Movie Review: The Stepfather

The Stepfather (2009) 

Directed by Nelson McCormick 

Written by J. S Cardone

Starring Dylan Walsh, Sela Ward, Penn Badgley, Amber Heard, Jon Tenney 

Release Date October 16th, 2009 

Published October 17th, 2009

Must we suffer more unnecessary remakes? Ugh. With a paucity of original ideas Hollywood has been mining its history, good and bad, for movies to revamp, re-imagine and re-engineer in hopes of shaking loose a few dollars from a mass audience that likely wasn't alive or aware whent the original movie was created.

The latest case in point is The Stepfather, a remake of an exceptionally lame horror thriller about a shady creep who murders the families that take him in as a step-daddy. The 1988 movie, at the very least, had the kink of an previously unexplored premise, step-dad as psycho killer. The new film is but a shadow reflecting the ultimate lameness of the original, minus the kink.

Penn Badgely, the hard bodied star of the CW Network's Gossip Girl takes the good guy role in The Stepfather as wayward black sheep Michael. Having just returned from military school for some unseen acting out, Michael finds his family has changed. Where once his father was is now David Harris (Dylan Walsh).

David hooked up with Michael's mom Susan (Sela Ward) one day in the grocery store. Their courtship was so quick that Michael wasn't gone a semester before wedding plans began. Not that Michael cared where his father went, Jay Harding (Jon Tenney) was a cheater and given the boot about the time Michael was sent to military school.

David is, at first, an exceptionally corny and overly welcoming presence in the house. However, once Michael and other begin to probe about his past David goes from cornball to creep. Soon bodies begin to pile up and Michael has to find some way to stop the psycho from making his family the latest in a series of family victims.

As loathsome as The Stepfather is there is some terrifically off-beat work by “Nip Tuck” actor Dylan Walsh. The ways in which he forces David's normalcy on others is at once tense and humorous. His secret glowering and tics become something of a dark, inside joke between him and the audience.

Sadly, little else in The Stepfather captures that off-beat spirit. Director Nelson McCormick hues closely to the formula right down to the inevitable rain soaked battle for survival between the besieged family and the family psycho-path. The ending is typical horror kitsch right down to the knowing wink.

The Stepfather is as dopey as you would expect. You really had no reason to see the 1988 original. There is less reason to see this unremarkable remake.

Movie Review The Guardian

The Guardian (2006) 

Directed by Andrew Davis 

Written by Ron L. Brinkerhoff

Starring Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher, Sela Ward, Melissa Sagemiller, Clancy Brown, Omari Hardwick

Release Date September 29th, 2006 

Published September 29th, 2006 

Kevin Costner is maturing quite well into his elder statesman role. He has turned in a series of strong older leading man performances in Open Range, The Upside of Anger and he was the only appealing element of the abysmal romantic comedy Rumor has It. Costner's latest picture may be his most obvious transitional work. As a coast guard trainer to upstart Ashton Kutcher's rescue swimmer trainee, Costner is seen in The Guardian as passing the torch to a new generation.

If that last line isn't indication enough of the cheeseball nature of The Guardian wait till you hear the Bryan Adams tune that closes this eye rolling action adventure.

Kevin Costner stars in The Guardian as Senior Chief Ben Randall, a coast guard rescue swimmer. It is Ben's job to jump from helicopters into the roiling waters of the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska and save lives. As a near 20 year veteran, no one has saved nearly as many lives. Sadly for Ben his latest mission led to a tragic accident that killed his entire crew, including his closest friend.

Washed out to the Coast Guard's elite training facility called A School, Ben is forced to give up rescue swimming in favor of training the next generation of swimmers. Amongst the new recruits is a brash former high school swimming champion named Jake Fischer. A hot head who lacks leadership and teamwork skills, Fischer clashes immediately with his new mentor.

No points for guessing that the adversarial relationship between Ben and Jake eventually comes to grudging respect to fatherly protectiveness before they are finally ready to save lives together. Yes, The Guardian as directed by Andrew Davis (The Fugitive); is as predictable as a road map. That said, the action on the high seas, the dangerous windswept life saving moments are more often than not very exciting.

Andrew Davis knows his way around great action from the train escape sequence in The Fugitive to the explosions of the otherwise awful Arnold Schwarzenneger flick Collateral Damage to the high seas action of The Guardian. It's the other aspects of direction, character, plot, tone, where Davis struggles as a director.

Working from a script by Ron Brinkerhoff, whose only other credit is the straight to video Sly Stallone pic D-Tox, Davis crafts a film that is part big action and part cheeseball kitsch. Every critic in the country has mentioned the obvious parallels between The Guardian and other military male bonding flicks like Top Gun, An Officer and A Gentleman and the oft forgotten De Niro flick Men Of Honor. The Guardian does nothing to separate itself from these films, heavily lifting from each with no regard for originality.

The Guardian had me rolling my eyes early on as we met Ben Randell's wife played by Sela Ward. If you guessed that Randall is one of those married to his job types and because of that his wife is leaving him; well, of course, you're right. This is such an obvious and obligatory scene, Ward's character moving her things out of their shared home, that it almost seems intentionally humorous. Almost.

Despite the predictability, despite the cheeseball way that director Andrew Davis rips off other similar films, I still found myself wrapped up in The Guardian. The action on the high seas is edge of your seat stuff with some terrifically well integrated CGI effects and a pair of game if waterlogged stars. Costner and Kutcher play well off of each other in the action scenes, really playing up the father-son dynamic of their relationship.

The film also has a credible, if not exactly smoking hot, romance for Kutcher's Jake Fischer. Melissa Sagemiller plays Emily; a school teacher who falls for Jake despite knowing that he will be shipped far away from where they meet, at the training school. The scenes between Kutcher and Sagemiller  begin with yet another of those predictable, been there done that moments, one where the cocky cadet bets his pals he can pick up the hottest girl in the bar in under a minute. It's a cheesy, eye rolling start, but these likable actors manage to make the romance work because they have pretty good chemistry.

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 Day After Tomorrow

The Day After Tomorrow (2004) 

Directed by Roland Emmerich

Written by Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Roland Emmerich

Starring Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sela Ward, Ian Holm, Emmy Rossum

Release Date May 28th, 2004

Published May 27th, 2004 

Being a liberal Democrat and environmentalist, I am supposed to be excited that a major summer blockbuster is taking up a cause I care about.

I’m not.

I am not at all excited that a topic as important as global warming is getting the Hollywood treatment, especially from the director who brought us Godzilla. The Day After Tomorrow plays at being important in its marketing campaign only to cover up its utter goofiness as a movie.

Dennis Quaid stars as Jack Hall, everyman Paleoclimatologist with a thing for the end of humanity because of global warming. So into saving future generations from what he believes is a coming ice age, he has lost contact with his wife (Sela Ward) and his son Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal).

Jack spends most of his time with his partners Frank (Jay O. Sanders) and Jason (Dash Mihok) traveling the polar ice caps. Their most recent excursion uncovered something dangerously unexpected that proves Jack’s theory about the ice age. Unfortunately, when Jack pitches his theory at a conference in New Delhi India, he is blown off by the Vice President of the United States (Kenneth Walsh). The VP is more concerned about American wallets than the survival of the human race.

Of course, Jack’s theory applies to an ice age in say 100 years from now, which may be why the VP is less than impressed. Nevertheless, something good comes out of it when Jack meets Dr. Terry Rapson who will play an important role when Jack’s theory comes true much sooner than he expected.

Jack’s theory is that melting polar ice caps will cause the jetstream to stop delivering warm air to much of the Northern Hemisphere, leaving it a frozen wasteland. We are tipped to some serious trouble when Japan is hit with bricks of hail, Los Angeles is devastated by multiple tornadoes and New York City turns into a swimming pool.

More bad news for Jack, his son Sam along with some schoolmates, Brian (Arjay Smith) and Laura (Emmy Rossum) are in New York and trapped by the rising waters in the top floor of the New York Public Library. Now Jack and his team must trek through the rapidly freezing countryside from Washington DC to New York to save his son. Meanwhile, his ex-wife must decide whether to stay with a dying child and wait for a rescue that might not come or join the hordes of Americans heading for the safety and warmth of Mexico.

The film has a solid three act structure, act one the storm, act two the survival and act three the rescue. Of course, director Roland Emmerich who also wrote the film’s script, can’t resist throwing in extraneous touches like a boneheaded sendup of the Bush administration that even the most ardent Bush haters will roll their eyes at. The dying child I mentioned before, exists only to give Sela Ward something to do and is resolved with little drama.

And then there are the wolves. Yes, for some reason wolves have escaped from the New York Zoo and attack our heroes at the most opportune time.

Now the thing that is garnering the most attention about this film is its tenuous grasp of global warming and environmental issues. To the film’s credit, there is no mention of saving the planet, Emmerich has at least grasped the idea that saving the environment is not about the planet, it’s about saving human beings. That said, his ridiculous ideas about global warming, polar ice caps and so-called SUPER storms are more fiction than science.

There may indeed be an ice age in the future but that is part of the cyclical nature of the planet. There has been an ice age before and there will be one again, whether we cause it or not. There is little evidence we could cause it and that is where the film’s specious logic goes beyond its dramatized idea of a six day ice age and into the dangerous situation of casting a negative light on real environmental issues.

The fact is that a summer blockbuster is no place for such big ideas. Summer blockbusters are to dazzle the eye with cheap thrills and loud noises, if they can also be entertaining on top of that, it’s truly an accomplishment. This portentous idea of a blockbuster with global concerns only serves to denigrate those concerns by dragging them down to the level of the big, dumb, loud blockbuster.

On top of all those problems is that the film is just dull as dirt. While some of the special effects are impressive, every bit of character including the usually reliable Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal are annoying, cloying caricatures of melodramatic TV drama characters. This is WB level drama, especially the group of misfits at the library.

The film is interminable halfway through, where the storm and the impressive effects are pretty well over. After that, the film’s atrocious dialogue must carry the day. At 2 hours plus, The Day After Tomorrow makes you wish it were really tomorrow and the movie was a distant memory.