CHECK OUT MY OTHER BLOG

StewsReview is now the lesser of TWO blogs!
I've streamlined this one into Movie Reviews only.
But...my REAL blog is http://www.stewartkirby.blogspot.com/--

It has everything my old website had, plus a whole lot MORE!

So go to the grooviest grove on the web
for the E-VEL E-VENT of the year!

Check out voluminous sample pages FREE!
Loaded with pictures, videos, animation!
Packed with rampaging Bigfeet and levitating Hippies!

Go with gusto--go GOTH HICK!
Take a magic carpet ride to HUMBABA COUNTY...today!

“BREAKING DAWN” BLOODY AWFUL

TWILIGHT: BREAKING DAWN

Starring Robert Pattinson,

Kristen Stewart,

Taylor Lautner,

Billy Burke,

Gil Birmingham,

Sarah Clarke,

Ashley Greene,

Peter Facinelli

Directed by Bill Condon

Written by Melissa Rosenberg

Based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer

Running time 117 mins.

Rated PG-13

         
I did not want to have to see it. The only thing worse than shiny little vampires is a shiny little vampire wedding.

          The problem is that the “Twilight” movie franchise is to both film and horror what a clothing catalog is to literature. Everything “Twilight” I’ve ever seen looks to me like it gets dropped out of a nozzle over a conveyor belt. This time, apparently the company added more wood product filler, and bumped up the dye on the sprinkles.

          Upshot: Shiny little vampire wedding.

          Camera on gown. Hold on gown for four minutes. Camera on ring. Hold on ring for five minutes. Better make it six—company says it wants a two-parter to maximize profits. Ker-splort.

          Would that the company had any idea how spectacularly bad pancake makeup looks smeared on people’s faces. I find it extremely distracting to see that the makeup people didn’t bother to push that junk up into the hairline. Or down into the neckline. Evidently, somebody somewhere said, “Oh, don’t worry about it. No one will be the wiser.”

          Pick a detail, any detail. Everything with “Twilight” is substandard. Who decided that a way to indicate vampire-ness is obvious, uncomfortable-looking colored contact lenses? When Taylor Lautner turns into a werewolf, running across the lawn in his Capris, magically his little pants completely disappear—and that’s not how werewolves work!

          Breaking “Breaking Dawn” down, it’s basically glorified daytime TV. By “glorified” I mean “corporate-pushed.” In a twisted, totally unintended way, Twinkie vampires and werewolves is kind of monstrous. Even that, however, pales in comparison to the narrow, one-dimensionality of the characters.

          Not that it’s the actors’ fault. Robert Pattinson’s performance in “Water for Elephants” released early this year still impresses me, as does Taylor Lautner’s in “Abduction.”

          But “Breaking Dawn” has a place in cinema, and I think that’s right next to “Reefer Madness.” For crying out loud, even Anne Rice can’t stand this stuff. And I couldn’t agree more. Anything that can make “Interview with the Vampire”--and “Dark Shadows,” for that matter--seem comparatively authentic takes a special kind of bad.

         

“HAPPY FEET TWO” STILL FRESH

HAPPY FEET TWO

Starring (the voices of)

Elijah Wood,

Robin Williams,

Ava Acres,

Hank Azaria,

Pink,

Brad Pitt,

Matt Damon,

Sofia Vergara,

Hugo Weaving

Directed by George Miller

Written by George Miller, Warren Coleman,

Gary Eck, Paul Livingston

Running time 100 mins.

Rated PG

          The animation is amazing, the themes are timely, and the use of music is hilarious and sublime.

          This second entry in what is now (surprise!) a franchise offers more of the same computer animated Antarctic fun. This time, Mumble (Wood) faces the conflict of being a good dad in the adorable eyes of his little penguin boy (Acres), who looks up to a strange flying penguin named Sven (Azaria) as, meanwhile, melting glaciers trap penguins, a lovelorn one named Ramon (Williams) competes for attention, and two tiny krill, Will and Bill (Pitt, Damon), go off on an adventure.

          The main thing that sets “Happy Feet” worlds apart from other animated fare is the unique use of music. Eclectic selections, highly post modern in sensibility, offer opportunities for vast hordes of animals to flap their feet on crunchy ice and…siiiiinnngg.

          Seems like we see a lot of animated movies set in icy realms or jungle places, usually with lots of animals communicating their feelings. And I suspect that the further we fall from the natural world the greater attention we’ll see focused on replicating it in entertainment. So to that extent, this second entry automatically appearing on the cinematic conveyor belt (splort!) looks like just another car commercial, with a car prowling animal-like through a misty forest all by itself.

          On the other hand, how else will people know about krill, or melting ice caps, or maybe even how to be human? 

          To the less than stellar, it’s not a franchise strong on character. Strong on voice, yes. Robin Williams just about carries the movie with his various voices. But how well do we really know these penguins? What sets one of them so memorably apart from another?

          The mere fact of the South Pole setting does nothing to ensure an audience walking away ecologically aware. It’s not the big Global Warming movie, that’s for sure. What these penguins do is dance. And when they work together, why, what they make is big big change.

          Big big change in the safe pretend world of talking penguins and polar ice caps.

         

“PUSS” FINDS NEW LIFE

PUSS IN BOOTS
Starring (the voices of)
Antonio Banderas,
Salma Hayek,
Zach Galifianakis,
Billy Bob Thornton,
Amy Sedaris,
Constance Marie,
Guillermo del Toro
Directed by Chris Miller
Written by Charles Perrault, Brian Lynch, David H. Steinberg,
Tom Wheeler, Jon Zack
Running time 90 mins.
Rated PG

Most enjoyable.
Littered with cat jokes, “Puss in Boots” fills the void left by the absence of Shrek—the Shrek franchise having ostensibly ended last year.
In keeping with the brand, “Puss” features twisted takes on fairytale characters. This time, Puss in Boots (Banderas) meets up with his old pal Humpty Dumpty (Galifianakis), and together they search for the magic beans that will make the beanstalk that will lead them to the golden eggs. Meanwhile, a mysterious black-clad cat (Hayek) is doing the same thing.
Even meaner-while, Jack and Jill (Thornton, Sedaris) ride around in a hog-drawn coach causing general mayhem, Jack having never been the same after that bad spill he took climbing up a hill.
The multiple filmmakers behind the four Shreks and this one have the comedy down to a science. Warped versions of sugarplum people is of course hugely appealing. The real versions of the fairytale folk are deceitful and leer.
As Humpty Dumpty, Zach Galifianakis provides the perfect voice. If you’ve ever seen “The Hangover” or its sequel, you’ll have a sense of the deceptive sweetness of which he is supremely capable.
In flashback we learn of Puss’s kittenhood at the orphanage where he met little Humpty. Some hilarious back story there. Much of the story is spent, predictably enough however, on the romantic relationship possibilities of the two leading kitties. In this respect, it’s a lot like an animated version of Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz in the most recent “Pirates” movie.
At one point, Puss walks into a bar. All the grown, slovenly men cruelly taunt the kitty. They laugh. Even pull away his bar stool, leaving him hanging by his little kitty elbows on the counter. Unperturbed, the lover, the fighter, sips his leche with darting tongue….
It’s good fun.

“MUSKETEERS” MISFIRES

THE THREE MUSKETEERS

Starring Matthew Macfadyen,

Logan Lerman,

Milla Jovovich,

Luke Evans,

Ray Stevenson,

Orlando Bloom,

Mads Mikkelsen,

Christoph Waltz

Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson

Written by Alex Litvak and Andrew Davies

Based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas

Running time 110 mins.

Rated PG-13

          This movie is such a departure from the book, and so bad, I can hardly believe the filmmakers get to call it “The Three Musketeers” at all. Seriously. Hot-air balloon galleons floating around in the sky looks flat out stupid for Musketeers. Makes Dumas look dumbass, and that’s not fair.

          The story is lame and the look is off. When you can see its three feet of water with miniature Venice streets getting splashed, the look is off. The filmmakers spent too much of their budget on Matrix-like effects spinning around missiles which did not exist in Musketeer times. Big mistake.

          The only real Musketeer movies are the ones directed by Richard Lester (who also directed “A Hard Day’s Night”). The two movies in the mid-70s starring Michael York, Oliver Reed, and Raquel Welch capture the spirit of Dumas with an authentic, quality look. This new one doesn’t even come close.

          Like Dracula, Tarzan, and Sherlock Holmes, the Musketeers get repackaged more times than anyone can remember, almost never particularly well and usually quite poorly. This is one of those regular times.

          Somebody somewhere figured the Pirates of the Caribbean movies are still making money. Orlando Bloom was in most of those. So what’s the difference between pirates and musketeers? The both have big clothes from olden times, fancy facial hair, shooting and stabbing. Plus ships, now. Sailing ships floating around in the air under big balloons.

          “The Man in the Iron Mask” thirteen years ago at least had Gerard Depardieu as Porthos. But almost every single time a Musketeer movie gets made, it’s with some plain-sounding non-French person as idiotic in the role as getting Maurice Chevalier to play Gandhi. Why? Who makes these dumb calls? The same unseen suit who decided Tarzan needs to talk like Frankenstein’s monster? Why is it that the people who make the calls never read the books?

          The guy who plays Aramis looks like Orlando Bloom, yet isn’t. Bloom is in the movie, he’s just not a Musketeer. They got a fake Bloom to do that. Why? How pointlessly confusing.

          It’s not like the movie is lacking in talent. Christoph Waltz is an amazing actor, but to anyone who’s ever seen Charlton Heston as the Cardinal, Waltz just looks miscast.

          We’re supposed to accept that Leonardo Da Vinci had a secret weapon–hot-air balloon galleons–and that it’s the job of the Musketeers to seem completely un-French and constantly be betrayed by Milady (Jovovich) in an environment of totally unrealistic technology for the day. Not a good idea. The 2011 version makes the candy bar look literary in comparison.

“STEEL” REAL GOOD

REAL STEEL

Starring Hugh Jackman,

Dakota Goyo,

Evangeline Lilly,

Anthony Mackie,

Kevin Durand,

Hope Davis,

Karl Yune

Directed by Shawn Levy

Written by John Gatins

Based on a story by Dan Gilroy and Jeremy Leven

Running time 127 mins.

Rated PG-13

          Stories with forms of artificial life work when they question what it means to be human, what it means to be alive. They make us wonder what is real, make us question reality itself.

          What makes “Real Steel” work is its humanity. The heart of the story is the relationship between a father and his son. (Yet again.) It’s a character-driven story, and that’s what pulls the high-flying aspect of giant remote-control boxing robots.

          First smart move with “Real Steel” is in not calling it “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots–The Movie.” I love it when a film doesn’t say Hasbro at the start. I also suspect that “Iron Man 2" played a role in this one’s genesis. The best part about that movie is when Downey Jr. and the other guy go toe-to-toe in the suits. But the second smart move, once greenlighted, was focusing on the characters over the special effects.

          Think “The Iron Giant” plus “The Champ” meet Wii.

          Upshot: Ex-boxer (Jackman) scrapes living getting his robot fights at fairs with whatever is available, then finds the young son (Goyo) he abandoned years ago suddenly appearing in his life for a summer. As their relationship improves, so do the chances of their robot in getting a title fight.

          With most robot movies, we expect the kid to have a special friendship with the misunderstood robot, or we see the character of the robot shine through as it encounters the world around it. “Real Steel” isn’t like that. It’s clear that the robots are remotely controlled machinery. When Jackman and the kid get a robot an underground fight (outdoors) with a bigger, uglier robot, there’s a “Max Max Beyond Thunderdome”-ish feel with Mohawk-sporting punks screaming and frothing at the faux-gladiatorial display.

          Beautifully produced and excellently shot, “Real Steel” captures the imagination. Particularly in the first half. I think it does devolve considerably toward the end into the sort of sappiness we can’t help but expect–even to the point of scapegoating an Asian dude and a Russian babe as the Goliath-like face of corporate crime--but overall it’s quite good. Robot round card girls referencing “Metropolis” makes me all tingly, as does the Golem-like removal of a robot from the mud.

          When we see the physical correlation between the kid controlling the dad who needs to become a man, and the dad controlling the commensurately taller robot that takes terrible beatings before winning, the film is at the top of its game. But when “Steel” starts looking like the end of all the “Rocky” sequels, it runs out of steam and gets all clunky.

“DOLPHIN TALE” NO FLUKE

DOLPHIN TALE

Starring Harry Connick Jr.,

Ashley Judd,

Nathan Gamble,

Cozi Zuehlsdorff,

Austin Stowell,

Kris Kristofferson,

Morgan Freeman

Directed by Charles Martin Smith

Written by Karen Janszen, Noam Dromi

Running time 113 mins.

Rated PG

          Highly recommendable.

          Upshot: Eleven year-old boy (Gamble) makes friends with injured dolphin.

          Sounds like “Free Willy” with a dolphin, but plays like more than that. For one thing, the boy’s cousin (Stowell), who swims competitively, joins the military. I’ll remain deliberately vague here to not spoil the plot. Suffice to say, the story is not strictly limited to one dolphin’s survival.

          Okay, there’s just no way to talk about this thing without dropping a piece of information which, while I don’t think spoils the plot, comes about as close to doing that as can be gotten away with. The dolphin’s tail gets so injured that Morgan Freeman has to come along and help fix it.

          Perhaps that’s too vague.

          Another aspect of the film: It’s directed by Charles Martin Smith, the dude from “Never Cry Wolf.” And directed really well. Fine performances all around–particularly from Freeman, as one might expect. But the two singers who play the two single parents, Connick Jr. and Judd, are both skilled actors, too. And the kids pretty much carry the movie.

          “Dolphin” isn’t without its sappiness. For some reason, family fare has to strive to make people cry to become “feel good.” And yet, even with that going on, the recommendable aspects outweigh the cornball detractions.

          Back to plot-spoiling: There is an undercurrent to the film difficult to discuss without kind of ruining the movie. This undercurrent is perhaps best exemplified by a sequence with a remote control helicopter which the boy laboriously constructs. When the toy copter gets out of hand, and starts dangerously zipping around, we hear Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” like in “Apocalypse Now.” It’s an effective part of the film, though it really has nothing to do with the characters.

          “Dolphin Tale” is available in 3D, and that’s how I saw it, but it’s not at all a movie that has to be seen that way. Doesn’t hurt. Just more pricey.

         

         

“ABDUCTION” GRIPPING

ABDUCTION

Starring Taylor Lautner,

Lily Collins,

Denzel Whitaker,

Jason Isaacs,

Maria Bello,

Alfred Molina,

Sigourney Weaver

Directed by John Singleton

Written by Shawn Christensen

Running time 106 mins.

Rated PG-13

          Plays like a modern teenage myth.

          Guaranteed I’m the only one who will call the Taylor Lautner film “Abduction” a myth, so I’ll go even further: It’s a father quest myth. A search for identity.

          Upshot: In his last year of high school, a young dude (Lautner) writing a class report learns that his parents aren’t actually his parents after all, and finds himself running for his life with the girl across the street (Collins).

          Ah, the mysterious birth of the hero. From Theseus to Luke Skywalker, it’s essential for the young princeling to discover the true nobility of his birth. The story’s as old as the hills, and in this fresh retelling social media pervade. Cell phones are today’s light sabers.

          This movie has some serious surprises, and the biggest one is how well Lautner can act. I have zero use for “Twilight”–actively I do not like shiny vampires–but that franchise has no bearing on the talent of at least two of its stars. Earlier this year, Robert Pattinson shone in “Water for Elephants,” and here Taylor Lautner delivers an equally credible, if not exceptional, performance.

          Ditto for the dude who plays Lucius Malfoy. Jason Isaacs is almost unrecognizable as the kid’s dad. I’ve seen that guy in a few other roles, and I think this is his best work yet. You’d never guess the guy’s British, that’s for sure.

          And to top it all off, Sigourney Weaver and Alfred Molina. Now that’s a cast.

          At times it feels like “Romeo and Juliet” meets “North by Northwest.” Those are pretty much the times during the train sequence. Young love on the lam. Big ugly old people chasing the little pretty young ones around, trying to catch them and smash them. This movie has everything.

          Well, within reason. A more innovative film would star Alfred Molina as a guy who knows all about his parents, yet gets chased around by mysterious young people trying to kill him. Then in a pinch he discovers he knows kung fu! Just brainstorming, I’m seeing Molina as a movie reviewer here....

         

        

“DRIVE” CARVES FILM NICHE

DRIVE

Starring Ryan Gosling,

Carey Mulligan,

Bryan Cranston,

Albert Brooks,

Oscar Isaac,

Ron Perlman

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

Written by Hossein Amini

Based on the book by James Sallis

Running time 100 mins.

Rated R

          One of the best movies of the year.

          Like Jean Reno in “The Professional,” Ryan Gosling turns in an immediate cult classic performance with “Drive.” Like Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver,” Gosling’s unnamed driver is an understated potentially career-defining role.

          Upshot: Part-time movie stunt driver moonlighting as freelance robbery wheel-man develops relationship with woman, thereby becomes vulnerable, and has to keep work-related danger from spilling into personal life.

          The performances are everything in “Drive.” Primarily Gosling’s. I just saw him a few weeks ago in “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” If you want a lesson in acting, watch that movie and then this one. Riveting. Unique in film. Right up there with Toshiro Mifune (whose samurai in “Yojimbo” Eastwood modeled his Man with No Name in “A Fistful of Dollars”), even Steve McQueen, and Lee Marvin. Gosling understands apparently better than anyone else in movies that stillness is his ally.

          “Drive” flat-out looks like a movie from somebody with a vision. We’re hooked before the credits even come up. I love when a movie can do that.

          The car chases beat “Bullit” and “The French Connection” combined, and at least two of the supporting roles will likely get some Oscar buzz: Albert Brooks in a terrific piece of casting as an L.A. mob boss, and Bryan Cranston as a sort of mentor-figure to the driver.

          For no discernible reason, the filmmakers choose a retro-‘80s aesthetic. The poster looks right out of 1986, and a scene full of synthesizer sounds could have come from a quarter-century ago as well. Chalk that up toward vision.

          Ditto for the hardcore violence. And it isn’t even superfluous. Everything in the movie is there for a reason. Feels like it anyway, so that’s good enough.

          Every once in a while a great movie comes out of nowhere fully formed from Zeus’s thigh. One based neither on a comic book nor TV show. One without hype, and no burger franchise tie-in. “The Hitcher” was like that. And “Taken.” (That’s got one of the best tag-lines I’ve ever heard: “They took his daughter. He’ll take their lives.”) Actually I think “Taken” did advertise Liam Neeson-inspired chili-cheese fries. But “Drive” won’t steer you wrong.

“CONTAGION” WORTH CATCHING

CONTAGION

Starring Matt Damon,

Kate Winslet,

Gwyneth Paltrow,

Laurence Fishburne,

Jude Law

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Written by Scott Z. Burns

Running time 105 mins.

Rated PG-13

          It almost feels more like a documentary. What an amazing film that can feature such big-name talent and still seem disturbingly real.

          Upshot: Pandemic.

          The lack of story-ness with this movie is incredible. As is the fact that it still works. “The Stand,” for example, with its wide array of characters and ultimate showdown of good versus evil is all story. But “Contagion” is much more spare. The characters are there, just far more subtly shown.

          What grabs our interest by the throat is the grim progression of a strange fatal illness spreading at exponential rate across the globe. We might see a person coughing touch a glass, then see a waiter pick up the glass, then wipe his eye, and suck on his finger for awhile, then rub it around on the glass some more and do it all again. That sort of thing. All just very simple, very real. It’s not the kind of movie that uses CG effects to zoom in on and spin all around a microbe going down somebody’s gullet.

          Central characters include Matt Damon as an average joe whose wife (Paltrow) comes back from a trip not feeling well, and Kate Winslet as a CDC doctor. As the disease quickly spreads, much of the film focuses on the CDC’s attempts to find out where the disease started and determine how to respond.

          As the response gets underway, we see who benefits first and who doesn’t. Voices raised, windows broken, lots of mass commuters with surgical masks.

          The effort to isolate the cause of the disease assumes proportions reminding us of “Citizen Kane” and the quest to find the meaning of “Rosebud.” And this aspect of story-ness does not, I think, work in the film’s favor. Seems too much like scapegoating, and sort of the opposite of factual, particularly knowing what we do about Mad Cow and other diseases resulting from industrialized farming.

          Not the big cinematic upper. (Pandemic.) Don’t expect to see Matt Damon rolling off of car hoods blasting shotguns at the zombie-like diseased. You may be familiar with Steven Soderbergh’s critically-acclaimed “Traffic,” “Erin Brockovich,” and the three “Ocean’s” movies. I still haven’t seen “The Informant!” but I think “Contagion” is Soderbergh’s best movie so far.               Well, nothing to sneeze at, anyway.

“APOLLO 18” NEVER LEAVES GROUND

APOLLO 18

Starring Warren Christie,

Lloyd Owen,

Ryan Robbins

Directed by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego

Written by Brian Miller, Cory Goodman

Running time 88 mins.

Rated PG-13

          Think “Blair Moon Project.”

          In 1972, three astronauts take a secret mission to the moon. Cameras record events in and out of lunar modules. Strange things happen–I shan’t say what–perhaps explaining why we never went back to the moon.

          Reality TV, astronaut-style, may sound great as a concept, but the actual execution looks like a major ripoff.

          Blurry stuff, shaky camera, fake scratches in the “film.” Yet all that the contrivances geared toward authenticity in lieu of story serve to do is annoy. Anytime somebody’s on the moon in a movie, you can’t help but notice issues with gravity. But there isn’t nearly enough story to distract us from seeing the heels of the wizard moving back and forth behind the curtain.

          Once in a while there’s a movie where it’s just a couple dudes in a room most of the time, and some of those movies work out okay. But this isn’t one of those.

          If you’ve got a stationary camera on board a lunar module, then it doesn’t zoom in. Maybe it’s not multiple times that that happens, but it feels like it.

          As for leaving certain events in film to the audience’s imagination, sure, that’s generally a good idea. To a point. We will be requiring a certain amount of payoff. This is where the “Blair Witch Project” factor comes in. The ripoff factor. The one where the filmmakers try to pass low-quality under the aegis of “authenticity.”

          “Apollo 18” does have a few payoff moments, but they’re so few and so brief, they basically count as nothing.

          For example, when the two main astronauts (Christie, Owen) leave the module and walk around on the surface of the moon, they encounter craters which never see sunlight. Sounds great. You can’t help wishing Kubrick or Spielberg were around to film it, too. Because when one of the astronauts goes into the crater, he has to use a flashlight that works like a flashbulb. That means we’re stuck seeing a black screen with a spot of light occasionally flaring for half a second. In one of those flashing spots of light we know we will eventually see a brief unsatisfying digital effect. And there’s your payoff for you.

          Plus no musical score. That goes toward authenticity, too.

         

“LOVE” WELL WORTH LIKING

CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE

Starring Steve Carell,

Ryan Gosling,

Julianne Moore,

Emma Stone,

Analeigh Tipton,

Jonah Bobo,

Marisa Tomei,

Kevin Bacon

Directed by Glenn Ficarra, John Requa

Written by Dan Fogelman

Running time 118 mins.

Rated PG-13

          Surprisingly entertaining.

          Steve Carell does an excellent job being very Steve Carell-ish in a story about a middle-aged man (Carell) whose wife (Moore) decides to leave him.

          To complicate things, they have kids. Their thirteen year-old son (Bobo) has a crush on the babysitter (Tipton), who has a crush on Carell, who in turn finds that his wife also cheated on him with a coworker played by Kevin Bacon.

          Meanwhile, a smooth dude (Gosling) overhears in a bar Carell’s character bemoaning being a cuckold, and so takes him under his Henry Higgins-ish wing–a veritable “Pig Male-ian,” if you will.

          That kind of thing we’ve seen too often. There was a movie just a couple years ago with Will Smith pulling the same basic trip on Kevin James. We’ve seen it a thousand times in sitcoms from the last fifty years. Some poor idiot gets a conventional makeover and winds up looking just right for a catalog. That’s what makes this movie being so entertaining such a surprise.

          The very thing that makes “Crazy, Stupid, Love” work as well as it does is also almost what undoes it. Plausibility doesn’t merely come into question, it gets up and jumps out the window. Thereby coming dangerously close to impairing the film.

          For example–and I’ll remain deliberately vague to not spoil the film–there are certain things that thirteen year-olds have not ever said, not once, and will not say, ever, particularly in public.

          Also, during junior high graduation ceremonies, thirteen year-olds not only don’t get to speak indefinitely, and extemporaneously, they don’t want to. And especially nobody wants any kid’s dad doing that. No way any audience sits still, at a graduation or anywhere else, while some kid’s dad takes the mike and starts speaking extemporaneously indefinitely.

          Sappy implausibility aside, a strong ensemble cast and an intricate script form the overall impression. “American Beauty” meets “The 40 Year-Old Virgin”? Well, it’s not that, but sort of close.

          Carell excels at creating likeable characters who bounce back from adversity. I’d like to see him doing something totally different. He should be a vain, cruel man who doesn’t bounce back from anything at all. Sort of a modern-day King Kong, perhaps.

          Something to consider.

“LESS” IS MORE

30 MINUTES OR LESS

Starring Jesse Eisenberg,

Danny McBride,

Aziz Ansari,

Nick Swardson,

Dilshad Vadsaria,

Michael Pena,

Bianca Kajlich,

Fred Ward

Directed by Ruben Fleischer

Written by Michael Diliberti

Based on a story by Michael Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan

Running time 83 mins.

Rated R

          Seventy percent funny, thirty percent serious. This is the ratio that worked with “Stir Crazy,” and it works for “30 Minutes or Less.”

          Upshot: A pizza delivery guy (Eisenberg) gets a bomb strapped to his chest with instructions to deliver up a hundred grand stolen from a bank in under nine hours or he’ll be exploded.

          That actually goes to the serious. What makes it even funnier is that the guy who comes up with the idea is played by Danny McBride (“Pineapple Express,” “Land of the Lost”). That dude’s dad (Ward), whom he hates, got ten million bucks from the Lottery back in the ‘90s, and has been blowing through it so fast, now he’s down to only one million. So the McBride character decides he better kill his dad in order to get the one million left.

          Except, way he figgers, if he does the actual killing, that’s not thinking like a millionaire. Lucky for him, there’s a gal at a strip club who knows a guy who’ll off the dad for a mere hundred grand. Hence the bank robbery, which McBride also does not want to do, in the manner of a millionaire.

          Meanwhile, both McBride and Eisenberg each have a best pal. Most of the laughs come from these two sets of friendships, both of which are hugely dysfunctional.  Think Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton from “The Honeymooners” in the case of the murder-plotters.

          But if Danny McBride steals the show in “Pineapple Express,” it’s Aziz Ansari who does that here. As the buddy of the guy wearing the bomb, he has a film presence which needs to be seen to be appreciated. Like Kal Penn in the hilarious “Harold and Kumar” movies, Ansari plays an Indian-American with hardly any of the stereotypes—he doesn’t sound like Apu from “The Simpsons” at all.

          It’s just a different kind of movie. And entirely refreshing at that. With only a bit a drawback, which is wholly subjective on my part: I have a hard time listening to Jesse Eisenberg speak. Almost every utterance comes out sounding very clipped and whiny. He sounds all the time petulant. Like fingernails raked down a chalkboard, it’s just hard on the ears. Same problem with the otherwise excellent “Zombieland” (also directed by Fleischer). I specifically didn’t watch that Facebook movie where he plays Mark Zuckerberg because I saw the trailer where he sits at a table and says, “What part don’t you understand?” With that damn tone that makes Woody Allen sound like James Earl Jones.

          But everybody besides that guy is great. Even the premise itself. So much trouble for so little money. How quaint. True, hard to imagine what a woman could see in this movie. Other than the token female thrown in. And that’s about the way it was with “Stir Crazy.”

          You just never see a movie with scroungy chick pals skimming leaves out of a pool for ten bucks an hour plotting to kill anybody at all. Why is that?

         

NEW “APES” STANDS TALL

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

Starring James Franco,

Andy Serkis,

Freida Pinto,

John Lithgow,

Brian Cox,

Tom Felton,

David Oyelowo

Directed by Rupert Wyatt

Written by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silva

Suggested by the novel by Pierre Boulle

Running time 103 mins.

Rated PG-13

          Could just be one of the best sci-fi movies ever. That said, I don’t think of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” as a prequel so much as a highly revolutionary “prequel.” In quotes. Certainly there could be no advantage in watching this film, followed by all the rest in order. It would be about as weird as trying to do that with the Star Wars movies.

          The only real reason to call it a prequel is to tie it in with the pre-existing franchise because marketing says that’s what works.

          However, there is a very good reason why this film can’t properly be considered a prequel, and I’ll say what it is without spoiling anything, unless you don’t know how the original “Planet of the Apes” ends: When Charlton Heston pounds the sand and cries, “You did it! Oh, you actually did it!” (or thereabouts), he’s referring to the bomb. His character laments that man was stupid enough for nuclear war, and that out of dropping the bomb evolution took a new direction with the apes taking over. But this movie has none of that.

          Upshot: A scientist (Franco) with the cure for Alzheimer’s raises a chimpanzee test-ape called Caesar who, due to exposure to the drug, exhibits uncanny intelligence with potentially catastrophic consequences.

          What makes this movie work so well is the degree of authenticity. No other cinematic manner of presenting the proper believability has ever been possible until now. Until “Avatar,” anyway.

          That said, good as it is, no, it isn’t perfect. Although some of the digipanzees do look realistic enough to fool about anybody, I suppose. If watching a chimp or gorilla walk around upright–and these things are available on YouTube–kind of makes you wince in revulsion, you’ll love this one.

          The filmmakers simply do a damn good job of making the story look possible. Sort of like “Jurassic Park.” And they do it so much that we can forgive the excesses. Fact is, I’ll bet, there just aren’t that many chimps, gorillas, and orangutans in the Bay Area or any other area that could all band together in such huge cinematic numbers.

          Andy Serkis’ performance as Caesar is exceptional. As with Gollum and King Kong, Andy performs in digital getup, so we never see his face. But the eyes, the facial expressions, all the movement, and everything in the digital clothing is Andy, and it is his performance that brings out Caesar’s humanity.

          Naturally there are the requisite homage moments. A memorable line or two cleverly incorporated–a 3D puzzle of the Statue of Liberty, a TV on with Charlton Heston.

          Terrific presentation all around, and an understated performance by James Franco, who manages to make some fairly fantastic subject matter actually seem believable.

          So far, for the summer, right behind satisfying must-sees “Harry Potter” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” we have “Super 8,” “Cowboys and Aliens,” and “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” with “Rise” being probably just slightly the best of the latter three.

“COWBOYS AND ALIENS” MASH A SMASH

COWBOYS AND ALIENS

Starring Daniel Craig,

Harrison Ford,

Abigail Spencer,

Paul Dano,

Adam Beach,

Sam Rockwell,

Noah Ringer,

Keith Carrdine

Directed by Jon Favreau

Written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzmann, Damon Lindelof,

Mark Fergus, Hawk Otsby

Based on a screen story by Mark Fergus, Hawk Otsby, Steve Oedekerk

Based on a Platinum Studios comic book by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg

Running time 118 mins.

Rated PG-13

          The number one surprise with “Cowboys and Aliens” is how not campy it is. If you don’t expect any buddy movie banter between the leads, you’ll have a smoother time, too. “Men in Black” in sage brush, “Cowboys and Aliens” ain’t.

          Upshot: Lean, mean Wanted Man cowboy (Craig) in Wild West times has a wound in his side and a weird, outer space-y device on his wrist, and won’t cow tow to the son of the richest man (Ford) in the dirty little town. This gets him into more trouble, and along the way, aliens show up. Aliens what need gittin’.

          It makes for an interesting mash-up. Sort of “3:10 to Yuma” meets “District 9" in the serious-looking Western mixed with bipedal, monstrous aliens.

          I don’t know that it’s really the right role for Harrison Ford, though. He doesn’t play the unlikeable guy very well. I think he knows that audiences see him permanently associated with Indiana Jones and Han Solo, and so he consciously chooses roles to go against that type. And he’s a good enough actor that he can do it. But there are lots of other actors who could play the role without being quite so distracting.

          Or maybe I was distracted more by expectations from the poster. It looks like Butch and Sundance, just the two of them. But the movie’s nothing like that. Not the big buddy festival at all.

          And a darn fine supporting cast, too. The dude that Daniel Day-Lewis slaps around in “There Will Be Blood” plays the son here quite memorably. Another guy, the Luca Brasi-ish thick skull in “The Departed,” is perfect as the rising Irish bandit leader.

          But it’s the lack of cutesiness one finds so startlingly refreshing. It is entirely unique in film to see so earnest a Western with trippy, bug-like UFO aliens leapin’ around, killin’ folk.

          “Tremors” and “Eight-Legged Freaks” are similarly campy yet slightly hardcore. “Cowboys and Aliens” is nothing like that.

          It’s not a great Western. And it’s not standout sci-fi. But somehow “Cowboys and Aliens” really is a great movie because playing it so serious gives it quite the quirky tone.

          Well worth checking out.

“AMERICA” ROCKS

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

Starring Chris Evans,

Hayley Atwell,

Sebastian Stan,

Tommy Lee Jones,

Hugo Weaving,

Dominic Cooper,

Stanley Tucci

Directed by Joe Johnston

Written by Christopher Marks and Stephen McFeely

Based on characters created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby

Running time 125 mins.

Rated PG-13

          Even if you don’t go in for the patriotism, you can’t help but see it’s well done.

          Corniness is one of the film’s flaws, as is the cheap way it treats women. But looking past those sorts of things, the retro look (“Captain America” is set during WWII) works great, and the villain, Red Skull (Weaving), is one of the film’s best features.

          Upshot: Puny weakling Steve Rogers (Evans) gets picked on, then picked as the test subject for a Super Soldier serum in order to beat the freedom-hating fascists.

          Tellingly, what really makes Steve Rogers upset is other people’s freedom of speech. When a guy in a movie theater wants for the cartoons to start, scrawny little Steve sitting behind starts running off at the mouth and shows his true freedom-hating colors.

          The film’s big bragging point is being able to digitally alter the actor to look properly puny. And boy, it works. His voice sounds too big for his build, but the visuals with the effect seem flawless.

          He says he’s “just a kid from Brooklyn.” He doesn’t sound like he’s from Brooklyn. And he’s supposed to stop Hitler–by being a tall blonde Super Warrior in service of a misogynistic, militaristic Father State, where a German scientist (Tucci) has developed a weapon used by both sides (that would be the Super Soldier serum). Geez, does the “A” on his head stand for America or Adolf?

          Then there’s his shield. One thing the filmmakers never say is how, no matter where he throws it, his shield always comes back to his hand. Just like Thor’s hammer. Which is fitting, because what Red Skull’s looking to do is harness the power of the Norse gods. The filmmakers try to squeeze some thirty year-old “Raiders of the Lost Ark” mojo their way by having Red Skull say that Hitler’s wasting his time in the desert (looking for the Lost Ark of the Covenant). And it’s not a great idea to invite comparison because “Captain America” is nowhere near as good a movie as “Raiders.” But I just want to know how it is his shield always returns to his waiting hand.

          Come to think, they don’t really explain a whole lot with this movie. For instance, where’s the bomb in all this? What does one guy not being dinky anymore have to do with dropping the bomb on Japan twice? And how is it that after the government scientists make Steve finally be a big boy, they just sort of shrug their shoulders and let him go do U.S.O. performances for the troops?

          Oh well. It does have a neat-o retro look. Kind of like “The Rocketeer.”

          True, one does get the urge to sit down with young Cappy and explain to him who it is his ardor most aids. Maybe watch “Zeitgeist” with him, too. So he could learn. But we have to figure, Steve Rogers has suffered a lot of trauma. And until he goes clean off his Super Soldier cheat serum, and is no longer using, there just won’t be any reasoning with him at all.

FINAL HARRY POTTER BEST OF SERIES

HARRY POTTER AND THE

DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2

Starring Daniel Radcliffe,

Ralph Fiennes,

Alan Rickman,

Emma Watson,

Rupert Grint,

Helena Bonham Carter,

John Hurt,

Warwick Davis,

Michael Gambon

Directed by David Yates

Written by Steve Kloves

Based on the novel by J.K. Rowling

Running time 130 mins.

Rated PG-13

          It isn’t just the best movie of the year so far, it’s the standout entry in the most financially successful movie franchise ever. Now the inevitable 24-hour marathon screening of all eight films has its showstopper.

          Treading carefully so as to give nothing away, suffice to say that what is unique in literature holds true for film. There’s just nothing else like the level of detail that J.K. Rowling has provided with the books. And although no film can capture the sweeping scope of the stories, the filmmakers have so much to work with, the audience’s emotional investment compounds exponentially with each successive film.

          With, perhaps, the exception of the first part of “Deathly Hallows,” which came out last November. Not a bad movie by any stretch. More like the calm before the storm. Part 1 is to “The Two Towers” what Part 2 is to “The Return of the King.” In more ways than one.

          Unlike the previous entries, this last one is the only Harry Potter movie to offer 3D. Mixed feelings on that score. First of all, the price is bumped. For the extra bucks one pays, the experience should be commensurately upped. And I don’t think it is. As good as this new digital system is compared to the old 3D, it’s not without its problems. The glasses are intrinsically distracting; even digital 3D just flat out doesn’t look all that 3D, and the glasses darken the screen too much. Truth is, it’s a gimmick to make the industry more money. I don’t think we benefit from the experience nearly as much as they do.

          But at least with this movie there’s an option. Some of the show times are in 3D, and some aren’t.

          Very much to the good, in keeping with the series, the special effects do serve the story, and not the other way around. If we didn’t care about the characters, all of the special effects wizardry would mean nothing. But care about them deeply we do. They are our movie friends. A lot of them we practically raised.

          Upshot: Harry (Radcliffe) has to find the three Horcruxes and get Voldemort (Fiennes) before Voldemort gets him.

          And along the way we have so many plot lines to resolve, so many loose ends to tie.

          If you’ve never read one of the books, as a filmgoer you might even be better off with less expectations to be dashed. And if you’ve never seen any of the seven other movies, don’t worry about that. Things get recapped nicely.

          It says a lot about a movie when you can’t say much about it at all out of sheer respect for the experience. It’s an emotional time, attending a summer blockbuster. But the good news is, J.K. Rowling is such a writer, it seems highly unlikely that we’ll have to go too long before she pulls another trick out of her sleeve. And when the movie is made of whatever she’s writing now, we shouldn’t be too surprised to find our Hogwarts friends all growed up, and, as an added selling feature, cast in wildly different roles.