Movie Review Rock Dog

Rock Dog (2017) 

Directed by Ash Brannon

Written by Ash Brannon, Kurt Voelker

Starring Luke Wilson, J.K Simmons, Eddie Izzard, Lewis Black, Kenan Thompson, Mae Whitman

Release Date February 24th, 2017

Published February 24th, 2017

To complain that “Rock Dog” is a low-quality bit of animated flotsam is something akin to complaining about the wind blowing, that’s simply its nature. “Rock Dog” is an animated cash-in from China that isn’t meant to be good but rather is intended as a product, and a cheap one at that. China may still be under the boot of Communism but the burgeoning capitalists working their way around the government have learned a thing or two from Hollywood charlatans who pump out products rather than art or even the modest bit of fluffy entertainment.

“Rock Dog” features the voice of Luke Wilson, a paragon of youthful enthusiasm at a mere 45 years old, as teenage mastiff singer Bodi. Bodi lives on Snow Mountain with his bruising mastiff daddy Khampa (J.K Simmons) who has seemingly planned Bodi’s life for him. Like his dad, Bodi is expected to become a guard dog, protecting the simple and sweet sheep of Snow Mountain from the dastardly and deadly wolves, led by Linnux (Lewis Black).

Bodi however, dreams of music and when a radio falls from the sky from a passing airplane Bodi finds his muse in a rock singer named Angus Scattergood (Eddie Izzard). With dreams of having Angus teach him about music, Bodi leaves his family behind to travel to the city and join a band. Unfortunately, the wolves see Bodi leaving and see it as a chance to attack the village. Can Bodi achieve his dreams and still find a way to protect Snow Mountain? Will you care?

Don’t let this incredibly funny voice cast fool you, “Rock Dog” has only three laughs. Mostly “Rock Dog” seems to exist. The story is rudimentary, as my description indicates, when it isn’t filling time with nonsense about wrestling a murderous bear or padding things further with voiceover from Sam Elliott as, ugh,….. Fleetwood Yak. Somewhere several screenwriters high fived over that pun.

No, Fleetwood Yak is not one of the three laughs in the movie, though it did rank among the uncountable groans. No, Eddie Izzard’s rock star cat was responsible for the laughs “Rock Dog” inspires. One comes when he is forced into a bit of old school Warner Brothers slapstick, the second when he feels guilty for stealing a song from Bodi and is shamed by his robot butler and the last wasn’t memorable enough for me to recount but I can at least admit the laugh was there.

Does a negative review of “Rock Dog” matter in any way? Of course, not. Most parents don’t care what they throw in front of their small child’s consciousness. That said, for the few parents who do care, for the parents who are vigilant and give thought and care to what their children consume, this review is for you. This review says don’t waste your child’s developing brain cells on this. It’s not that “Rock Dog” is offensive or even bad for the children who do see it. Rather, that “Rock Dog” isn’t worth the 89 minutes your child could be reading or imagining or exploring a worthy work of pop entertainment. This review is for anyone who actually read all the way to the end of a review of “Rock Dog.”

Movie Review Man of the Year

Man of the Year (2006) 

Directed by Barry Levinson

Written by Barry Levinson

Starring Robin Williams, Christopher Walken, Laura Linney, Lewis Black, Jeff Goldblum, Amy Poehler

Release Date October 13th, 2006

Published October 20th, 2006

Robin Williams is not hip. He's funny, energetic and a legit star but he is not hip. That makes his role as a star political comic, ala the undeniably hip Jon Stewart, in the new movie Man of the Year more than a little ill fitting. Williams is quite funny in notching a number of smart and quite pointed political barbs but also a number of jokes that are a little past their sell by date.

Of course, if Williams' hit and miss jokes were the film's only problem with Man of the Year it would not be so bad. Unfortunately, director Barry Levinson throws in one terribly awkward subplot that takes Man of the Year from merely flawed to flailing.

Tom Dobbs (Williams) has a top rated cable show on which he talks about the issues of the day with edgy, politically incorrect humor. One night before the show an audience member gives Tom a crazy idea, why doesn't he run for president. Floating the idea on the show, Tom gets a huge response on the internet that leads to him declaring his candidacy and getting on the ballot in 13 states.

On the campaign trail with his showbiz manager Jack (Christopher Walken), and his head writer Eddie (Lewis Black), Tom's approach to the campaign is serious and joke-free. Tom desperately wants to be taken seriously as a candidate. That plan goes out the window when Tom gets into the presidential debate and begins riffing on the hot button issues of the day as acerbically as he might on his show.

His debate performance garnered a lot of attention but there is no way he could possibly win. Or is there? Somewhere out in the San Fernando Valley a computer company has earned the contract nationwide to provide electronic voting systems. The system has a serious bug in it that is discovered by Eleanor (Laura Linney), the company's lead programmer. On election night when Eleanor realizes the bug she found was not fixed; she decides she must blow the whistle, something the company will not allow to happen (cue ominous music).

The computer company subplot is a thriller element that this film absolutely botches. After launching an interesting concept, a comedian elected president, director Barry Levinson gets distracted by the details of how such a thing could happen. Tossing together this computer voting/thriller plot, Levinson gives us a plausible reason as to how a comedian could get elected president but misses the more interesting plot, how would a comedian run the country.

Watching Man of the Year I kept hoping that Levinson would cut through the thriller plot and show more of Tom Dobbs comedian figuring out how to be the most powerful man in the world. His thoughts on this rather momentous occasion beyond the jokes might be some place to start. But Levinson, I gather, just didn't believe audiences would buy Tom getting elected without some chicanery.

It's a fair bet that many people might not buy the premise without the computers, but that really isn't the point. We are at a place right now where most of the country is in the center and the rest are divided to extremes and make most of the noise. The idea that the center might rally to a centrist candidate, say a charismatic comedian, is an interesting and timely idea. Man of the Year has that idea but tosses it in favor of a dull thriller plot.

In early 2002 Robin Williams did a standup special on HBO that absolutely killed. His comedic skills having been tarnished by a few years worth of really bad movies, Patch Adams-Jack-Bicentennial Man, he bounced back with a tremendously funny concert set. That concert, in which Williams mixed his wildman schtick with some very smart and pointed humor, is the template for the character of Tom Dobbs, wildly energetic and very smart.

Part of the genius of Robin Williams in that HBO special and here in Man of the Year is the risks he takes with his humor. Always on the edge between funny and cringe inducing, Williams rides that razors edge in Man of the Year by recycling Clinton era humor that makes you snore while making timely references to the middle east quagmire, gay marriage and racism. When he's on, Williams rivals Jon Stewart and Bill Maher in irreverence and smarts, when he's off however he's Carrot Top crossed with Richard Jeni.

Thankfully, Williams is on far more than he's off in Man of the Year. It's just a shame he doesn't get more time to be on or off. Williams is forced off screen far too often in Man of the Year to make room for the thriller plot. I love Laura Linney but there is nothing that even someone of her tremendous talent can do with this ill-fated material. The way that Barry Levinson brings her and Williams together in the film, marrying the thriller and comedy plot in a romantic subplot, is almost less believable than the crappy thriller plot.

Robin Williams hasn't been this good in awhile. It's a shame that his efforts are often squandered in a film that just can't commit to a good premise. Politicians need courage of convictions, at least the few good ones do, and the Man of the Year too needed a little courage. The courage to craft a comic idea that is timely and relevant. Unfortunately, Barry Levinson lacks that courage and instead falls back on plot mechanics and thriller beats that interrupt what might otherwise be a pretty good political farce.

What a shame.

Movie Review: Accepted

Accepted (2006) 

Directed by Steve Pink 

Written by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage, Mark Perez 

Starring Justin Long, Blake Lively, Anthony Heald, Jonah Hill, Lewis Black, Columbus Short 

Release Date August 18th, 2006 

Published August 19th, 2006 

The college comedy is a genre all it's own. It has conventions and clichés and stock characters. The latest example of the genre, Accepted starring Justin Long, breaks no new ground in the college comedy genre. It's a slight, forgettable little comedy that has a more than a few redeeming qualities but not much to recommend it.

Justin Long stars in Accepted as Bartleby Gaines an underachieving slacker whose inattention to his schoolwork has left him without a college acceptance letter. Every school he applied to has rejected him. Even Ohio State! His safety school. With his parents breathing down his neck Bartleby launches one of those only in the movies kind of schemes, he starts his own college.

With the help of his computer nerd best friend Sherman (Jonah Hill), who got into the hometown school Harmon College, Bartleby founds the South Harmon Institute of Technology, if you don't get the joke of that name don't worry the film will explain it again and again and again. At first it's just a very convincing website and acceptance letter but when mom and dad insist on driving Bartleby to school he makes the drastic choice to use his tuition check to rent a building.

Bartleby is not alone in his rejection and acceptance of this wacky scheme. Joining Bartleby at South Harmon is his pal Hands (Columbus Short) who lost his football scholarship after an injury and Rory (Maria Thayer) a Ivy league wannabe who only applied to Yale and swore off other college's after being rejected. Pooling their collective tuitions they rent and renovate an old psychiatric hospital and manage to fool their parents into thinking South Harmon is for real.

Unfortunately they also convince a bunch of other rejects who show up at South Harmon expecting their freshman year. Can Bartleby and friends keep up the ruse of South Harmon or will they be headed to jail on fraud charges. If you don't know already then you probably haven't seen very many movies.

Predictability is not the biggest problem with Accepted. It's biggest problem is Director Steve Pink and writers Bill Collage and Adam Cooper who fail to put their own unique spin on the requirements of the college comedy genre. While director Pink does a good job of keeping up an energetic pace and his cast crafts some lovable characters, there is not one college comedy cliche that Accepted manages to avoid.

The bad guys are the crusty dean from the rival college played with extra crust by Anthony Heald. The dean is joined, in typical Animal House fashion, by a group of overprivileged white frat boys lead by Arian dreamboat Travis Van Winkle. No points for guessing that Travis's character, Hoyt Ambrose, has a hot but very sweet girlfriend who also has eyes for Bartleby. The lovely Blake Lively is Monica who you can bet won't be with Hoyt much longer than the plot deems necessary.

Wait, you won't believe it, there is a bigtime party in the movie too, that happens to be on the same night as major bash thrown by the evil frat guys. No points again for guessing that the bad guys are crashing our heroes party with vague threats and evil intent. These scenes have been repeated more times than I or you can count and there is nothing even remotely original about them in Accepted.

I have said in countless reviews of similar genre pictures that the key to genre filmmaking is not originality but rather taking the established conventions of genre and simply doing them better or at the very least slightly different than they have been done before. Accepted simply repeats the conventions with different actors. These are some very good actors but we've heard all of the jokes before.

The film becomes almost saccharine near the end when a full of himself Bartleby gives one of those rousing the troops speeches that becomes an earnest defense of his wacky scheme. This almost works because we like Justin Long as Bartleby but the speech is simply another of the many clichés that Accepted doesn't just repeat it relies upon.

Accepted has a secret weapon in comedian Lewis Black. Brought in as a burnout ex-educator to be South Harmon's Dean, Black brings his sardonic, downer persona to Accepted and gives the film it's one shot of originality. Doling out his opinions on the education system, taxes and bureaucracy, like he was delivering one of his brilliant stand up routines, Black teaches the kids of South Harmon more about the real world than anything they could learn at a real college even if it is delivered with severe cynicism.

Justin Long is an appealing young actor who has been turning heads in supporting roles since his breakout turn on TV's Ed. He came to mainstream attention as the youngest member of Vince Vaughn's Dodgeball team and turned in a radically different cameo as a gay art gallery employee in Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston's The Break Up earlier this summer.

Now, in his first starring role in a mainstream comedy, Long shows a great deal of charisma and charm but the role is to familiar to be as funny as it could be. There is simply nothing that Long can do to break the mold of the classic, fast talking, quick witted campus legend. It's the mold put in place by past college comedy leads like Ryan Reynolds in Van Wilder or Jeremy Piven in the cult classic P.C.U. It's a template with it's roots in classic Bugs Bunny cartoons where our hero is always imperiled but also always one step ahead of that peril thanks to his quick wits.

Originality is not a prerequisite in a college comedy genre. There are some unavoidable conventions of the genre that filmmakers simply cannot avoid. What the better filmmakers do is try and twist those conventions with their own unique vision. Unfortunately director Steve Pink lacked the vision to bring any new twists to Accepted which wastes a terrifically likable cast on a retread of every cliché in the book.