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!

A Really Bad 'Date'

by Brett Parker

Steve Carrell and Tina Fey are undoubtedly two of the most gifted comedians working in showbiz today. That their new movie, Date Night, is so painfully unfunny comes as something of a shock. These two pros labor extra hard to jolt hard laughs into a promising concept, yet the hilarity never manifests. I feel the blame should go to director Shawn Levy, whose career thus far has proven that he is content with lame-brain jokes on a ridiculously lowbrow level. Date Night proves that sometimes even the best of comedians can't fully rescue a shaky script.

Carrell and Fey star as Phil and Claire Foster, a seemingly happy married couple who begin to feel bogged down by their daily suburban routine. Their marriage has become an endless cycle of 9-5 work, taking care of their kids, constant exhaustion, and uneventful date nights at a bland steak house. Once the Fosters discover that their married friends are getting a divorce (Mark Ruffalo and Kristen Wiig in wasted cameos), they begin to question the strength and spark of their very own marriage. Wanting to spice things up, they decide to have a special date night at a trendy restaurant in New York City.

The Fosters get all spruced up and travel to the Big Apple to check out a high-class venue called Claw. It turns out the restaurant has a monumental waiting list and its damn near impossible for the Fosters to suddenly grab a table. Feeling spontaneous, Phil decides to lie and claim a reservation for a couple called the Triplehorns all for himself. The Fosters claim the Triplehorns' table and that's when the mayhem begins. They are approached by two gun-toting shady characters (Common and Jimmi Simpson) who demand that they hand over a stolen hard drive or be killed. The Fosters try desperately to explain that its all a case of mistaken identity, but the thugs grow more threatening as they think they're dealing with the real Triplehorns. The Fosters make a daring escape with their lives and this sets off a wild night in the city in which the married couple will deal with corrupt cops, security intel, hostile con artists, car chases, a big-time gangster, a private gentleman's club, and the N.Y. District Attorney himself.

Date Night is certainly a good idea for a comedy with a plot ripe for comic opportunities, yet the potential is wasted and the film becomes a deadly haven of silence. The jokes are incredibly lame and no one says anything of any intelligible wit. Perhaps any hope for a comic edge was skewered by the film's PG-13 rating. Perhaps if the talent here was allowed to riff without any inhibitions they would've really unearthed some worthwhile laughs. Of course there's nothing wrong with a comedy that the whole family can enjoy, if it respects the intelligence of the family. New York City is more fun in a comedy that plays with its devilish tendencies instead of one that smooths them over to grab a broader audience. Its as if the filmmakers wanted Date Night to be a reworking of After Hours for the Family Channel. Doesn't sound too fun, does it?

Carrell and Fey have certainly earned their now-iconic status as two of the funniest comedians around. They've etched out quite a name for themselves in television, where Carrell's The Office and Fey's 30 Rock have proven to be two of the funniest television shows ever produced. Of course these stars aren't just TV wonders; Carrell was rip-roaring hilarious in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Fey brought a sharp wit to Mean Girls. It's rather jarring that their efforts fail miserably this time out, but I think Levy's own lack of a comic edge most likely put a damper on things. A look over his filmography (Just Married, The Pink Panther) shows that he revels in tame comedies with dim-witted gags. He has the cinematic sensibilities of a clean-cut 13-year-old. He seems to offer up movies for the kiddie matinees. Screwball romps are more fun when the director bears an anarchic spirit themselves. That's why Judd Apatow and Ben Stiller are such fine comic directors.

One positive aspect of Carrell and Fey's casting is their lightning rod for attracting top talents to this project. The film is wall-to-wall with famous faces (Mark Wahlberg, James Franco, Mila Kunis, Mark Ruffalo, Kristen Wiig, Olivia Munn, Will i Am, Taraji P. Henson) who most likely took their roles out of respect for Carrell and Fey's brilliant comic work. Yet the screenplay gives none of these actors anything of real wit or intelligence to say and it becomes a sad display of a wasted cast. Despite the film's fatal lack of laughs, a few juicy performances still manage to spark some interest. Franco and Kunis bicker wonderfully as a criminal couple, displaying an energetic and uproarious tension that Carrell and Fey crucially lack. Wahlberg is oddly convincing as a rakish security expert who constantly shows off his flawless abs. The film's funniest performance comes from J.B. Smoove as a frantically terrified Cab Driver who gets caught up in a high-speed chase with the Fosters. His school-girl squealing and howling hysterics generate the only laughs I really had in this film. Smoove frequents television a lot ('Til Death, Castle, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Everybody Hates Chris) but now its time to put him in more movies!

Carrell and Fey have done wonderful work in the past and they will continue to do great comedy in the future and one day we will all forget about Date Night. It's a disappointing reminder that they are not invincible. So if you want to check out a laugh-a-minute comedy of biting hilarity with a cast that hits on all cylinders, check out Hot Tub Time Machine. I saw it for a second time with a group of friends and I laughed even harder than I did the first time! It has everything that Date Night wanted to have, but couldn't quite grasp.

Old School 'Titans' Hold New School 'Clash'

by Brett Parker

Clash of the Titans is a pop feast madly in love with the outsized aspects of Greek mythology. There is almost zero modesty in the film's depiction of the dandified Gods of Olympus and the havoc they wreak on the paranoid humans below. This film is an ancient peacock of unapologetic fantasy. This stark raving adventure is basked in hopelessly fun CGI work that essentially makes this film an excuse for dazzling eye candy. If you're romantic for the more fantastical elements of Greek mythology and have a sweet tooth for blockbuster effects spectacles, Clash of the Titans will certainly put a delighted smile on your face.

The film takes place in ancient Greek times within the city of Argos, where a bitter war is brewing between the humans and the gods. The inhabitants of Earth have grown tired of the Gods messing around with their fates and they begin a misguided revolt against their spiritual rulers (their efforts appear half-baked and clueless; how do you stand up against almighty Gods?). This angers Zeus (Liam Neeson), the head God of Olympus who loves his human creations and cannot fathom why they would betray him. Wanting desperately to restore the order of things, Zeus agrees to let his estranged brother and god of the Underworld, Hades (Ralph Fiennes) launch a sinister plot to terrorize the people of Earth with demonic monsters. Angered primarily by the people of Argos, Hades offers them a deal: offer up the Princess Andromeda (Alexa Davalos) as a sacrifice or he will unleash the Kraken, a gigantic demon beast of devastating destruction, on Argos and have everything and everyone destroyed.

An ageless woman named Io (Gemma Arterton) informs the people of Argos that hope may be in their midst in the form of Perseus (Sam Worthington). Perseus was raised as the son of a simple fisherman, but it is revealed that he is the illegitimate child of Zeus, who impregnated the wife of his human enemy, Acrisius (Jason Fleyming) just to spite him. Acrisius retaliated by casting Perseus off to sea, only to be scooped up by the fisherman Spyros (Pete Postlethwaite), who claimed him for his own. The people of Argos believe the demigod nature of Perseus makes him the perfect candidate to help save their land from the angry Gods. He is then whisked away on a perilous quest in which he must defeat creatures of the underworld, take the head of the snake-like Medusa (Natalia Vodianova), and battle the colossal Kraken as it inches towards its mission of annihilation.

Clash of the Titans is, of course, a remake of the 1981 Desmond Davis cult classic that was beloved for its special effects work, supervised by the now legendary Ray Harryhausen. The film employed a skillful display of stop-motion animation, considered dazzling at the time, to bring its colorful creatures to life. The effects work seems dated compared by today's state-of-the-art standards, but it is nonetheless an example of stop-motion animation as an art form. These visuals, along with kitschy acting, makes the original a candy-coated B-movie adventure too fun to be denied.

Director Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk) essentially wants to retain the original film's sense of zestful adventure while making the effects work sleeker, shinier, and more aggressive. Most effects spectacles can come across as redundant and relentless, but Clash of the Titans really knows how to pump its sequences with juices of excitement and visual creativity. Letterier films his action scenes as if they were theme-park rides and they end up containing the same sense of urgent adrenaline as a result of this. Perseus has an intense battle with lobster-like creatures that holds us in a surprisingly intense grasp. A hellish confrontation with Medusa in her alluringly deranged Underworld lair provides a dark well of thrills. The film's ultimate money shot comes with the appearance of the Kraken, the outsized sea monster from hell who is sixty stories of slimy tentacles, horrifying jaws, and scaly wrath. The design and execution of this aquatic demon is truly awesome!

With effects as grand and compelling as this popcorn ride dishes out, it can be hard for actors present in such a venture to keep their heads above water and generate interest. This cast doesn't have that problem; we're intrigued by their daring efforts to make this over-the-top story believable. Worthington makes good on the promise made in Avatar that he is a compelling and human action figure with the sort of brutish exterior that will serve him well in future action vehicles. You could call him a Russell Crowe lite. Neeson and Fiennes bring an effortless prestige to the godlike mystique their characters demand. All that's left for one to really ask for is a strong female sexpot in a suggestive toga, and Gemma Arterton supplies that with great success!

Since most of modern storytelling derived from the formalities of Greek Myth, we can see the origins of treasured movies within the film's plot. Shades of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are painfully obvious while the Perseus dilemma of being half-man/half-God is clearly an early model for Superman. These recognitions bring a surprising delight to the audience as the film unfolds. In his various writings, American mythologist Joseph Campbell often claimed that almost every mythical story can be traced back to the same structure: an ordinary man with special abilities gets a call to adventure and must endure a perilous journey to restore order against evil and prove themselves as heroes. Along the way, they will meet an older mentor, various sidekicks, and a loved one to protect. In the end, evil forces are defeated, order is restored, and the hero can live happily ever after with a loved one by their side and enlightenment in their heart. With Clash of the Titans, we can certainly recognize the formalities of this timeless structure and we're deeply pleased to see that it still holds up when done efficiently.

I could write on about how the film's plot evokes contemporary ideals regarding man vs. religion, government, or foreign invaders, but too much intelligent thought should not really be applied to Clash of the Titans. It is essentially an excuse to roll out dazzling spectacles of CGI thrills and on that level it succeeds quite deliciously. It proves that computer effects can still excite us in a B-movie, that Worthington and Arterton are game for more leading and interesting roles, and that Greek mythology will always be an inspiring source for cinematic fun.

A 'Hot Tub' Worth Dipping In

by Brett Parker

What happens when you cross The Hangover with Back to the Future? You get Hot Tub Time Machine, a comedy armed with what has to be one of the funniest titles in cinematic history. It rings with a goofball's invite to ultra-silly kitsch. All you can really hope for in such a venture is for the film itself to live up to the playful jolliness of the title. It does, and it even makes sincere efforts to surpass it.

The comedy follows a group of four friends who are all facing serious boughts of inadequacy in their lives. Adam (John Cusack) has just suffered a toxic break-up with his girlfriend and is in a miserable rut. His nephew, Jacob (Clark Duke), lives in his Uncle's basement and wastes his days on the internet. Nick (Craig Robinson) is stuck in a dead-end dog grooming job and suffers a demanding wife who may be cheating on him. Lou (Rob Corddry) is a reckless boozer with nothing of substance in his adult life. One night, he has a drunken mishap with his car in his home garage that looks very much like a suicidal act. Lou swears it was a drunken mistake, but the other three still have their concerns and try to devise a way to cheer him up. Their plan is to spend the weekend at a ski resort they used to populate in their youth. The foursome pack up and head to the resort, only to discover that it has been seriously run down over the years to become one of the most loathsome ski resorts in existence.

Despite their shabby surroundings, the four decide to make the best of their trip and they booze it up in their hotel suite's hot tub. After a night of binging heavily in the tub waters, the guys awaken to discover that the hot tub has magically transported them back to the 1980s. The ski resort is overrun with leg warmers, jerry curls, and giant cell phones! It turns out the gang has magically inhabited their younger selves during the last trip they took to that lodge in their youth (Jacob wasn't even born yet, but he is still present in this blast from the past). While stuck in the past, the gang contemplates whether its better to follow the same path their lives have taken or use their knowledge of the future to make things better for themselves. Hijinks ensue, time gets altered, and a mysterious Repair Man (Chevy Chase) tries to help them to get home.

It is said that John Cusack received a phone call to help contribute to a comedy script from MGM. Once he heard the title, he laughed out loud and agreed to help out on the condition that Steve Pink (his collaborator on Grosse Point Blank and High Fidelity) got to join him. MGM made the right move, for we can sense how Pink's direction and Cusack's co-producing and script contributions helped save this comic romp from being callow trash. Like their earlier works, Pink and Cusack bring a feeling of middle-aged angst, romantic sweetness, and strong masculine insight to the material. You can certainly see the ways in which this deranged sitcom strides towards grown-up material. It's an on-screen struggle between screwball and maturity, a battle that screwball wins!

The comedy starts off a bit slow; the jokes and expositions are a bit weak, yet things get more colorful (literally) once the foursome finds their way to the 80s. It's in this pastel-colored decade where the film finds its comic momentum and takes off running. Whats most impressive, and surprising, is the various and thoughtful ways the main dudes discuss matters of the Space-Time Continuum. Most comedies revolved around time leaps usually take their sci-fi concepts for granted. Here we see hilariously active discussions about time travel: should the guys relive their past the exact same way? Should they alter the course of their futures? Should they invent stuff before its meant to be invented? Its refreshing to see time travelers asking the very same questions we would ask in such a situation.

The film actually produces ingenious gags to play off of the logic of the plot's timeline. There's an inspired bit involving a bellhop (Crispin Glover) who is fated to suffer a severed arm sometime in the 80s. Another hilarious scene shows Lou betting on a Super Bowl using his foresight of the future (this scene produces a surprise cameo from a deliciously 80s movie star, who shows up with one of the most beautiful women in showbiz on his arm). A funky fun sequence shows Nick stealing from the Black Eyed Peas to dazzle during a musical set at a nightclub. And I really enjoyed the film's over-the-top play on Back to the Future's slightly-superficial yet undeniably-satisfying ending.

Hot Tub Time Machine is a mixture between the current cinematic trend of bromance movies and the 80s trend of men finding their true selves in a cynical and confusing time. The highly likeable cast hurtle through the gags with a heroic sincerity and conviction while the filmmakers treat us to more brain cells than we'd expect. It may be a slight enterprise, but it's a wildly fun comic ride that successfully makes you laugh harder at the film than you did at the title.

'Men' to Avoid

by Brett Parker

In the midst of American health care reform comes Repo Men, a harrowing sci-fi fable that suggests horrid and disturbing ways insurance companies can dominate and tamper with our medical care in the future. The good news is that technology will be so advanced that any body organ can be artificially replicated to replace a faltering one. The bad news is that these organs are so astronomically expensive that the insurance company holds the right to gut you and repossess their property if you fall behind on payments. It's a wickedly clever premise for a sci-fi parable, one that's a bloody nightmare to behold. The great failure of this film is that it spends way too much time depicting the bloody aspects of the story instead of contemplating the nightmarish angles.

The film opens by introducing us to the inner-workings of The Union, the elaborate health care company that provides replacement organs for American citizens of the future. Need a new heart, kidney, or liver to stay alive? The Union can provide a technologically advanced replacement in no time. The only problem is that a typical organ is usually in the minimum pricing range of six figures. The Union assures its customers that efficient payment plans can be set up to suit any citizen's financial situation, but its an unspoken fact that most customers can't keep up with such gargantuan monthly installments. If a customer falls about three months behind payments, The Union dispatches their highly-trained repo men to reclaim their hardware. These agents track down their quarry, render them unconscious with a stun gun, and slice open their skin to reclaim The Union's blood-soaked property. They more or less leave their former customers to die. It's a gruesome business, but one that appears to be booming.

The film centers on a repo man named Remy (Jude Law) who is mainly considered the top man on the job. He comes from a military background that helps give him the poise, discipline, and detachment to be so good at his assignments (“A job's a job,” he keeps reminding himself). Joining him on his jobs is his lifelong friend and partner in repossession, Jake (Forrest Whitaker), a tough cannon who loves his job just a little too much. Remy's job has become something of a strict routine until the fateful day when he has an accident with a defibrillator on the job. The accident causes him to have his heart replaced by The Union while he's unconscious, bounding Remy to the company's overwhelming payment system.

This changing of hearts literally causes Remy to have a change of heart and he finds he no longer has the stomach to carry out his repo jobs. This leaves him without work and without a way to pay for his expensive new heart. Pretty soon, it becomes painfully clear that Remy is going to be tracked down by his very own comrades and have his heart ripped out. He realizes he must go on the run in order to stay alive. He tries to hide out and figure out ways to defeat the very repo technology he used to live by, all with the help of a street woman named Beth (Alice Braga). Remy must also prepare for his eventual confrontation with his tough-as-nails best friend.

In the back of my mind, I found Repo Men somewhat similar to Minority Report, Steven Spielberg's wonderful sci-fi thriller about predicting murders before they happen. That film also depicted an advanced futuristic technology that betrays its key player, forcing him to try and defeat his own system. While Minority Report touched on anxieties over post-9/11 security, Repo Men stirs up nightmares over current health care issues. Minority Report is a shining example of all the qualities Repo Men appears to lack: command in tune, fluidity, strongly-realized themes, masterful action sequences, alluring suspense, thoughtful meditations. Minority Report was a tight masterwork that weaved all its ideas and themes together in a focused flow. Repo Men appears to wander shapelessly between its excessive action scenes and casual ideas.

The best thing the film has going for it is the performances. While this cast easily could've been made up of B-Movie pop faces, we're actually given seasoned pros who've treated us to powerhouse drama in the past. Jude Law is an actor who can weave effortlessly between charm and anguish and its these qualities that sell us on Remy. He also makes for a durable action figure. I loved the scene where he takes on a office full of airport security guards without getting a scratch on him. Forest Whitaker brings his unsettling tics and eccentric bravado to Jake and brings him more depth than we'd expect from such a character. These are two actors who can never be accused of sleepwalking through roles. Also adding devilish fun to the cast is Liev Schreiber as Frank, the apparent head of The Union. He's a wily and quick-witted pencil pusher who would easily dismiss his shady dealings as “business-as-usual.” He humorously doesn't take the film's plot as a matter of life or death, but plays it more as if it were simply an annoying nuisance to a businessman.

If a character is about to die in a movie and is shot dead with a gun, that's effective violence. If a character is about to die and he gets his head cut off with a chainsaw when a gun could've accomplished the same point, that's gratuitous violence. Repo Men is one of the most gratuitously violent movies I've seen in a long time. Of course the repossession scenes necessarily calls for blood and body parts; fight scenes later in the film consist of stabbings, decapitations, slit throats, and blood splattering for no apparent reason other than fodder for action junkies. It's obvious that director Miguel Sapochnik wants to borrow The Matrix's ideal for fusing big ideas with big action, but the action here is so bloody excessive that it looks creepily out of place with the rest of the film. Perhaps Sapochnik is trying to demonstrate a demented karma by showing how Repo Men who live by the sword must also die excessively by it, but the action scenes are too overwrought to focus on such an idea. There's a scene towards the end where Remy uses two knives and a hacksaw to slice and dice security guards and repo men blocking his path in a hallway. This scene is so excessively gory and over-stylized that it becomes hopelessly distracting. A warning to the faint-of-heart: if you get queasy over blood, guts, and human dissections, stay far, far, away from this movie!

Repo Men is a cautionary tale laced with big ideas and a compelling enough premise, but it all doesn't hold together in the end. There are likeable stand-alone moments (I love how Remy infiltrates his old job once he's a wanted man...and the way Frank, Jake, and even Remy laugh about it) but too many aspects of this movie don't deliver. The production design by David Sandefur (Journey to the Center of the Earth) feels half-hearted and doesn't deliver a futuristic landscape that holds up when compared to the great ones we've seen in the past. The soundtrack songs are meant to evoke a disjointed irony but are too distracting and doesn't serve the material in an effective way. Plus the film forces a ludicrous twist ending on us that comes straight out of left field and doesn't fit at all. I appreciate how this film makes us contemplate the horrors our society could face if health care reform were to never intervene, its just too bad that it doesn't appear in an entertaining enough package.

BY THE WAY: The film is based on a novel by Eric Garcia called The Repossession Mambo, a title that is literally referenced in this movie. It's a wonderful title and it sounds way better than Repo Men. Besides, it would've avoided confusion with Alex Cox's 1984 cult classic, Repo Man.

Familiar Yet Wacky 'Cop' Business

by Brett Parker

Kevin Smith is a filmmaker known for directing dialogue that not only delivers raunchiness and vulgarity in a delightful symphony, but reveals staggering insights into pop culture. The characters in Smith’s world heavily discuss comic books, constantly reference movies, and even know all the words to Run DMC songs. Sometimes they take on the bizarre, self-reflexive feat of criticizing the very cinematic situation they find themselves inhabiting. His characters spend so much time dissecting clichés in entertainment that his films often manage to become devoid of them in the process.

When Kevin Smith revealed that his latest project, Cop Out, was to be a throwback to the buddy cop comedies prominent in the 80s, I half-expected a thoughtful spoof that put the tired conventions of the genre through the ringer. How entertaining it would be to see buddy cops discussing buddy cop clichés as they were enacting them! To lace all that with Smith’s trademark wit and color would truly be a delight. But unfortunately, Smith has long-strayed from his raw indie wagon and has settled into a comfort zone of creating formulaic Hollywood comedies devoid of his sharpest instincts. Cop Out is, disappointingly, no exception. Smith doesn’t really bring creative insights to the material but essentially tries to recreate a typical cop flick from the 80s, although one that’s not nearly as good as its predecessors. But Smith is no sleepwalking zombie, however, and this sitcom isn’t without some juice. Smith’s greatest strength here is that he knows just how to unleash Tracy Morgan’s side-splitting zaniness on the big screen, producing consistent laughs throughout.

You’ve heard the scenario a million times: one’s a straight-arrow cop who plays by the book and has a no-nonsense approach to his job. The other is a wise-cracking loose cannon with a knack for creating effortless mayhem anywhere he goes. Together, this duo teams up for a fragile partnership that produces high tension and big laughs. Things heat up with their alliance, however: people get shot, cars crash, things get blown up, the Captain wants their suspension with their badges on his desk, etc. The only way the duo can redeem themselves is if they work out their differences and take down an elaborate criminal ring all by themselves. In the end, guns get fired, the bad guys get taken down, and the bond between the unlikely partners grows much deeper.

It’s an all-too familiar plot that Cop Out cheerfully revels in. We have Bruce Willis as Monroe, the straight-arrow tough cop, and Tracy Morgan as Hodges, the comic relief cop. They’re partners who’ve been serving the NYPD for nine years, as Monroe smacks around the bad guys while Hodges showers them with jokes. We follow Monroe as he hopes to sell a valuable baseball card to help pay for his daughter’s lavish wedding. As he goes to a collectibles shop to cash in the card, two robbers knock over the joint, subdue Monroe, and escape with the card. The long-time partners must now set out to recover the stolen card by any means necessary. This sets off a chain of events in which the duo gets caught up in an elaborate crime plot that involves a Latin crime lord (Guillermo Diaz) and a kidnapped Mexican mistress (Ana de la Reguera). From there, action explodes, laughter ensues…you know the drill!

Kevin Smith has undergone a curious transition in his career. He used to create gritty indie comedies that were treasured for their defiance from typical conventions. Now he seems to be celebrating the clichés and churning them out enthusiastically. You can see how recent films like Jersey Girl and Zack and Miri Make A Porno bear some of his signature trademarks, but they seem to be lacking the freshness of his smirking edge. His recent works seem more adherent to genre formulas then to his own flights of anarchic fancy. Cop Out suffers from the same problem; Smith doesn’t really put his own distinctive stamp on the material. This is his first film with a script not written at all by him (the screenplay was concocted by the TV writing duo of Mark Cullen & Rob Cullen), so the film lacks his naughty sparkle and colorful inspiration. There’s no clever hook or variation to the premise, the whole idea is to bring deranged wackiness to a familiar plotline. Still, this one feels inferior to its earlier influences.

Part of the problem is that Smith has no idea how to stage an action scene properly. Both the camera and the editing are way too jumpy and frantic, never allowing the viewer to get a full grasp of the character’s movement in relation to their space. The action scenes are so clumsy and weightless, they evaporate rapidly from the mind. It’s almost as if Smith knows he can’t do action properly so he hurries past it in hopes that no one will notice. Smith has often been accused (sometimes unjustly) of having a poor sense of camera framing. Never before has that been stronger felt than with his shaky work here.

If there’s one thing Smith knows how to do wonderfully, it’s let the camera settle on scenes of wacky and hilarious dialogue. It’s scenes like this that give Cop Out its strength. Occasionally we come across routine scenes that are played for extensive silliness and it generates enough laughs and smiles to keep us delighted. There’s a frantically cockeyed opening sequence in which Hodges violently interrogates a witness while hurling countless movie quotes at him with great intensity (“NOBODY PUTS BABY IN THE CORNER!”). Both Monroe and Hodges present an inspired telephone gag meant to insult their rival detectives on the force (played by Kevin Pollack and Adam Brody). And there’s a great bit where Hodges imagines his wife (Rashida Jones) cheating on him, inspiring what sounds like a very funny Cary Grant impression.

Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan seem like the unlikeliest of duos, and indeed they don’t have the easiest chemistry, but they do generate a fascinating interest and it keeps the movie alive. Willis can play a role like Monroe in his sleep, and he appears to be humorously half-asleep this time out. This is essentially Morgan’s movie to steal, and he does so with great comic insanity. Morgan is one of the funniest comedians working in showbiz today. Read any random interview with the 30 Rock star and you’re guaranteed at least five laughs. He conveys the image of a sugar-high adolescent enjoying a goofball spree in the adult world. His outsized silliness is just what this script needs to shake things up. Watching the straight-edged Willis bounce off of the stark raving lunacy of Morgan is a well of twisted amusement, and it all but saves this flick.

Cop Out is commercial pop with occasional delights that hold up if you care to remember it. You’re not as contemptuous of its familiarity as you’d expect to be. The film has a lot of nice little touches. Sean William Scott has a funny walk-on as a stoner thief and I absolutely loved the throwback score from genre veteran Harold Faltermeyer (Beverly Hills Cop, Tango & Cash). His nostalgic 80s sounds are worth the price of admission alone. So if you want an exceptional buddy cop flick, check out 48 Hours, Rush Hour, and Starsky & Hutch. If you want to see Kevin Smith at his most biting and intelligent, check out Chasing Amy. Now if you have two hours to kill and want to have a laughing fit at the hands of that loveable maniac Tracy Morgan, Cop Out just might be for you.