Movie Review Killers

Killers (2010) 

Directed by Robert Luketic 

Written by Ted Griffin

Starring Ashton Kutcher, Katherine Heigl, Tom Selleck, Catherine O'Hara

Release Date June 4th, 2010 

Published June 5th, 2010 

I was a big Katherine Heigl fan. Stress WAS. Her graceless exit from Gray's Anatomy combined with the complete awfulness of The Ugly Truth has soured me on this once promising star. My opinion of Ms. Heigl drops even further with the release of Killers, a spectacularly lame attempt to mix action and romantic comedy.

In Killers, Ms. Heigl plays Jen, a single, sexless, 30-something on vacation in France with her parents (Tom Selleck and Katherine O'Hara) when she meets Spencer (Ashton Kutcher). Though he is vague about his private life and why he is on vacation alone in France, she is far too smitten with his rippling muscles to notice.

Months later the two are married and cut to 3 years later they remain blissfully in love and living in suburbia. The suburban tranquility of course cannot last because what we know and Jen doesn't is that Spencer was once a CIA agent. When his old boss (Martin Mull in an odd cameo) contacts him Spencer is quick to see trouble ahead.

What he hadn't counted on is finding his former boss dead and all of his neighbors, people he has known for a few years now trying to kill him. Jen too is quite surprised by all of this but unlike a normal human being who might have headed for the hills at the sight of so much danger, Jen is quick to leap into the fray and soon the couple is on the run from their killer neighbors.

There is one more twist that Jen and Spencer cannot see coming but we sure can. I won't spoil the not so surprising 'twist' but let's just say the foreshadowing by director Robert Luketic is less subtle than a trainwreck/plane crash where a plane crashes into two trains as the trains crash into one another.

Killers is a skill free exercise in formula filmmaking. Director Luketic and his cast range through the apt clichés of both action movies and romantic comedies and fail to either thrill or tickle the audience for a moment. It is hard to fathom that Robert Luketic was the director of the wonderful comedy Legally Blonde a decade ago as since that movie he has turned out one terrifically awful film after another with Killers as the spoiled cherry on top of a moldering dessert.

As for Ms. Heigl, Killers like The Ugly Truth focuses on her least attractive tendencies. Both film's fail to give her more than a sketch of a character and forced to improvise something with her talent, Ms. Heigl turns to shrill screeching and hyperventilating to convey her character.

To be fair to Ms. Heigl the character as given to her is a true bonehead. One might, if confronted by a husband who is attempting to kill his best friend in their suburban living room, call the police and not instead listen to her husband's call to retrieve a gun from their bedroom.

Logically, one might be more than a little distressed about a husband who has after three years of marriage revealed himself to be a paid assassin for the US government and possibly put concerns about a weeks old pregnancy aside in favor of seeking safe haven with the authorities. Instead, Ms. Heigl's character attends a Target Superstore to purchase a pregnancy test of every available title. If this scene sounds familiar, it should. Ms. Heigl played the same scene to more appropriate laughter in Knocked Up, a film she has subsequently disowned.  

Ms. Heigl’s Jen never acts appropriately, never reacts as a rational human being might to her situation. Ms. Heigl is at all times subject to the whims of the screenplay and never for a moment anything but a pawn pushed across the screen from one brain free set piece to the next.

Another, more adventurous actress might have found a beat to play that might make you forget that the plot is nonsense. Angelina Jolie made a wonderful camp farce of both Wanted and Mr. and Mrs. Smith using her sexuality as a comedic foil. Sandra Bullock played up her tomboy cuteness against the ludicrous backdrop of Speed.

Ms. Heigl’s reaction to the ridiculousness of Killers is to amp up the shrill factor, screeching each line through clenched teeth or a tight, forced smile. Few actresses have ever seemed as terribly uncomfortable on screen as Ms. Heigl does in Killers.

You've likely noticed that I have left Mr. Kutcher out of most of this review. The fact is he's not so horrible here. His character makes sense in the context of the film. He reacts appropriately to the situation before him and plays each beat sincerely. It makes his performance more passably forgettable than bad.

Ms. Heigl should strive to be forgettable in Killers. Sadly for her, Killers will likely linger long enough for the Razzies, those wonderful awards for the worst Hollywood has to offer year after year. This year the gracious Sandra Bullock accepted her Razzie for All About Steve in person the same weekend she won Best Actress for The Blind Side.

Fair to guess, Ms. Heigl won't be that lucky or gracious.

Movie Review High Road to China

High Road to China (1983) 

Directed by Brian G. Hutton 

Written by Sandra Weintraub 

Starring Tom Selleck, Bess Armstrong, Jack Weston, Wilfred Brimley

Release Date March 18th, 1983

Published March 18th, 2013 

This weekend in 1983 a terrible Hollywood tradition continued; the tradition of the knock off. For every blockbuster movie there are at least one or sometimes a dozen similar movies hoping to strip mine the same success. In 1983 "High Road to China" arrived with hopes of glomming off the success of "Raiders of the Last Ark" and in grossing more than 28 million dollars it was a solid, entirely forgettable, hit movie.

Plot

In Turkey in 1920 pilot Patrick O'Malley (Selleck) is scraping out an existence as a pilot for hire who teaches rich folks to fly planes. O'Malley's life is altered forever when he encounters Eve (Bess Armstrong), a spoiled rich girl who needs to find her missing father before she loses her inheritance. Together the gruff O'Malley and the dilettante Eve go on an adventure that will lead them into the hills of Tibet and the fires of a revolution.

Review

Arriving at the box office a week after the execrable thriller "10 to Midnight," "High Road to China" must have been a breath of fresh air by comparison. 'High Road' has the breezy charm of an episode of "Magnum P.I" with the budget explosion and bullet budget only a big screen feature can afford. Selleck has the predictable charm of a roguish adventurer and plays well off of Armstrong's flighty socialite. That said, it's easy to understand how our collective pop culture forgot about "High Road to China." The direction is less than adventurous; the plot halts and stalls more than Selleck's planes and while 'High Road' is often mildly amusing it lacks the much needed sense of humor that marked the Saturday afternoon serials of the 1930's that inspired it.

Trivia

Director Brian G. Hutton is said to have given up directing after "High Road to China" and became a plumber.

Hutton's only other notable directorial effort was the 1970 war movie "Kelly's Heroes" starring Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas and Don Rickles.

Final thoughts

Many different sources claim that "High Road to China" was Hollywood's consolation prize to Tom Selleck after he missed out on "Raiders of the Lost Ark." As 'Raiders' fans know Selleck got as far as the screen test wearing Indy's iconic hate and whip before losing out on the role because CBS would not adjust his shooting schedule for the TV detective series "Magnum P.I." It certainly doesn't seem coincidental that Selleck wound up playing an unlikely adventurer in the 1920's in an exotic location with a beautiful sidekick/love interest.

"High Road to China" is an indication of one thing for sure, Hollywood's love of knock offs hasn't changed. Thirty years later Hollywood still looks at one successful movie and attempts to clone it for a quick buck. For every blockbuster that lasts forever ala "Raiders of the Lost Ark" there is a "High Road to China" cynically chasing a buck in the blockbuster wake.

Movie Review Meet the Robinsons

Meet the Robinsons (2007) 

Directed by Stephen Anderson 

Written by Jon Bernstein, Don Hall, Nathan Greno, Aurian Redson, Joe Mateo 

Starring Daniel Hansen, Jordan Fry, Wesley Singerman, Angela Bassett, Tom Selleck

Release Date March 30th, 2007

Published March March 29th, 2007 

Walt Disney was a visionary of great imagination and boundless enthusiasm. While many biographers have pointed out his flaws, some very dark flaws that some quite fairly point out. But the wonder of his creations is still undeniable and is recreated with loving care with the release of the new CG cartoon Meet The Robinsons.

This high tech time travel cartoon is so good hearted and sweet, in the great tradition of Pinocchio et al that it's darn near sickening. Thankfully some smart scripting by John Bernstein adapting William Joyce, and strong direction by Stephen J. Anderson, who hasn't worked in animation in nearly a decade, keep Meet The Robinsons pointedly away from treacle.

The story of an orphan taken into the future to chase down a bowler hat wearing villain who intends to change the past to change the future, Meet The Robinsons tells the story of Lewis whose wild imagination and crazy inventions have kept many couples from adopting him. Lewis's inventions tend to blow up as he demonstrates them for potential parents.

Lewis's latest invention is one that he hopes will help him find the mother that gave him up when he was just a baby. It’s a memory retrieval device and eventually; we learn, it’s this invention that will change the world in the future. But first, Lewis has to stop the bowler hat guy and meet the Robinsons, a wacky inventor clan and the owners and inventors of time travel.

The story is actually quite complicated, in the tradition of the space time continuum and the mind bending space and time anomalies at home in classic sci fi prose from Ray Bradbury to Star Trek The Next Generation. The story twists and turns back on itself, teasing what happens in the past and how it plays in the future. However, the story is not so hard to follow that the small children will be confused by it.

Meet The Robinsons is colorful and imaginative with a big heart and a few big laughs, more than enough to keep kids in rapt attention, enjoying every candy coated minute. Meanwhile, mom and dad can marvel at a story that is at once awash in childlike wonder and smart enough to grasp the concept and inherent tragedies of classic sci fi.

Based on the imaginative writing of children's author William Joyce, Meet The Robinsons crafts a wondrous fantasy of the future that is grounded in this loving eccentric family where grandpa wears his clothes backwards, Aunt Billie has a life sized train set, and mom trains frogs to sing like Frank Sinatra. A future where time travel has been conquered but is not prevalent.

It's a utopian future where family is the true utopia. Being loved and accepted for your failures and what they teach is the most valuable currency. A future filled with lessons that hopefully will resonate with young audiences. It's okay to be wrong sometimes, failure teaches.

The movie is dedicated to Walt Disney whose imagination and life force is why movies like Meet The Robinsons exist today. Put aside the various stories of Disney's personal life that may have some dark edge to them and look at his legacy in animation and this dedication rings wonderfully true. The Walt Disney of his prime would have loved Meet The Robinsons; the rare non-Pixar Disney project to deliver on his legacy of wondrous imagination and a big heart.