiral John Fisk with sending a team of Green Berets into Russian territory so they can get close to where the Russian President Zakarin (Alexander Diachenko) and his top military secretary, Admiral Durov (Michael Gor) are holed up near where the subs have been downed. 

What the Green Berets, led by Bill Beaman (Toby Stephens) , find is that there is a coup in process, the Russian President is the hostage of his top military secretary and the secretary is bent on starting World War 3. Now three arms of the American military, along with an advisor from the NSA (Linda Cardellini) must work together to come up with a plan to rescue the Russian President and avert World War 3. 

I must admit, that sounds like a pretty great description of a first person shooter video game. Sadly, Hunter Killer is a movie and thus not nearly as much fun. Hunter Killer is the latest in a long line of lunkheaded military rehashes from Millennium Entertainment, the group that rescued Gerard Butler from the Hollywood ash heap and given him a second act as the purest example of lunkheaded, ill-conceived 80’s action movies, the new millennium Michael Dudikoff. 

For those not among the 10 people who got that Michael Dudikoff reference, Dudikoff was the bargain action hero of Cannon Films, the group behind such glorious 80’s cheese as American Ninja, Avenging Force and the Missing in Action Franchise. Those examples should give you a good idea of the quality of Hunter Killer, we’re not talking high end action here, we’re talking about the kind of slapdash trash that used to go directly to drive-ins and eventually, directly to VHS. 

Hunter Killer is supremely dumb and not in a fun way. Rather, Hunter Killer is dumb in the most boringly competent ways imaginable. Hunter Killer was directed by a newcomer named Donovan Marsh who is just inexperienced enough and just talented enough to miss the point of the movie he’s making. He doesn’t appear to understand that Hunter Killer is cheesy and thus he commits to the idea with all his talent, not realizing that everyone in the cast knows they’re working on something cheap and disposable. They know the company they’re working for. 

Butler and Oldman have worked with Millennium Entertainment for years. Butler is there because Millennium was the only company willing to touch him after his toxic run of bombs from 2008 to 2011 that culminated with him playing a leprechaun in an almost career endingly bad segment of Movie 43. Oldman worked with Millennium because his name was just big enough to work on the box cover of a direct to DVD crime movie and their checks weren’t bouncing. 

No surprise to learn that Hunter Killer was on the shelf for a while before Oldman re-established himself among the Hollywood elite with his Academy Award winning performance in Darkest Hour. Hunter Killer is the kind of movie that if it had come out around Oscar time last year it might have cost him Best Actor just as many speculated that Norbit cast Eddie Murphy Best Supporting Actor by arriving around the time he was nominated for Dreamgirls. 

We know Hunter Killer has been moldering on the shelf for a while because one of the supporting actors, Michael Nyqvist died more than 18 months ago. It’s tragic that a fine, under-recognized pro like Nyqvist has Hunter Killer as the last thing on his resume but at least he was gone before the world had seen what a terrible film he’d closed his fine career with. Here’s hoping he was well compensated. 

I realize that some people enjoy this stinky cheese of a movie but it’s definitely not for me. Butler is his usually dopey self, swaggering about spitting nonsense dialogue in his god-awful American accent. He doesn’t appear to care that he’s not acting but caricaturing American swagger in the most unfunny way possible. It’s hard to know if I pity Butler for his complete lack of talent or if I am meant to laugh at his dimwitted burlesque attempt at bringing back the 80’s action movie. 

Hunter Killer is bad in a most bland and peculiar fashion. It’s not shot poorly, it’s inoffensive in that the jingoism is tempered by having so many foreigners lead the cast of this American action movie, Butler, Oldman, and Toby Stephens, are not Americans and appear to have no interest in selling America f*** Yeah attitude that a true 80’s action movie would. Had this film actually starred Michael Dudikoff it would have ended with him planting an American flag in the heart of the dead foreign secretary while American jets flew overhead dropping tiny American flags. 

I guess, in that sense, we can consider Hunter Killer restrained. Not any good, but restrained. Unfortunately that restraint keeps the movie too tasteful to be bad in a fun way. Instead, the film is bad for being deathly dull, populated by bored actors either over-performing or under-performing masculine military cliches and spouting nonsense jargon that sounds cool but comes off like boys playing with toys and not serious-minded military adults. 

Movie Review: Wanted

Wanted (2008) 

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov

Written by Michael Brandt, Derek Haas, Chris Morgan

Starring Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Terrence Stamp, Common, Chris Pratt

Release Date June 27th, 2008

Published June 27th, 2008 

For years Angelina Jolie has been a lot of flash and little cash at the box office. It seemed she was a bigger draw in the gossip columns than she was at the box office, her star power better suited to selling People and Us Weekly than her movies. With the release of the new ultra-violent action flick Wanted however, things have definitely changed.

Though Wanted is ostensibly about James McAvoy's rookie assassin, the ad campaign made quite clear that Ms. Jolie's killer pout and outstanding derriere were the real draws of this summer mind melter.

Wanted stars James McAvoy as a sadsack cubicle drone who finds himself the target of the world's greatest assassin. It seems that McAvoy's Wesley Gibson just happens to be the progeny of another of the world's greatest assassins and that the ability to kill with precision is a genetic trait that doesn't skip a generation.

Helping to hone Wesley's heretofore unknown talents is an elite group of assassins known as The Fraternity. Lead by Sloan (Morgan Freeman), The Fraternity of assassins dedicated to meting out fate as delivered to them by an ancient loom that can see the future. No, I'm NOT KIDDING! With the help of his trainer, Fox (Jolie), Wesley is to be trained to track down the man who killed his father, Mr X (David O'Hara).

Russian born director Timur Bekmambetov became a world wide sensation everywhere except in America with his series of Russian vampire series Nightwatch, Daywatch and the upcoming Twilight Watch. These stylish, high impact action flicks are on the cutting edge of special effects and likely would have been major hits were it not for the subtitles.

Taking elements of The Matrix and creating a killer trilogy mythology, BekMambetov has set box office records in his home country. For his American debut Bekmambetov brought along his talent for bombast and left behind his talent for mythology and grand storytelling. That may be due to him having left the screenplay duties to Americans Derek Haas and Michael Brandt.

These junk food junkie Americans cram a candy bar full of action and effects into Wanted and neglect anything close to a meal in terms of storytelling. This is brain free American entertainment of the most outrageous level and that it works is a testament for our love of true junk. As bad romantic comedies can be well equated with chocolate, Wanted is the Red Bull of movies, all caffeine.

Angelina Jolie has always dripped with sexuality but few films have played that aspect of Ms. Jolie as well as Wanted. Rather than be merely offensive with it's obvious objectification of Ms. Jolie, Wanted makes it the central preoccupation of Wesley, our hero. With Wesley focused on Ms. Jolie's assets (ahem) so are we. The forced perspective has a way of turning the objectification into a form of worship rather than something entirely sleezy.

So what of Mr. McAvoy? He is actually the perfect choice for a role such as this. A bigger star would be less 'believable', in terms of this movie, not believable in any real sense of the word, (CONTEXT PEOPLE!). Because McAvoy has never played a role such as this we have few expectations of him. He exceeds any and all expectations  by miles and we can't help but be roped into his world and his experiences as he seems to react as an average person might and not just a movie character.

That said, as good as Ms. Jolie and Mr. McAvoy are, Wanted is a relatively dull witted picture. Bouncing as it does from one overly loud set piece to the next, Wanted is not a film to attend if one is searching for the deep and meaningful. Like last year's Shoot'Em Up, a slightly more entertaining version of the same Red Bull style action movie, Wanted is all about the quick shot of adrenaline and little else.

This style is entertaining while your watching it but unless you take notes as I do, it's forgotten by the time you get to your car. Wanted is pure brain free entertainment for the videogame and energy drink crowd. Skip it if you like your movies with a little more meat on their  bones. If however, you are searching for a movie that will be in and out of your consciousness like a freight train, Wanted is the movie for you.

Movie Review Street Kings

Street Kings (2008)

Directed by David Ayer

Written by James Ellroy, Kurt Wimmer, Jamie Moss

Starring Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans, Common, The Game 

Release Date April 11th, 2008 

Published April 10th, 2008 

In her review of Street Kings Manohla Dhargis calls the film 'accidentally entertaining'.  What the hell does that mean? Were you entertained or not? It seems she was but she was embarrassed about it. No such shame for this reviewer. Street Kings is a violent, not so bright thriller that succeeds because it is so competently compelling.

Keanu Reeves, at his monotone blank slate best, stars in Street Kings as corrupt cop Tom Ludlow. As he drinks himself into stupor, Ludlow takes comfort in the fact that his corrupt behavior gets the bad guy when the system can't or won't. Thus, when we meet Tom he is busting up a group of Korean gang members, shooting and killing four and making it look like a legit bust. In the process of his crime he saved the life of a pair of missing, kidnapped twins.

The ends however do not justify the means for his ex-partner (Terry Crews) who suspects immediately the real story of Tom's 'heroism'. Thankfully for Tom he has a powerful commander (Forest Whitaker) on his side along with a cew of fellow corrupt Vice Cops willing to falsify evidence and cover his backside.

When Tom's former partner goes to internal affairs, headed up by House star Hugh Laurie, Tom is ready to punch his ticket but he gets beaten to the punch when the two are ambushed in a shady convenience store robbery. Tom survives, his partner takes 18 bullets in what is obviously more than a wrong place, wrong time incident.

The death of his partner sparks a new conscience for Tom the rogue gunfighter cop and searching for the killers brings about an awakening that is as dangerous as any case he's ever busted with his dirty cop schtick.

Street Kings was directed by David Ayer who debuted last year with the highly overrated vigilante actioner Harsh Times. That film featured an over the top performance by Christian Bale that contributed to the film's troubled tone and lack of any semblance of realism. In Street Kings, Ayer is plagued by the opposite kind of performance from Reeves, a monotone, relatively colorless performance that fails the film's emotional connectivity.

Not that Reeves' performance is not effective. In fact, this is one of the more engaged and active performances of Reeves' career. However, he simply isn't well suited to this role. Reeves' brand of earnest seriousness combined with a limited emotional range is not well suited to such a broadly emotional role.

Tom Ludlow is a vaguely racist, angry, drunken mess who kills criminals to deal with his pain and begins to feel guilty about his place in the world. The role calls for an actor who doesn't overplay the emotional extremes but unlike Reeves is not stoney eyed and inscrutable. A slightly younger Denzel Washington could have knocked this one out of the park.

That said, I don't mean to trash Reeves who I think is more talented than he is often given credit for. Yes, his limitations are well demonstrated but what he lacks in emotional demonstration he makes up for in many roles with his body language. He is a tremendous physical actor who uses his wiry frame to great effect.

In Street Kings Reeves' physicality gives him a presence that he's never had before. Adding a few pounds of muscle and a couple pounds around the midsection, Reeves communicates both his toughness and his destructive nature with his body.

The film remains hamstrung by Reeves lack of emotion but Director David Ayer still manages to make something of what he has. Using Reeves' man of action physical presence, Street Kings plays loose with the emotional stuff and becomes more of a straight action movie, heavy on bloodletting violence and light on the aftermath.

The content of Street Kings could have been something special with a more rangey actor in the lead but Reeves doesn't kill the movie. With Reeves in the lead we get a solidly crafted action flick that nails you to your seat with suspense and raises you from it with stunning acts of action movie violence. Nothing to be embarrassed about, Street Kings is a flawed, messy, yet highly entertaining old school action flick.

Movie Review: Date Night

Date Night (2010) 

Directed by Shawn Levy

Written by Josh Klausner 

Starrive Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Ray Liotta, Common, Jimmy Simpson

Release Date April 9th, 2010 

Published April 8th, 2010

A couple of bored New Jersey-ites decide to mix up their routine with a trip to the big city and find themselves mixed up in a murderous plot involving gangsters, crooked cops and dirty politicians in the new comedy Date Night starring Tina Fey and Steve Carell and directed by mainstream machinist Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum 1 & 2).

Shawn Levy has never been what anyone would call an auteur. Levy is, without a doubt, a craftsman but more along the lines of an amateur carpenter than a master builder. Levy's films tend to unfold with a solid plan in mind and end up as rickety, half completed disasters. To be fair, the half completed parts can be quite entertaining and have proven exceptionally popular.

How nice then that Levy's latest rickety contraption, Date Night, actually shows the director becoming a better craftsman. Unlike the Night at the Museum movies, Date Night has a quick pace, oodles of charm, and more than a few really big laughs. It helps to have a pair of very, very funny leads to carry the audience over the trouble spots. As Phil and Claire Foster, Steve Carell and Tina Fey do a remarkable job of portraying a marriage with a little dust on it. The routine of once a week dinners, lame book clubs and time spent with fellow dusty married couples is so well evoked that you can't wait for the expected wackiness to ensue.

The wackiness arrives when Phil and Claire, frightened by the recently announced divorce of a longtime friends, break from their routine for a night in New York City. The couple want to have dinner at a swanky new restaurant in Manhattan but they don't have a reservation. When another couple doesn't show, Phil boldly claims the reservation and the identity of the missing couple.

That couple, unfortunately, happens to be the missing link between a mob boss (Ray Liotta) and some dirty cops (Jimmi Simpson and Common) and a shady politician. When the dirty cops come after the Foster's one wild night ensues as they evade the bad guys with the help of a hunky security expert played by a shirtless Mark Wahlberg.

The plot is creaky and as well aged as Claire and Phil's marriage routine. The key to making it work lies with Carell and Fey's ability to sell the goofball, over the top gags and sell they do, Carell and Fey make a top notch comic duo. Scene after scene, whether Phil and Claire are sharing a quiet meal, poking quiet fun at fellow diners, or running from a hail of bullets or in a wild car chase, Carell and Fey make the most of their terrific comic chemistry to draw big laughs.

If you like the Steve Carell and Tina Fey you know from TV then you will like Phil and Claire. Director Levy cleverly plays the story to the strengths of his stars and they reward him by taking thin characters and a well worn plot and make something surprisingly, hilariously more of it.

With any other cast Date Night would crash and burn. With Steve Carell and Tina Fey Date Night becomes a fast paced, laugh out loud riot; stay for the credits which tack on a few more big laughs in Carell and Fey's blunders and ad libs. Shawn Levy may never be a great director but with the right cast and the right material he is an effective director and that is all that was needed for Date Night.