'The Expendables': The Big Muscle Man Reunion

by Brett Parker

Action films of the 80s could most accurately be described as the “muscle man” era, an era in which testosterone, explosions, and the war-hungry mindset of the Reagan era spilled out across movie screens everywhere. Our heroes were grizzled hulks armed with gigantic biceps, guns, and attitudes. They annihilated countless weaklings who stood in there way, usually by pumping them full of countless lead or tearing their limbs clean apart. Bloodiness was guaranteed!. Subtlety and political correctness were nowhere to be found; these films reveled in ridiculous excess. There was, in fact, a competition amongst the era's action stars to see who could have the bigger guns and explosions in their individual films. It was brawny, it was gritty, it was masochistic, and it was so much fun!

No specific brand of action films lasts forever, for changing times brings forth changing heroes. In a post-9/11 world, a world that saw everyday people commiting truly heroic acts, a new brand of action heroes emerged filled with more vulnerability and humanity. From Spider-Man to Jason Bourne, our new crop of heroes possess everyman qualities in the face of extraordinary situations. Brains our now in higher demand than biceps; we want to relate more instead of envying. It says something that the two best action stars of this past summer were Robert Downey, JR. and Michael Cera.

Sylvester Stallone certainly feels nostalgic for the macho man bravado of yesteryear and senses a good amount of action junkies feel the exact same way. This led to the creation of his latest acting-directing feat, The Expendables, a throwback extravaganza if ever there was one. Stallone has assembled nearly every aging tough guy from the 80s into one big action vehicle, proving that these old school hulks still got what it takes to deliver big bangs for your buck! Of course, if your looking for relevance, reflection, and deep philosophies regarding the very nature of those muscle man movies, you've come to the wrong place! Stallone and his cohorts have precisely one goal in mind and one goal only: to blow up stuff real good!

The Expendables focuses on a rugged group of macho mercenaries who hire themselves out to do dirty work government agencies are afraid to touch. The team includes fearless leader Barney Ross (Stallone), blade enthusiast Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), kung-fu expert Ying Yang (Jet Li), bruising brawler Toll Road (Randy Couture), trigger-happy Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), and blood-thirsty giant Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundren). The film opens with the guys lighting up a group of pirates who've kidnapped a cargo ship, slaying them with effortless expertise. Despite their old age, these pros appear are at the top of their game, until a real challenging mission comes their way at the hands of a mysterious contact named Mr. Church (Bruce Willis). Their assignment: infiltrate a South American island and take out a ruthless drug lord named Monroe (Eric Roberts).

Ross goes to scope the place out and runs into an intel expert named Sandra (Giselle Itie) who has grown up on the island and conveys how nightmarish her environment has become. Monroe used his vast wealth to buy out the island's army and he rules the place with an iron fist. He single-mindedly pursues his drug crops and profit and isn't afraid to destroy anyone or anything in his past. Monroe's rule over the island is quite deadly and Ross realizes that to go after him could very well be sudden death for him and his comrades. Yet after a lifetime of bloodshed, Ross begins to wonder if he can redeem himself by risking his life for those in need of liberation. The other Expendables begin to feel the same way and this leads to a deadly mission that will challenge the team to the extent of their abilities and just might rescue their souls.

It really is a miracle of scheduling that Stallone was able to assemble all the big marque names of yesterday into one kick-ass action movie! The only problem is that Stallone doesn't really give them anything deep or challenging to do. The Expendables was a great opportunity for Stallone & Company to dissect the finer points of the muscle man genre or expose the plights a tough guy experiences in growing older (something Stallone did superbly in Rocky Balboa). Instead, Stallone reduces their characters to one-dimensional types that run through the motions of a mindless shoot-em-up. Of course, no one can run through those motions like these guys, but surely these aging pros have more depths to reveal than the territory they've already mastered in the 80s.

So the plot is lightweight, the dialogue is horrible, and the characters show more attitude than personality. That's because Stallone's main focus is the ferocious action scenes, ones that demonstrate the shoot-em-and-slice-em velocity that was so prominent in the 80s. Stallone shows off a bloodthirsty glee as bones crunch, limbs fly, and bullets zing. The flimsy plot is all really just a transparent build-up to the film's violent final act, which is an all-out orgy of death and destruction. As our gritty heroes pound on countless bad guys mercilessly, we realize this is what we truly paid a ticket for and jump on on the ultra-violent band wagon. Technically, we can't help but admire the fact that the editing work by Ken Blackwell and Paul Harb frantically presents this ballet of blood as an assault on the senses while the musical score by Brian Tyler surprisingly gives off a classical feel.

Ironically, the only transcendent moments in the film are the ones revolved around no action at all. There's a killer moment where Mickey Rourke, as Ross' old friend and tattoo artist, speaks of searching for his soul after a lifetime of violence. It's the only revealing and convincing moment in the film thats out to prove that tough guys, do in fact, have feelings too. Of course the best scene in the film has become the most talked about one: the scene in which Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis share the screen for the first time in film history. Of course, these three were the biggest superstars of this genre and have always been something of fierce competitors, always trying to outdo each other in their movies. Well now they're finally together in a scene that not only sets up the plot for the film but shows off an electrifying peeing match where their egos bounce off each other quite nicely. It's probably the most logical way they could've shared the frame, with biting wit and a giddy subtext.

In the end, we're willing to forgive the film's flaws and emptiness because, essentially, it feels so good to see all the old guys again! They all, in fact, can still do it as good as they used to! Stallone proves that he can still dish out the attitude and the agility to lead his way through an action vehicle, Statham has shown no softening in his intimidation factor, Li still has all the right moves for an aging little guy, and Crews is cheerfully delightful as a man who loves to show off obnoxiously-outsized weaponry. My favorite performance comes from Lundren, who gives his dim-witted, hulking brute a psychotic edge that's surprisingly startling. It's been years since the big guy has shown up on the silver screen, yet his towering and tragic Frankenstein who dominates every scene that he's in!

Stallone has spoken out in recent years about how society can be neglectful towards it's elderly population. He feels there isn't really a forum for them to speak anymore despite the fact that they can be just as willing and able as all the younger citizens. The Expendables, like the last Rambo and Rocky Balboa demonstrates Stallone's single-minded goal of proving that the old guys can still get things done in a youth-obsessed society. It also may demonstrate the old school message that cultural and global problems can be solved by blowing away all our enemies, but we're willing to smirk and let that slide. After all, we're just staring at lightweight fun. The Expendables may not transcend it's genre, but at least it can stand with the mindless romps that ultimately led to the film's very creation. As long as you check your brain at the door, you can have yourself a bloody good time!

A Comedy For 'Schmucks'

by Brett Parker

Its one thing if a bumbling geek happens to be annoying. Its another if a geek goes out of his way to intentionally evoke great annoyance. This idea represents my main problem with Dinner for Schmucks, the Hollywood remake of the hit French comedy, The Dinner Game: we're asked to feel sympathy for a hapless loser who causes chaos for no clear reason besides his own twisted amusement. That Steve Carell is cast in the role of this idiotic hellraiser shows that the filmmakers want us to connect with the likeability within this nightmare nerd, but the evidence onscreen makes us curiously feel put-off. The rest of the movie has a cast that can do no wrong and a killer comic premise, but it settles too easily into mundane slapstick instead of realizing the fullest potential of its biggest jokes.

The film opens with a corporate man named Tim (Paul Rudd) seeking a promotion in his company. He dreams of swimming with the big sharks on the higher-floors in order to impress his loving fiance, Julie (Stephanie Szostak), and upkeep their lavish lifestyle. After an impressive presentation, Tim is allowed to rub elbows with the corporate big shots, led by the arrogant Lance Fender (Bruce Greenwood). Fender even invites Tim to an annual dinner hosted by the company cohorts. Yet this is no ordinary dinner: each company man has to bring a clueless idiot to the dinner as their guest for the sole purpose of making fun of them. Whichever man brings the biggest idiot to the party wins a first-prize trophy. If Tim really wants to secure his promotion, he'll have to go through with this mean-spirited meal.

Julie becomes appalled at the news of this dinner and Tim debates whether or not to go through with such a cruel activity, that is until he accidentally runs into Barry (Carell) with his car. Almost anyone can tell that Barry is a goofy loser, a socially awkward weirdo whose main hobby is stuffing dead mice and dressing them up in artistic displays (Barry has mice riding a Ferris Wheel, dining at restaurants, flying kites, etc.). Tim thinks running into Barry was an act of fate and that he'll be a lock to winning the biggest idiot prize at the dinner. Yet as Tim invites him to this deceptive event, Barry now feels he has a new friend and turns up unexpectedly in Tim's home life. Barry proves to be a tornado of mayhem and causes gigantic problems for Tim over the course of one crazy night. He drives away Julie, he brings an insane former fling (Lucy Punch) back into Tim's life, he has him breaking into the apartment of a zany model (Jemaine Clement), and he causes him to be audited by an IRS weirdo who believes he can control minds (Zach Galifianakis). Can Tim survive long enough to make it to the dinner with Barry?

Steve Carell has crafted a career out of oblivious weirdos who remain likeable in spite of their acts of stupidity. His goofballs can't help their own oafishness and accidentally cause headaches for everyone around them. This time, however, Barry appears to be wreaking havoc on purpose, using his idiocy as a shallow excuse. Take, for example, a scene where Barry notices an Instant Message on Tim's computer from a scary former fling. In the moment, Barry decides to respond, pretends to be Tim, and invites this crazy woman over even though he's fully aware that Tim has a serious girlfriend that he lives with. Why do such a thing? Why intentionally cause hell for someone you're trying to become friends with? We're supposed to believe that Barry is so dumb that he's oblivious to the chaos he's causing, but you'd have to be way more incredibly dumber than Barry to not realize that you're brewing up a bad situation. He's clearly doing this to watch Tim suffer for his own twisted amusement.

Its this mini-mean streak from within Barry that is barely acknowledged by the film and is written off as hopeless dorkiness. It's hard to buy and it's even harder to buy later on when Barry turns on the self-pity routine and we're supposed to connect with him once he turns to marshmallow. It's at this point in the script where Tim is ordered to stop being mad at him and start warming up to his vulnerable side. Yet Tim really should be infuriated by this man's behavior, he really is annoying, for him and for us.

Can a movie character be chaotic and unrelenting yet still be likeable in our eyes? I point you to the supreme example of Katherine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby, the finest screwball comedy ever made. As Susan, the lunatic heiress hopelessly in love with Cary Grant's Dr. David Huxley, Hepburn shows us a nutty madwoman showing no mercy in trying to stay close to her dream man, whether it be stealing his car, hiding his clothes, getting him arrested, and putting him in the path of an unpredictable leopard. Susan is unmistakably relentless, but thanks to Hepburn she also has a sweetness and romantic yearning that's hard to dismiss. She may cause serious mayhem for David, but it's all out of a lovestruck devotion built on genuine affection. The film's most touching moment comes when Susan, after being scolded by David, pours her wounded heart out to him, declaring her maddened love for him. She wins us over and she eventually wins over David too, for all that chaos was just what he needed to stir up his humdrum existence. It'd be nice to think that Barry also has a desperate need to be liked, but surely he could've thought up more sincere ways than destroying Tim's apartment and relationships on purpose.

The rest of the film has the usual slapstick hijinks you'd expect in such a sitcom, although most of the gags seem watered down and never break loose towards anything truly hysterical. Part of the problem is that the plot drifts away from the central business at hand and towards the tornado of Barry's comic destruction. The plot would've benefited more hilariously if it deeply dissected it's main ideas more prominently. To what level of shame does Tim truly feel as he carries out his amoral agenda? What exactly is Barry's point of view on his own behavior? What could these two really get out of their relationship together, considering the deceptive motives behind it? How do they both really feel about the actual dinner? The film tries to force contrived answers to such questions without earning them through character development.

Considering the talent on-board, especially Director Jay Roach's comic experience (the Austin Powers series, Meet the Parents), there are some moments of interest to be found. Although the script miscalculates with the characterization of Barry, Carell holds a bug-eyed devotion to his character's zaniness that is a true testament to his comic gifts. Even though Tim's motives aren't exactly likeable, Paul Rudd allows us to empathize nicely with his journey of frustration and redemption. My favorite performance comes from Galifianakis as the IRS Mind Reader. I can't remember the last time a screen comic could be so utterly hilarious while doing little to nothing. The small, wheezy laugh he lets out while reading a tax record is the single funniest moment in the entire film. It must also be said that the film's climactic dinner scene, in which a room full of idiots are allowed to cut loose, does produce genuine laughs through delightful characters. We meet several strange cases such as a man who communicates with birds, an animal psychic, and a blind fencing champion (yes, you heard me). I was touched by how much these fools cherish their own quirky antics, revealing the corporate sharks behind this dinner to be the true sleaze that they are. It leads up to a wonderful moment where Barry seems generally confused as to why such fascinating people were invited to a party as “idiots.”

Dinner for Schmucks falls short because it holds a biting premise that grows too soft and a softy character with too much bite. The plot could've let loose with a dose of nastiness while the sweet and likeable Barry helped to deflect it. Curiously, the opposite appears to happen. It seems like comic gold to have Carell's sincerity bounce off of Rudd's frustration, but this outing proves to be a waste of a pairing and idea.

A Geeky Yet Charming 'Apprentice'

by Brett Parker

Growing up in my youth, my favorite kind of fantasy films were the ones where extraordinary things happened to ordinary kids just like me. It was great fun watching ordinary young people, who had crushes on girls, massive amount of homework, and big dreams, being whisked away to breathless adventures in which they faced perilous danger, nail-biting chases, and otherworldly sights. Titles like The Goonies and Flight of the Navigator spring to mind. I was thrilled by the idea that normal dudes like me could quite possibly be plucked from suburban normalcy and thrown into the kind of fantastical adventure that could only happen in the movies. Of course, it was always reassuring to know that no matter what threats or dangers the young hero faced, he would always end up safely back at home with a big smile and an even bigger sense of confidence.

As we arrive at mid-summer in the blockbuster movie season, it's easy to label The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the new fantasy ride from Jerry Bruckheimer and the National Treasure team, as a disposable, CGI-heavy moneymaker, which it more or less is. However, I found the film had a nostalgic charm reminiscent of the very fantasy films I just described from my younger years. As the film centers on the nerdy everyman charms of the shy string-bean Jay Baruchel, I was reminded of the protagonists of the live action Disney movies I enjoyed back in the day. Here's a soulless popcorn movie revolved around a dude who wears his soul right on his sleeve. His geeky charm becomes the movie's saving grace.

The film opens with a prologue in the King Arthur days centered around the legendary wizard Merlin (James A. Stephens), with his apprentices battling over his mystical powers. The evil Horvath (Alfred Molina) wants to be the most powerful wizard, leading him to team up with an evil sorceress named Morgana (Alice Krige). The virtuous apprentice Balthazar (Nicolas Cage) vows to put a stop to the evil duo and does so by encasing them in an ancient doll that will serve as their prison. As he carries out this plan, however, his lady love Veronica (Monica Bellucci) becomes trapped in the doll along with the villains and Merlin becomes fatally wounded in the process. Before he dies, the powerful wizard tells Balthazar that a successor containing Merlin's powers shall materialize one day and must learn his sorcerer ways in order to protect the universe. Merlin had cast a spell on all of his apprentices to stay young forever, allowing Balthazar to carry out his search for the next great sorcerer over the next few centuries.

Time passes and Balthazar has searched over many continents for the one who fits the profile of Merlin's successor. His search ends in New York City when he meets Dave (Baruchel), a painfully shy college student who is an expert in physics and social awkwardness. Dave lacks tact and self-confidence but nonetheless shows every tell-tale sign of being the next great sorcerer. In Dave's private studying quarters, Balthazar decides to teach Dave everything he knows so that he can get in touch with his inner-Merlin. Dave will have to learn quickly, for pretty soon Horvath is unleashed from his ancient prison and plans to destroy life on this planet as we know it. Can Dave overcome his personal defects and find his inner-sorcerer? Does this science nerd have what it takes to defeat one of the most powerful sorcerers in history?

The idea of modern-day sorcerers could make for a very plucky movie, but The Sorcerer's Apprentice only allows the simple thrills you would expect from a PG-rated-live-action-Disney summer-blockbuster ride. That means everything is reduced to candy-coated CGI effects that would only be of great excitement to kids under 10. The idea of evil dragons and giant eagles flying around could be exciting but have a mundane feel to it this time. Even the film's climactic save-the-world battle is reduced to a hand-grown laser beam fight that hasn't been original since Superman II. One effects sequence I really enjoyed was a trip through Mirror World, where everything is reversed as it would be in a mirror (in this case: all of Times Square). For those who haven't figured it out yet, this film is inspired by the Mickey Mouse sequence in Fantasia and there's a fun little scene here that pays homage to it. Like Mickey, Dave tries to magically make mops and brooms clean up his room without any human hands touching them. The music may be a bit different but the hilarity of the results are about the same.

Nicolas Cage, of course, has developed into one of the most eccentric actors we've ever known. In the past, he's gone so far over the top that he's sailed past the Milky Way while eating a banana. I think only Cage could make a whacked-out ancient sorcerer from Manhattan feel lived in. Here's a guy who's never had to strain to look cooky, and that serves this role perfectly. But this being Disney and all, he's not allowed to let his freak flag fly as wildly as you wished he could. Don't want to scare the kiddies. Could you imagine if Cage was as whacked out here as he was in Bad Lieutenant? Children would be running for the Exit while the grown-ups laughed hysterically! But hey, I'm sure it serves the role well that Cage could let loose bizarre insanity but holds back to keep a straight face. That's probably true of most sorcerers.

I never would've thought that Dustin Hoffman's performance in The Graduate would plant the seed for our current crop of Hollywood leading men, but let's face it, we are living in the shy-guy era! Geeky actors like Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg are flinging their inadequacies and awkwardness in every direction and audiences are eating it up. Leading men used to get all the girls, now they have no idea how to even talk to girls. I suppose John Cusack helped spawn this trend with his everyman earnestness, but at least he had, you know, game! Anyways, of this current crop of dweebs, I would have to pick Jay Baruchel as my champion. He's certainly the funniest-looking and appears to have the most depth of comic charm. The important thing is that he conveys a genuine nice-guy quality; you want to root for him. It says something that for all the film's magic and effects, the most interesting scenes are the ones where he tries to court his biggest crush Becky (Teresa Palmer, conveying equal measures of beauty and sweetness), an adorable blonde who is eventually won over by the big goof. As are we.

Even though we're on the level of a PG-rated pop ride, at least everyone involved holds steady rank. Director Jon Turtletaub (Cool Runnings, National Treasure) knows he's just having some Hollywood fun and keeps things on a poppy, inoffensive level of formalism. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer demonstrates his usual relentless need to please the audience, from it's reliable New York City location to the hipster-rock soundtrack. Alfred Molina attacks his cartoonish role like a true, dignified professional while Toby Kebbell brings the same sense of zany silliness he possessed in Rocknrolla to the role of Horvath's magician sidekick, Drake Stone. Plus it's always nice to see Monica Bellucci in focus, so there's something!

So The Sorcerer's Apprentice may be a disposable family-friendly flick, but you know what? So we're many of those fun fantasy flicks I saw as a kid. I ate them up with an intense joy and I suspect young kids just might do the same with this one. It's hero acts like a kid again, which in turn made me feel like a kid again, and its not every movie that can do that well, so I'll give this one the pass! It may get tiring watching flying creatures and magical powers over time, but it may never get old watching the nice guy win the cute blonde.

'Inception': Mind-Blowing Head Trip

by Brett Parker

Christopher Nolan is a filmmaker who likes to create cinematic games that deeply challenge the psyche of the characters who play them. Whether it's a man battling short-term memory-loss or a cop suffering from insomnia, Nolan's characters obsessively trudge through his mazes while complexities of the human mind fester underneath. His latest film, Inception, has to be the most elaborate and creative play on this cinematic ideal. As Nolan paints characters who can literally walk through dreams buried within the subconscious, he unleashes his most brilliant and literal exploration yet of the dark recesses of the human brain.

Inception imagines a world in which technology exists to enter people's minds through the dream state. If a person is heavily sedated, then a suitcase-sized device can allow outsiders to invade the subjects' dream and create an environment in which their deep secrets can be discovered. An extractor named Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) abuses this technology by stealing people's ideas and selling them to big businesses. Cobb can work his way around the unstable environments of lucid dreams better than almost anyone and, along with his expert aide Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), can find almost any secret buried within the subconscious. However, Cobb's experiments within the dreamworld created big problems that has made him a fugitive in his home of America and estranged from his two children.

One day, Cobb encounters a wealthy corporate man named Saito (Ken Watanabe) who promises to help repair his past. Saito assures Cobb he can make his charges in America disappear if he performs an act of Inception; instead of stealing an idea from a subject's mind, an idea is to be planted there. The mark is Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), the wealthy heir to a corporate empire. Saito wants Cobb and his associates to plant an idea in Fischer's head that will dismantle his worldwide empire. However, Inception is a highly risky and dangerous procedure, for it involves delving deeper into levels of the subconscious than most players can handle. With the help of a forger thief (Tom Hardy) and a brilliant architect (Ellen Page), Cobb and his team plunge deep within the world of Fisher's head, a world that involves lethal shoot-outs, zero-gravity, a snowy fortress, and the ghost of Cobb's deceased wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard), stirring up deadly trouble. Can Cobb and his associates plant an inception before being trapped in a deep subconscious limbo?

What is first and foremost impressive about Inception is how wholly original this world appears to be. Even though specific shades of other films can be hinted at (particularly The Matrix), we truly do feel like we are looking at a cinematic landscape we've never seen before. Nolan has brought to the unstable and abstract nature of the dreamworld a strict logic that uses everything we've even researched or realized about human dreams to create a specific universe filled with detailed and fascinating rules. Even though this film plays on formalities of a heist film and certain action-thriller standards, it'd be such a gross disservice to confine this film to broad genre outlines. Here's a film that doesn't depend on “killing the bad guy” or “disarming the bomb” but instead focuses on penetrating multiple levels of the subconscious and synchronizing your actions so that you can simultaneously awaken throughout all layers and return to complete consciousness. Sound confusing? Well Nolan maps out the logic of the plot with great attentiveness. Sure, you have to pay close attention to every minute detail, but so fascinating is the world Nolan has painted, you'll be absorbed by every exciting aspect thrown your way.

Since pretty much anything can happen within a dream, almost anything can happen within the world of Inception, liberating it from mundane predictability. As these brainy thieves run amok through other people's dreams, we're treated to such wild visuals as a train pummeling through a city street, a Parisian street folding upside down on itself, a hotel hallway tilting sideways, sleeping bodies floating in zero gravity, and a decaying city crumbling at the edge of an ocean. These visuals complement the elaborate logic of the plot wonderfully, and since these strokes of creativity can come from any angle, the film constantly keeps us on our toes and glued to the screen from start to finish.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays up his finely-tuned confidence and intensity to fit the mold of a Nolan protagonist quite nicely. Like all of Nolan's flawed heroes, Cobb is a man obsessive in his quest, consumed by guilt, haunted by heartbreak. Nolan's men are usually haunted by a past love, one that puts a heavy strain on both their hearts and their already clouded minds. The ghost of Mal constantly taunts and haunts Cobb in his dreamworld as he battles constantly with the blurred lines between dreams and reality. The men in Nolan's world hope that their rigorous journey to make sense of things will bring them some kind of closure, but the brilliance of this filmmaker is the idea that the end result is always shrouded in some kind of ambiguity. There's no easy way out from heart ache and the darkness that haunts the mind (The film's final shot puts a serious skewer on any idea of a complete happy ending for Cobb).

Indeed, each film of Nolan's deals with a specific aspect of the mind that can plague most men. He's dealt with revenge (Memento), guilt (Insomnia), fear (Batman Begins), jealous egotism (The Prestige), madness (The Dark Knight), and now with Inception, he has covered the idea of perception. Cobb is a man so caught up in the dreamworld that he himself has confused it for his actual reality. What constitutes reality? If something feels deeply tangible to us, is that enough to justify it as reality? What if there is a deeper level of truth we haven't perceived yet? The main conflict within the Mal character is the idea that maybe everything is a projection from our minds and there is underlying levels of revelations we have yet to perceive. If our idea of reality is built within our minds, then whats to say that dreams aren't as tangible as our reality?

These questions probably only scratch the surface of Inception's underlying ideals. The beauty of the film is that endless analysis can be sprung from within the subtext. Dream logic, in itself, has inspired many broad theories and specific ideas over the years. Since Inception is so intuitive to a wide range dream research, countless theories and ideas can be pulled from this film for years to come. You'll be deeply rewarded on repeat viewings and will probably find new things that will redefine the film for you each time you watch it. Since the film takes place mostly within dreams, you can never be too sure that everything is what it seems or that it even takes place in reality at all (a climactic conversation between Cobb and Mal as well as a shot of an old couple walking through a dream city threw me for a loop and will certainly need revisiting).

Since the very nature of dreams can be surreal and trippy, part of me wonders if Inception could've been more surreal and trippy. Should this material have gone way more off-the-rails? Shouldn't it have dealt with the erotic and the nightmarish aspects of dreams more? Could abstract directors such as David Lynch or Richard Kelly go further down the rabbit hole than Nolan does? Perhaps, but it's important to realize that Nolan is not out to confuse, but to challenge and entertain; two things that can be rarely seen in the same package. The great achievement of Inception is the way it presents a supreme challenge to our intellect while still delivering an adventurous and exciting thrill ride. The film could be a turning point in proving that audiences can handle complex and ambiguous philosophical thoughts within the context of a Hollywood action-thriller. Here's a rare action-adventure where the ideas are way more exciting than the action.

The 'Airbender' Needs Acting Lessons

by Brett Parker

The usual arc for most filmmakers shows that their films improve as their work increases. Unfortunately for M. Night Shyamalan, his quality of work seems to be digressing considerably. After the enourmous success of the horror hit The Sixth Sense, he unveiled Unbreakable, Signs, and The Village, three supernatural dramas I found to be powerhouse wonders. Shakiness began brewing for Shyamalan when he brought us Lady in the Water, a fairy tale of of creativity and ambition, yet one that crumbled under its own incoherency and absurdity. Shyamalan tried to return to form with The Happening, but it instead showcased Shyamalan losing his grip when it comes to acting and dialogue.

Now the Hollywood helmer is attempting to reclaim his glory in a genre he has never dealt with before: the fantasy epic. The Last Airbender is his adaptation of the popular Nickelodeon cartoon series in which mythical people can control the four elements. From observing the cartoon's premise, we see how it can serve Shyamalan's themes of ordinary people dealing with the extraordinary and the acknowledgment of a spiritual universe and the forces it provides. What could have been a wonderful display of growth for Shyamalan has turned into something of a mess; an example of how he would probably be better off staying far, far, away from this genre for the rest of his career. It could've elevated his gift for fusing the emotional with the supernatural, but the acting, the dialogue, and the essential plot give us nothing to sink our hooks into.

The film takes place sometime in the future, where the modern world as we know it has crumbled and the Earth has been redivided among nations that represent the four elements: earth, wind, fire, and water. There are certain numbers of humans who have the special ability to manipulate these elements to their will; these people are called “benders” and hold the most power on the planet. It is said that a being known as the Avatar can bring ultimate harmony between the nations, for it is the only one who could master all of the elements at once. However, the Avatar has been missing for quite sometime and this has allowed the fearsome Fire Nation to rise up and try to conquer the world, Evil Empire style.

We meet two sibling waterbenders named Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) who one day find a mysterious boy named Aang (Noah Ringer) unconscious below a layer of ice. It turns out that Aang is the last of the airbenders who has been mysteriously frozen in time while his own people vanished at the hands of the Fire Nation. It is believed that Aang was meant to be the Avatar before his emotions got the best of him and he ran away. Katara and Sokka make him realize that he must learn and obtain the powers of the Avatar of the world as they all know it shall be destroyed. As Aang and his new friends go off in search of his mythic destiny, a vengeful firebender named Prince Zuko (Dev Patel) furiously pursues him for his own selfish needs.

I sure hope I got everything I just wrote correct! The Last Airbender doesn't exactly feel like the most comprehensive epic I've ever seen. Of course the first rule to presenting any fantasy universe is to make that specific world as entertainingly comprehensive as possible. Sometimes fantasy worlds can get way too caught up in their own mythical logic, alienating innocent moviegoers. What makes fantasy series like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings so popular and enduring is the fact that they focus on the human elements first and allow the elaborate plots to take care of themselves. They prove that a film can be stuffed with elves, goblins, ewoks, wookies, and hobbits, yet still hold a human dimension of emotions with universal appeal. Lord of the Rings, especially, may have had fantastical visuals and enormous adventure, but it was the fact that almost all of the mythical characters held the same fears and vulnerabilities as us humans that truly made it a special work.

The Last Airbender shows traces of humanity but they seem impossible to engage mainly because the main child stars, our essential guides through this world, give really bad performances. I'm talking really bad! This has to be among the worst collective child star work I've ever seen in a Hollywood film. Part of the problem is that the dialogue is meant to be presented in an ancient world dialect yet the kids use their modern world voices, making every piece of dialogue sound like a train wreck. These kids show all the mastery of a sixth-grader in their very fist school play. Perhaps in a more contemporary, simplistic film, these kids could be engaging, but they come across as jaw-droppingly horrid here. Perhaps the fault for these performances could be placed on Shyamalan. Spike Lee once alluded that directors are directly responsible for any bad performances in their films. Shyamalan certainly doesn't provide any colorful dialogue or human dimensions for his characters. The most developed and most interesting performance comes from Patel as the sinister Fire Prince, but even he seems like too much of an everyman to master an operatic villian.

Shyamalan's greatest strength as a filmmaker has been to sneak supernatural elements into the everyday world of realistic characters. Here he tries to sneak realistic emotions into a supernatural environment and fails miserably. He usually presents things from a human standpoint, allowing the supernatural elements to absorb us as they would in reality. There isn't a trace of that skill here and the film suffers considerably. Shyamalan seems too caught up in this preposterous plot and its shallow genre elements to engage us with his trademark technical mastery. The alluring moods he is known for conveying feel curiously absent this time out and had they been present, we might actually care about this world. Traces of Shyamalan's earlier work can be sensed in the plot: an everyman's journey towards becoming a superman reminds us of Unbreakable while the characters unease and philosophizing about destiny and faith has the feeling of Signs. Yet those earlier films had an intimate attention to character detail and tension-building pacing that is completely non-existent here. Perhaps Shyamalan bit off more than he could chew when took on this commercial vehicle.

If there's one element of the film that does hold dazzling creative juice, it's the action scenes. As the benders shape their elements to attack their enemies in a mystical kung-fu style, the action scenes take on a kind of new-age-martial-arts-for-the-CGI-era that does, in fact, work on the big screen. Shyamalan films these elaborate effects sequences in wide-angle long-takes that allows us to actually take in the action instead of chopping it up into a frantic quick-cutting style. As these child warriors bounce around their enemies throwing glowing orbs of their forceful elements, we actually find some excitement within this fantasy muck. We realize that if Shyamalan held a more wicked sense of humor, then The Last Airbender could've been one hell of a cheesy B-Movie kung-fu flick. Kung-fu movies were founded on preposterous plotlines that served as an excuse to serve elaborate fight scenes shrouded in mythic energy. Perhaps if Shyamalan devoted more energy and screen time to the fight scenes instead of the ridiculous plotting, then we might have had some giddy popcorn fun!

Shyamalan is a director who can make the fantastical feel plausible and the ridiculous seem gripping, so it's somewhat surprising that he can't pull off that hat trick with The Last Airbender. I wouldn't so much call it his worst film yet as much as the one most devoid of his acquired cinematic gifts. I'm afraid only real young fans of the cartoon series will find any interest in the adaptation. It's almost like an M. Night Shyamalan movie for people who don't like M. Night Shyamalan movies at all. And even those people would still probably reject this movie.

A Wasted 'Day'

by Brett Parker

Knight and Day is an uninvolving, laughless trudge through what should have been a firecracker fusion between action and romantic comedy. Through Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, we are given two accomplished movie stars certainly capable of the tasks at hand, yet seem hopelessly lost and uninspired. Here is a film based around sensational action scenes, spy games, and a delicious romantic courtship, and the filmmakers don't have the slightest clue how to make us care about anything in the foreground.

The film opens with a beautiful woman named June (Diaz) yanking her heavy luggage through an airport. She is trying to catch a flight to her younger sister's wedding when she runs into Roy Miller (Tom Cruise), another traveler apparently heading for the same flight. June takes an instant attraction to Roy, for he appears to be handsome, smooth, well-groomed...and a cold-blooded killer! Every passenger on their flight, including the pilots, try one-by-one to kill Roy, yet he dispatches each one with an assassin's efficiency and even finds time to land the plane safely!

Roy explains to June that he is a secret agent who has gone rogue in order to protect a young science whiz named Simon (Paul Dano) who has concocted what could be the most important invention of the 21st Century. Roy claims his government colleagues tried to steal the invention and threaten Simon's life, so he hid him and the invention in a safe place and has gone on the run. Reasonably spooked by all this, June tries to avoid Roy and go about being a bride's maid to her sister. However, a fellow agent of Roy's named Fitzgerald (Peter Sarsgaard) shows up to inform June that Roy is in fact the bad guy and is out to steal the invention for himself. No matter what June believes, Roy eventually sweeps her up in an adventure filled with car crashes, gun fights, and motorcycle chases that spans all the way from Austria to Spain.

Knight and Day wants both to be a high-octane action ride and a fetching romance yet it comes up considerably short on both accounts. The action scenes here come equipped with all the tricked-out CGI effects and slam-bang moments you could expect, but after a while it all feels very redundant and unimaginative. It's been said that this film is meant to parody Cruise's Mission: Impossible stints, yet those films had an absurdest need to push the envelope towards action we'd rarely seen before. Perhaps if the film was more playful about over-the-top chaos, there would be more fun to relish. Say what you will about The A-Team's quick-cutting implausibilities, but at least that film had a cheerful need to mix things up in a insanely grand way.

Having Cruise and Diaz play off each other with smoldering and humorous romantic tension could provide a well of cinematic inspiration. However, the script doesn't provide them with any significant dialogue or touching moments. The script wants to unearth big laughs and deep yearning within their characters, but there are zero laughs to be held or any real romantic moments to hook us. Diaz looks beautiful as always and has a natural girl-next-door-quality perfectly suited to being a romantic lead, but her character is never fleshed out as more than a shrieking girly-girl. If she was given more pluck and intelligence, we could've had a strong feminine figure to care about. Cruise could play a character like this in his sleep (it's pretty remarkable that he could play a depth-defying super-agent in his sleep at this point in his career) and he does, in fact, appear disappointingly subdued. Perhaps the joke is that Roy has been at this gig for so long that he's grown casual about it, but we feel it's Cruise whose being too casual about the apparent humor of the situation. Even with a straight face, his performance lacks the deep yearning and intensity of his more memorable roles.

Director James Mangold (Identity, Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma) is a director known for tackling mythic situations with a great patience in pacing, almost too patient. I wouldn't exactly call his style low energy, but there's a faint subtlety to his work that can be a tad unnerving at times. He has a tendency to slow things down just when you wish the energy would get cranked up. Perhaps he was the wrong director to tackle this material, for he keeps things way too formal and straight. This movie demands frantic energy, whiz-bang pacing, and cockeyed hilarity, three things that have never been his strong suit. I'm thinking a director like J.J. Abrams (Cruise's Mission: Impossible 3 cohort) could've pulled it off, for he can deliver a warp-speed thrill ride without sacrificing an ounce of humor or heart.

The original and obvious model for Knight and Day has to be Charade, the 1960s Stanley Donen caper that found Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn conducting a compelling courtship amidst a shadowy thriller plot. The earlier film was essentially a romantic comedy that was occasionally interrupted by the thriller genre. The film made the wise decision of putting the Grant-Hepburn romance in the forefront and letting the dangerous aspects of the plot take care of itself. If Knight and Day had put more thought into its romantic aspects instead of it's well-calculated spy plot, it probably could've been more heartfelt and involving. Charade was also brilliant in the sly way it spoofed Grant's star image as well as the Hollywood thrillers he made over the years. It's such a shame that Cruise is afraid to let such vulnerabilities show on the big screen. He seems persistent in upholding his youthful, golden boy image just when he should be mischievously dissecting it. He should take a cue from Paul Newman, who showed us that revealing the cracks in your aging could provide a prosperous path to richer roles. Didn't Cruise learn from Tropic Thunder that poking fun at himself is a great way to go?

A movie like Knight and Day is usually a harvest for big-time Hollywood thrills, naughty sexual tension, and brutal genre self-reflection, yet this time everything comes up surprisingly bland. It's plays things to straight-laced and by-the-numbers when the subtext could've been endlessly fascinating. I admire it's old school yearnings for Hollywood charms and movie star wattage, but Cinema has grown too sophisticated to take such things at such a shallow face value anymore.

'Toy Story 3': Breathless and Heartbreaking

by Brett Parker

The very idea of toys is an invite to the vivid imagination and childlike playfulness deeply rooted within all human beings. That explains the universal appeal of the Toy Story movies, a series that devised clever and hilarious ways to depict the logical universe of Toys if they actually existed. As you would imagine in the nature of a toy, they worried about being played with enough, getting lost, being broken beyond repair, or worst of all, being neglected by their owner. These Pixar hits not only highlighted the ingenious plights of being a toy but even revealed startling human depths along the way.

The first Toy Story is one of the best and most inventive of all animated films, computer-animated or hand-drawn. It captured the childlike glow of playing with toys while dissecting their very nature in humorously philosophical ways. It was also an exceptional buddy comedy, a thrilling adventure, and a sly meditation on adolescent anxieties over feelings of change. Toy Story 2 didn't exactly live up to the excitement and humor of the first film, but it was surprising how it deepened the series' themes of neglect and heartbreak.

Despite the exceptional quality of the first two films, there was an appropriate air of cynicism when it was announced that Pixar would be making a third Toy Story film, in 3-D no less. Despite Pixar's streak of magic, there was reasonable suspicion that this would be an assembly-line sequel that aimed for wallets instead of hearts. I'm achingly happy to report that this is certainly not the case and Toy Story 3 could not have found a better way to bring the adventures of Andy's Toys full circle and towards a satisfying conclusion. The filmmakers have discovered the most logical and fulfilling way to end this series with a cinematic experience that is almost exactly on par with the original film. The result is a surprisingly heartfelt and devastating experience to behold. Make no mistake about it, this one will punch you straight through the heart.

The film continues the story of the toys that live in Andy's bedroom, toys that come to life and discuss their existence whenever their beloved owner is not around. These toys include wise Cowboy Woody (Tom Hanks), action-ready spaceman Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), wise-cracking Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles) and his faithful wife Mrs. Potato Head (Estelle Harris), nerve-wracking dinosaur Rex (Wallace Shawn), and a trio of three-eyed Aliens ready to help out wherever they can. As the film opens, the gang faces a crisis: Andy (John Morris) is all grown-up and heading off to college. His mother is forcing him to get rid of all his childhood toys. For the gang, this means either living in the attic or, worst-case nightmare, getting put out in the trash!

Through a mishap involving cardboard boxes, Andy's Toys are accidentally donated to a day-care center to be played with by toddlers. All of the toys at the center are overseen by the seemingly warm teddy bear, Lotso (Ned Beatty) who is aided by the hilariously ambiguous Ken Doll (Michael Keaton). The center has the relaxing come on of a joyful retirement community and Andy's gang decides to settle in and give things a try, all except for Woody, who decides to set out and track down Andy. On his journey, Woody runs into another gang of toys who reveal deep, dark secrets about the day-care center and warn him that his friends may be in imminent danger. This leads Woody to set off an adventure to rescue his friends and return to Andy's house once and for all!

What is so appealing about the characters in the Toy Story series is that they aren't just a celebration of the plastic nature of toys but reflect sympathetic feelings and anxieties within human nature. Like the toys, we too have an intense need to fulfill our roles in life and feel loved and accepted. Whenever we feel like we're not living up to our potential, we also feel inadequate and worrisome. When our loved ones neglect us the way Andy often neglects his toys, the level of sadness and heartbreak is surprisingly equal to that of the toys. Like most humans, the toys are constantly analyzing their place in the world and the meaning of their existence only to discover that strong bonds through friendship and family are the best way to go.

These ideals and emotions have always been strongly present throughout the series but in Toy Story 3 they are brought to their absolute breaking point, demanding a catharsis. The fears and pain these toys feel come across as startlingly real. Take for example the character of Lotso, at first he is set up to be the typical animated baddie, yet the film slows down to reveal the wounded past that made him so vile and spiteful. This makes all of his actions come not from a standard place of evil, but from a broken one filled with heartache. He is not so much a villian as he is a tragic figure, one filled with such strong feelings of abandonment and existential loneliness that it's jarring how much we can relate to it. When was the last time an animated villian could be analyzed so deeply?

Even with its sly, dramatic subtext, the Toy Story series is always a reliable source for break-neck cinematic adventure. To me, the climactic race to the Moving Truck from the first film is the most thrilling moment in the entire series, an adventure sequence that could rank with any from the Indiana Jones films. Yet Toy Story 3 keeps its action just as fresh and exciting as the first time around. As Andy's Toys race to bust out of the shady day-care center that threatens to destroy them, the film settles into the mold of a prison-break film, one that can stand with any of the real ones. As the gang executes a calculated and thrilling plan to hurtle themselves out of their elaborate prison, we are witnessing an escape just as brilliant and exhilarating as the one Steve McQueen planned. This all leads to the most horrifying and powerful visual moment of the whole series, as Andy's Gang find themselves in a garbage incinerator, heading towards a giant flame that resembles the fires of hell. The toys feel this will be their last moment together and decide to hold hands and face hell with the entire strength of their friendship. In the moment of their ultimate nightmare, they fight it with the ultimate heart. The terrifying beauty of this scene truly levels you.

By now, much has been written about Toy Story 3 being a film that can make anyone cry. Not just women and children, but grown men as well. I admit I cried as the film's final moments allowed me to say farewell to each one of Andy's toys and realize just how special each and every one really is. For me, the film's end made me confront the fleeting passage of time that effects all our lives. I was 11-years-old when my Aunt Patty took me to see the original Toy Story and I was still young enough to let my sense of imagination and wonder completely take over as the film washed over my young mind. Of course, I've grown up and like most adults, I may have lost some of that childlike wonder. We often find ourselves living in a dark and cynical world and Toy Story 3 brings us face-to-face with a sense of innocence we once had and now lost. What is so heartbreaking about the film's ending is the realization that our childlike innocence just might be forever out of our reach. How could it not be? I kid you not, if you're a member of my generation who saw the first film in theaters, then watching Toy Story 3 will be one of the stronger Benjamin Button moments you'll ever have in your life.

Since the first Toy Story hit theaters back in 1995, Pixar has been on a creative roll that have made them one of the most influential forces on animated movies in cinematic history. The key to their success is that instead of shrouding their plots with junky sitcom hijinks, they root it in aspects of human nature that can touch about anyone's heart. While Toy Story 3 could've been a disposable, money-making sequel, it's an emotional powerhouse that ranks with the first Toy Story and Wall-E as Pixar's very best. It's almost a jaw-dropping surprise how hard this one tugs on the heartstrings. Even if animated flicks aren't really your thing, this is one not to be missed.

You Should Hire 'The A-Team'

by Brett Parker

Most males from my generation have an affectionate nostalgia for the 80's Tv Show The A-Team, for it embodied a sense of reckless adventure and gung-ho machismo most adolescent men favor in their entertainment. It followed the exploits of rogue mercenaries who carried out a dangerous mission each week, and each episode promised car crashes, wisecracks, and Mr. T in all his gold-chain and fool-pitying glory. With it's heavy-duty action scenes and playful, pulpy feel, it was a TV Show that, let's face it, was meant to show up on the big screen sooner or later.

Hollywood producers are hoping to cash in big time on The A-Team's nostalgia and the most successful thing about the big screen update is how it honors the action-packed excitement and cheerful testosterone of the original show. Director Joe Carnahan directs with the same sense of frantic chaos and looney humor he displayed with Smokin' Aces and his big screen take on the classic series comes crashing into theatres with the same sense of thrill-a-minute bravado and smirking swagger the show embodied so well. It is said of the main characters that they "specialize in the ridiculous" and the same can certainly be said of this film. Thankfully, I mean that as a compliment.

The film follows an elite unit of Alpha Army Rangers who are bound together by dangerous military missions no ordinary soldier could touch. There's Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson), the all-knowing leader, "Faceman" Peck (Bradley Cooper), the suave point man, "Howling Mad" Murdock (Sharlto Copley), the shell-shocked pilot, and B.A. Baracus (Quinton "Rampage" Jackson), the brooding bruiser. They meet on a deadly mission in Mexico and end up forming a bond that holds them together through the Iraq War. In the final days of that war, Hannibal learns of a secret assignment to intercept the engraving plates of a money counterfeiting scheme in Baghdad. It's a super-secret mission no soldier should be allowed to touch, but Hannibal knows his team can pull off just about anything, so he decides to take it.
As the mission is carried out, the A-Team is set-up and framed for the murder of their superior and for trying to keep the engraving plates for themselves. They are tried and found guilty in a Military Court and are sentenced to ten years in separate prisons. Of course, being the super-soldiers they are, each member of the team busts out of their individual prisons and re-groups to carry out a mission of revenge and name-clearing. This mission comes packed with twists, double-crosses, and mind-blowingly excessive action!

At one point, Hannibal states how "overkill is underrated." That might as well be the filmmaker's mantra for the film's action sequences. The A-Team is one of those action flicks where the filmmakers put realism, plausibility, and logical thought straight into a fire and laugh while it burns. It's the kind of movie where jeeps go driving through buildings, war planes can be evoked at the drop of a hat, giant ship crates get shuffled around like legos, and four men can fall 20,000 feet from the sky in a tank, crash safely in a lake, and drive off towards their next mission. All of this is presented in a dazed, quick-cutting style meant to cloak the ridiculousness of the action's logic. Either you're one of those moviegoers who finds this kind of action to be hopelessly exciting or a terrible bore. This time, I consider it the former.

Insanely over-the-top action can be sold to us if we have a genuine investment in the characters and their situation, and it's ultra-hard to resist the charms and attitude of the A-Team. If there's one thing the film does to perfection, it's to find actors that fully embody the personas of the original cast. It's the best TV-to-big screen casting since Miami Vice. Neeson is an effortless display of militant wisdom as he builds on the wonderful action momentum he started with Taken. With his devilish grin and big cigars, the seasoned veteran has great fun with the role. Cooper cranks up his movie star charisma to make Faceman's charms and smoothness wickedly compelling. Copley brings Murdock's madness such a lived-in sunniness that he transcends goofy caricature acting and brings a cockeyed conviction to the role. Baracus was perhaps the most memorable character from the original series and Jackson embodies everything we cherished about the hulking brute in a seamless manner, although Jackson is allowed to bring more thought and depth to the role than Mr. T was ever allowed to.

Other supporting characters make crucially memorable impressions. Brian Bloom, with his sinister eyes and grizzled voice, was born to play a villain and does so wonderfully as Pine, a Black Ranger nemesis to our heroes. Jessica Biel both embodies sexiness and smarts as Sosa, the government agent hot on the trail of the A-Team who also happens to be Faceman's ex (they have a tense and alluring scene in a photo booth). A surprising performance comes from Patrick Wilson as Lynch, a snarky C.I.A. agent with ambiguous motives. Wilson typically specializes in straight-forward, white bred lunks and to see him inject a knowing nastiness into this persona is rather jarring. He still presents a clean-cut Americana image while playing with a self-kidding sliminess that's great fun to relish.

A small joke is made with the Lynch character and his C.I.A. cohorts: they are presented as incompetent and misguided duds who don't live up to the high standards you'd expect from government figures. They're trigger-happy but don't exactly know how to work a gun. They can't see all the angles, they can't out-think their enemies, they're pushovers. It's as if Carnahan is commenting on the current crop of action heroes, who obviously lack the he-man bravado and war-hungry mindset of yesteryear's warriors. The A-Team are obviously a throwback to the Reagan-Era tough-guy mindset and there's almost a vintage feel to their sense of blow-stuff-up-and ask-questions-later. There's a point to be made with these Frat Boy-turned-C.I.A. buffoons: they're wussies compared to with the audacity and fortitude displayed by these old-school hulks.

So if you have an action sweet tooth and your in the mood for mindless thrills and super-cool characters, then maybe you should hire the A-Team! It's not one of the more intelligent, polished, or plausible action movies you'll ever see, but there's great fun to be had with it's crude, crash-everything style. For all it's melodramatic and dangerous developments, you'll often catch the main characters cracking delightfully mischievous smiles. You'll find yourself doing the same thing in the theatre.

A Bomb 'MacGruber' Can't Diffuse

by Brett Parker

It's one thing to make a movie based on a Saturday Night Live skit, it's another to make a movie based on a bad SNL skit. MacGruber is a recently concocted SNL character that is meant to parody the hit 80s TV show, MacGuyver (talk about a joke that's 25 years too late!). Like the show's title character, MacGruber is also a specially-trained secret agent who tries to escape from deadly situations with meticulously-crafted inventions. Unlike MacGuyver, however, MacGruber is a deeply incompetent and disturbed individual who doesn't have the intelligence or confidence to follow through with his plans. This skit doesn't really produce killer laughs, only mild amusement. An entire movie with this character could grow tiring.

When the MacGruber movie got a greenlight from Hollywood, the brains from SNL did, in fact, come up with a clever objective: instead of simply spoofing an 80s television character, why not spoof all the over-the-top, macho man action movies from the late 80s-early 90s? SNL star Will Forte and his cohorts said they would look to films like Rambo, Die Hard, and Lethal Weapon for comic inspiration. It sounded like they were on the right track, but the final product misses the mark in producing consistently big laughs. It only hits its comic targets half the time, settling for misguided, lowbrow gags instead of really taking action cliches to the self-reflexive cleaners. In the end, the film is only slightly more amusing than the very skits it's based on.

The film opens with a nuclear warhead being stolen by a mysterious villain named Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer) who sports a silly pony tail and pitch black clothing. U.S. Colonel James Faith (Powers Boothe) learns of Cunth's actions and realizes that the only agent who can stop him is his sworn nemesis, MacGruber (Will Forte). Cunth tried to kill MacGruber on his wedding day by rigging a bomb at the ceremony. MacGruber survived the explosion but his beloved fiance, Casey (Maya Rudolph), died horribly. In the aftermath of the explosion, MacGruber decided to fake his own death and go into seclusion. Yet once Faith tracks him down to tell him of Cunth's reappearance, MacGruber wants back in action!
Faith explains how MacGruber is a highly decorated agent with several prestigious honors under his belt, yet in action he appears to be one of the most incompetent and lame-brained agents to ever stumble onto the field! He is constantly fumbling with his homemade weapons and brings about more chaos then he tries to prevent. His style and musical tastes also suggest a man stuck in the past: he sports a mullet, rocks flannel shirts with a tan vest, and listens to 80s soft rock constantly. Nonetheless, MacGruber carries a fierce determination to carry out his mission. After a hilarious mishap with his old soldier buddies, he recruits Faith's aide Lt. Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe) and Casey's sister, Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig) to help him defeat Cunth.

In a time of quick-cutting CGI frantic action surrounded by athletic pretty boys, I feel a certain nostalgia for the 80s-90s action films that MacGruber sets out to spoof. The kind of action movies that Joel Silver used to produce constantly. They used to feature grizzled he-men with troubled pasts and a cynical outlook on life. They drank, they womanized, they didn't care. They got caught up battling eccentric villains with outlandish styles and strange accents. They had interludes with women who could be just as tough, vulgar, and unforgiving as they were. There was grotesque and gratuitous violence. Limbs and blood flew around everywhere. There were explosions every other minute. There were shamelessly melodramatic developments with a wonderfully dramatic musical score to accompany it (Michael Kamen was the go-to-guy for such a score back in the day). It was a glorious era, one that I feel was inadvertently unraveled by the self-reflexive overkill of Last Action Hero and the shockingly vile violence of Ricochet. If you crack an affectionate smile whenever you hear the names John McClane, Martin Riggs, or John Cutter, then you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I admire MacGruber for targeting this brand of action films, for its ripe with juicy jokes. The film really comes alive when it highlights the formulas and conventions of these outsized action standards with the same height of frantic energy. MacGruber has a strong awareness of the genres delicious overacting and bloody overkill. It follows the same developments of a throwback action picture with both a wink and a nudge. There's melodramatic flashbacks, declarations of vengeance, bloody fistfights, shameless slow-motion shots. First time feature director Jorma Taccone really has a strong sense of the look and feel of this kind of testosterone atmosphere, he just doesn't push the jokes as far as they can go. The genre's cliches are highlighted, but they are never played with in an exceptionally clever way. They are poked at from the most lowbrow level, and this spares MacGruber from being a significant spoof.

There was a dangerous air of silence in the theater where I watched MacGruber and the film's undoing is from a lack of strong gags. Aside from two uproarious sex scenes scored to Mr. Mister's “Broken Wings,” this film fails to produce any memorable or wildly hilarious gags. It's all to content with being a lame-brained stupid comedy. Stupid comedies can work wonderfully for producing great laughs, for if people hold low expectations for your film, you can get away with bloody murder in your jokes without anyone stopping you. That was the sly genius behind comedies like Dodgeball and Zoolander. In spite of Will Forte's admirable comic energy, MacGruber's childish insanity far outweighs its comic sensibilities and the result is a dud.

Part of the problem is that MacGruber himself is not fleshed out as a cooky character we can care about. The joke is that he's a relic from the 80s completely incapable of handling government missions in the present day. The film barely highlights any decade-different culture shocks, making MacGruber's 80s bravado a lifeless joke. In a time of iPods, smart cars, and Facebook, a man of the Mullet and Walkman trying to function in this era could be very funny. The first Austin Powers, for example, knew how to wonderfully milk fish-out-of-water jokes from the idea of a 60s secret agent transported to the 90s. It's jarring that the writers here could overlook such a comic opportunity.

My opinion on MacGruber's comedy reflects my same opinion on the current generation of Saturday Night Live's writers and players: they present good ideas for comic gags, but they don't mold them into true hilarity. Saturday Night Live used to be a reliable haven for live wire comic talents and uproarious gags, yet the skits nowadays are extremely limp and lame. They have the potential to be killer gags, yet the new age SNL talent are clueless when it comes to making something that really cooks. It'd be nice to believe that these players could improve over time, but the current SNL team have a curiously smug, self-congratulatory air about themselves; they think they really are creating legendary gags. They seem to think that being on SNL automatically makes them comic legends. Back in the day, SNL legends had to work harder and think smarter to etch their names in the public eye. Before guys like John Belushi or Adam Sandler became household names, they had to labor to come up with hot jokes and characters that people would actually give a damn about. Those kind of giant efforts feel lacking in SNL nowadays and those efforts are crucially missing in MacGruber as well.

It's generally acknowledged that movies based on SNL skits make for awful comedies that scrape the bottom of the barrel. As the saying goes, what works for two minutes won't exactly work for two hours. The Blues Brothers and Wayne's World are considered the exceptions, and I must admit I have a strange fondness for Coneheads. MacGruber truly had the tools and mindset to break this cinematic curse, but it fails to do so. It will unfortunately join the weaker SNL movies in comic oblivion. Now I hope that a cool film team will come out and make the MacGuyver movie, showing the YouTube era just how cool this cat really is!

A Decent 'Iron Man' Sequel

by Brett Parker

Jon Favreau's Iron Man, with its hedonist's bravado and bruised heart, was the best superhero movie I'd ever seen. While the film contained familiar strokes from the superhero genre, Favreau brought a sense of quirky humor and Altmanesque formalism that elevated the material. Of course the key to the movie's charms lied within the main performance from neurotic goofball Robert Downey, JR. While most superhero characters come across as comic misfit sweeties, Downey made his Tony Stark a narcissistic, womanizing, hard-partying cynic in desperate need of redemption. While most actors use skilled method techniques to bring superheroes to life, it appears Downey merged his inner-demons and character defects within the comic book archetype, and the result was spellbinding. While most superheroes draw us along with their flashy costumes and amazing powers, it was the hurt behind Downey's eyes that hooked us from start to finish.

It's such a disappointment, then, that Iron Man 2 doesn't build on the wonderful momentum set forth by the first film's originality but chooses instead to be a slam-bang popcorn ride. It's all too content with it's pop funkiness, and it sidesteps the strong character strokes and subtle drama of the first film to pile up on action thrills and big effects sequences. The blockbuster junkies will certainly eat this serving up, but those who cherished the uniqueness of the first film will feel that something is seriously missing this time out.

Tony Stark (Downey) has certainly been busy since the last time we've seen him. Since he revealed his secret identity as the combat robot known as Iron Man, he's been policing injustices of the world to apparently great success. It is vaguely hinted at that world peace has been materializing quickly and that Stark Industries is flourishing prosperously. Stark has appointed his personal assistant, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) to be the new CEO of his company while Stark assures the U.S. Government that his technology cannot be duplicated.
While Stark basks in his newfound superhero status, trouble brews on the horizon. An evil Russian genius named Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) believes that the Stark family stole powerful ideas from his father and he plans to take Tony out with a deadly pair of electric whips. A weapons tycoon named Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) is also jonesing for a way to defeat Stark and thinks an alliance with the brilliant Vanko just might benefit them both. Tony's best friend Rhodie (Don Cheadle) wants the Iron Man technology to fight as the War Machine. Stark's mysterious new secretary named Natalie (Scarlett Johansson) also brings him unease. With everything going on, Tony must also contend with the fact that the very life source that's keeping him alive may also be poisoning his blood, killing him bit by bit.

Iron Man 2 is by no means a bad sequel, it just seriously derailed from the sensibilities that made the first one feel so significant. It suffers from that Hollywood habit of making sequels more bloated and outsized than the first film. New faces and several subplots are stuffed into the plot and the film never slows down long enough to develop things significantly. Favreau no longer has a grip on the patience and elegance he possessed the first time around and now frantically bounces around trying to keep every subplot afloat. Things never get boring and there are certainly very impressive action scenes, but it was scenes of attentive character details that made the first film so special. I'm reminded that for all the explosions, robots, and fights the first one contained, it was Stark being nearly brought to tears explaining his newfound ways that proved to be the most exciting moment in the entire movie.

The sequel has attracted a lot of famous faces to play iconic characters from the comics, but so busy is the plot that we never get close enough to care about any of these new additions. Scarlett Johansson radiates with sexiness as Natalie Rushman, and she has killer kung-fu movies, yet she is given zero character depth; she's merely window decoration. Terrance Howard was wonderful as Rhodie in the first film, yet this time he's been replaced by Don Cheadle. It's a long and complicated story behind Howard's departure, but essentially Favreau did not like his performance in the first film. I don't know what Favreau was thinking, for Howard is one of the most interesting actors we have and, with his physique and demeanor, he was born to play War Machine. Howard had a grace and command with the character that his replacement fatally lacks; Cheadle is humorless and lifeless in the role.

The most exciting addition to the cast turns out to be the film's biggest disappointment. The newly-resurrected method darling Mickey Rourke shows up as the vengeance-ridden Russian badie Vanko, in what is essentially a stroke of casting brilliance. Rourke's lived-in and brooding shell is perfectly suited for a villainous exterior, and Rourke worked extra hard to research Russian criminals and their lifestyle, but the performance is wasted. Rourke fought to bring layered depths to a one-dimensional character, but the screenplay won't allow them in. Vanko is given rather little to say and he is curiously absent from most of the film. The script also fails to flesh out the apparent tension between Stark and Vanko. These are damaged geniuses, bounded by the sins of their fathers, yet their relationship never elevates beyond cheap comic book psychology.

The most livewire and satisfying addition to the cast is the energetic Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer. Rockwell seems tuned to the offbeat humor and peculiar emotions of the first film and jolts things up everytime he's on the screen. He revels in being a conniving slimeball and he gets high on his character's spoiled antics. A hilariously-grabbing scene shows Hammer spewing a bratty temper-tantrum towards Vanko over his failure to deliver a perfect breed of Iron Man suits. Vanko is a scary man to behold, yet Hammer never flinches in his adolescent rage. In the role of a pure snake, Rockwell shines.

Iron Man 2 is one of those flicks where sparkling individual moments outshine the whole, as they say. Iron Man and War Machine have a breathtaking battle not only with each other in Stark's home, but with an army of sharp-looking Iron Droids courtesy of Hammer. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) wonderfully scolds Stark in a Donut Shop in a scene that resembles a high school principal chewing out a classroom bad boy. I enjoyed the heartfelt and poignant riddle Howard Stark leaves for his son in old film reel footage (John Slattery from Mad Men plays Howard, although James Caan should've been allowed to reprise this role from the first film. Caan would be a perfect fit as Tony Stark's Dad). My favorite moment is the final romantic moment between Stark and Pepper, fusing the quirky character play of the first film with the dewey-eyed sweetness of the Superman-Lois Lane romance.

Iron Man 2 holds steady thanks largely to the wildly-appealing performance from Downey. His hard-living, hellraising billionaire is one of the most original superhero characters to ever grace the screen and this merging between damaged actor and comic icon is a silver screen wonder to behold. I'll follow this Tony Stark into any cinematic territory, even a mediocre sequel. I just hope when it comes time to make Iron Man 3, Favreau returns to the first film and realizes what made it work so wonderfully.

BY THE WAY: Remember how Iron Man had a really cool scene placed after the end credits? So does the sequel and it's also worth waiting to check out after all the credits have played. You thought you were fired up for the Avengers initiative before? Wait until you see this!