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: Dirty Dancing Havana Nights

Dirty Dancing Havana Nights

Directed by Guy Ferland

Written by Boaz Yakin

Starring Diego Luna, Romola Garai, Sela Ward, John Slattery, Jonathan Jackson, Mika Boorem

Release Date February 27th, 2004

Published February 27th, 2004

The dirty little secret of dancing is that sometimes it's just sex with your clothes on. If you don't believe me, go to a club or see Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights where a trip to a Cuban dance club is like Plato's Retreat with a dress code. It's where sweaty over the clothes humping stands in for dancing. Don't get me wrong I like sweaty over the clothes humping, especially with the attractive group of people in this movie. But in a mainstream movie being marketed to puritanical Americans based on the love of a semi-chaste American fairy tale, don't you think it's a little out of place?

The original Dirty Dancing is a camp-tastic melange of teenage wish fulfillment and cheeseball acting and dialogue. It's star Patrick Swayze was both alluring to it's teenage fanbase (and their mothers) and anathema to anyone with a brain. Jennifer Grey on the other hand with her smart smile and that unusual nose was the perfect stand in for every average teenage girl in the audience who never believed they could be pretty and get the guy.

In this new version the Jennifer Grey role is filled by Romola Garai, a beautiful woman who could never be mistaken for the average American teenager. Her miscasting is not the film’s biggest problem but one of many. Garai is Katey, 18 years old and preparing for college in the fall. On her way to Class Valedictorian and the perfect wasp fantasy of Radcliffe college in the 1950's, she is suddenly whisked away to Cuba where her father (John Slattery) has taken a promotion from the Ford Motor Company. He will make more money but the family must move to Cuba and Katey must finish her senior year away from her friends.

It's not all bad though, Cuba is lovely and warm and Katey quickly attracts the attention of James (Jonathan Jackson), who happens to the son of her Dad's boss. She couldn't care less about him, Katey is interested in the handsome young Cuban waiter Javier (Diego Luna). After being left behind at school and forced to walk home in the dangerous streets of Cuba, Katey encounters Javier dancing to street musicians with his friends. He offers to walk her home and the two fall into puppy love.

You know what happens next, dance contest, lie to parents, secret dance lessons, yada yada yada, but before we get to that there is a scene of such relatable, casual cruelty from our lead actress that you momentarily think you won't forgive her. On a date with James she suckers him into taking her to a club where Javier is dancing with his friends. Once there she drops James to dance with Javier, well... not exactly not more like the over the clothes humping I mentioned before. All of this while nice guy James is being intimidated by a group of locals espousing Fidel Castro's revolutionary politics that include throwing the white people off the island.

(On a side note the film is set in 1958 pre-Castro Cuba and despite it's teen appeal romance genre does try to evoke it's time and setting. Castro, Communism and revolution have no place in this pop entertainment and it's embarrassing to watch the filmmakers try and shoehorn it in.)

That scene is followed by another mind-blowing scene in which the screenwriters try to throw our sympathies back to Katey by turning James into a lecherous jerk. Then the James character is all but kicked out of the movie except that the rest of the plot turns on a decision he makes not to expose Katey and Javier’s relationship, something that would stop the film in it's track. This is a decision the character makes offscreen! Without any real motivation other than the plot needs it.!

There are yet more problems for Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, not least of which is the nostalgic inclusion of Patrick Swayze in a cameo as a nameless dance instructor. The Swayze still has the bronzed look, a tad withered now but according to my sister, still handsome. He's also still ridiculous and cannot deliver a line of his dance guru dialogue with inducing derisive laughter. Any melodramatic momentum the film generates immediately dissipates at his appearance as the entire audience reels back to remember Johnny Castle.

Another problem is the film’s soundtrack a combination of classic Latin rhythms and modern Latin infused pop. There are moments when the film’s dancing threatens to entertain you but then the producers throw in some modern radio friendly pop tune and you are reminded that this is not a movie but a sales pitch for a soundtrack album.

As for the stars, Garai is sadly miscast. She is pleasant and has an awkward comedic charm but she's no Jennifer Grey. Diego Luna, best known for his work in the remarkable Y Tu Mama Tambien, does well to dull his acting senses to the mindless melodramatics of the plot. He clearly out classes the material in front of him but does what he can to make it palatable. And he can dance.

What a surprise that this 81 minute three act crowd-pleaser was written by the master of manipulative fluff Boaz Yakin whose Remember The Titans is the single wimpiest sports movie ever. How any director could make Denzel Washington so bland is beyond me. But after seeing Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights and his last directorial effort, Uptown Girls, Yakin shows himself to be the master of bland.

Yakin did not direct Havana Nights, that thankless task went to Guy Ferland, a television veteran who knows how to send the audience home in less than sixty minutes. Here, extended beyond the confines of commercial breaks, he is at a loss to send anyone home happy. The films ending is one of the worst you will see this year, a sappy, sugary confection of forced goodwill that even a TV show would balk at.

What Havana Nights truly lacks is a good deal of camp. The original was not a good movie but it was absolutely howlingly funny in the kitsch sense. Honestly who can't say that famous Johnny Castle line "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" without at least a smile on your face. That is pure camp and it's what makes Dirty Dancing so memorable. It's why I bought the DVD. To sit around with friends on a Saturday night and go all Mystery Science Theater on Dirty Dancing is one of my all time favorite memories.

There will be no parties for Havana Nights, or really any memories for me at all of this movie beyond this review. And that is this film’s biggest failure.

Movie Review The Adjustment Bureau

The Adjustment Bureau (2011) 

Directed by George Nolfi 

Written by George Nolfi 

Starring Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, Terence Stamp 

Release Date March 4th, 2011

Published March 3rd, 2011 

Fate versus free will is the debate at the heart of “The Adjustment Bureau,” or so the movie wants you to believe. There is little ambiguity about the side the film comes down on: Both Sides. Surprise! A mainstream entertainment that tries to be all things to all sides; hey taking a side might cost a potential ticket buyer.

As irksome as the compromised plot of “The Adjustment Bureau” is, I can't stay mad at the movie because the makers placed Matt Damon and Emily Blunt at the center of their faux conflict. Damon and Blunt have such wonderful, unforced romantic chemistry that “The Adjustment Bureau” adjusts from a bad idea to a not terrible bit of romantic goofery.

Matt Damon stars in “The Adjustment Bureau” as Congressman David Norris, a rising star and bad boy Democrat. We meet David as he is running for Senate from the great state of New York and falling victim to one of the lamest scandals ever to befall a politician, especially one from New York.

With his campaign derailed, David is preparing his concession speech in a hotel men's room when he meets Elise (Blunt), hiding out in said men's room to avoid hotel security. She hears much of David's lame speech and unintentionally nudges him toward something slightly more genuine.

What we see of the speech doesn't really warrant the political superstardom the movie claims for David but maybe the better stuff is on the editing room floor. It doesn't really matter, the film's depiction of politics is not central to the plot which really kicks in after David takes a private sector gig, working for his pal Charlie (Michael Kelly).

Men in hats played by Anthony Mackie and Mad Men's John Slattery have been shadowing David since we met him and after he loses they step in to inform us that David has to have his path adjusted. It will be Mackie's job to slow David down on his way to work so an adjustment can be made at work. When that slowdown doesn't happen, David winds up meeting Elise again and his path gets out of control.

The man in charge or the Chairman or God or whatever, doesn't want David and Elise together; it's not part of David's life plan which may or may not involve the Presidency. Should David choose to continue pursuing Elise he will be lobotomized and the process will begin all over again, just with someone other than David.

Unfortunately, David's attraction to Elise is more powerful than the threat to becoming President or potential frontal lobe dismemberment. He chases her down and when one of the adjusters decides to help him out, plans begin to diverge toward chaos.

The ideas in “The Adjustment Bureau” are interesting but they are not all that well explored. The film is based, not surprisingly, on a short story by Phillip K. Dick which explored the theme of fate versus free will in a more thorough and concise manner in a much shorter amount of time.

Writer-director George Nolfi appreciates the ideas of Dick's story but his movie doesn't really explore the themes. Instead, we get a lot of chase scenes and scenes between Matt Damon and Emily Blunt that do well to distract us and then scenes with Damon and Anthony Mackie that remind us that the movie isn't very good.

Nothing against Mackie, it's not his fault that his character is more functionary than character. The same goes for John Slattery and Terrence Stamp who don't so much have character arcs as spots they have to hit in order to throw a wrench in Damon's plans. That wouldn't be so bad if they at least had interesting things to say, maybe if they were funny or brought any real energy to their work. 

But no, these adjuster characters have few emotions beyond being tired from their ungodly workload; there are several billion people with paths to adjust. Their dialogue is mostly expository with Mackie coming off, at times, like he has one of those videogame bubbles over his head in order to illustrate the instructions Damon must have for his next move in the game. 

Now, it sounds like I hated “The Adjustment Bureau” but I don't. Despite the major plot issues I walked out of “The Adjustment Bureau” smiling thanks to stars Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. Damon is at his charismatic best investing David Norris with the oily charm of a politician and the ability to convert genuinely into an average guy. 

When Damon is opposite the beautiful Ms. Blunt his eyes light and the whole movie seems to perk up. Emily Blunt has that essential quality of a star ingenue; beauty combined with that something behind the eyes that holds an audience in rapt attention to whatever she is trying to communicate. These two brilliant people together are irresistible and when the rest of the plot gets out of their way, it works. 

Is that really enough to recommend “The Adjustment Bureau?” Well, for me it is. It's hard to say whether this appeal will be there for all audiences; fair to guess that many people will be so disappointed with the failed sci-fi plot that they can't like the movie. For me, Damon and Blunt are worth the price of a ticket and in the future, easily worth a look at the Redbox.