Hey, ever wonder about the secret lives of those guys dancing around in the Subway sandwich outfits in 100-degree summer heat, and all that brought them to that point? Then Kabluey might be for you. Unemployed, socially inept, 32-year-old Salman (Scott Prendergast, also the writer-director here) is dispatched to Texas by his mother to help his sister-in-law Leslie (Lisa Kudrow) tend to her two hell-raising youngsters while his older brother is off fighting in Iraq. Forced to pitch in, Salman takes a humiliating job as the costumed corporate mascot — a sort of cross between a giant faceless Smurf and Marvin from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — of a gone-bust Internet company, passing out fliers on a lonely highway outpost. In the process he learns a dark secret about his sister-in-law, gets hired as the entertainment for a children’s party by Christine Taylor (below left) and experiences an unlikely blossoming of confidence.

So, is Kabluey, with its emotionally stunted, man-child protagonist, a complex, seriocomic metaphor about life in wartime? Not really. There are a few obvious if unstated connections made to why Leslie’s boys are acting out so, but mostly this is a tale of minor-chord transcendence that’s willing to trade on the time-honored comic value of padding about in giant foam suits. And that works, by and large… that’s good enough. The film’s nagging problem, though, is how thinly Salman is sketched, and the fact that as an actor, Prendergast plays his lead as too much of a collection of self-negating tics. As a filmmaker, though, he’s great at capturing varying states of agitation and anxiety with idiosyncratic brush strokes, so the movie, after a chaotic opening third, still achieves a pleasant hold. For more information, click here. (Regent Releasing, PG-13, 87 minutes)

A hodgepodge of sci-fi, swashbuckling adventure, wry comedy and larger-than-life comic book action, 2004’s Hellboy was one of those rare mid-sized comic book adaptations that exuded a vision and spirit bigger than its (relatively chintzy) budget. Based on Mike Mignola’s mid-1990s graphic novel series — about a giant red demon spawn rescued from occult Nazi forces during World War II, and raised to be a most unlikely hero, as part of a clandestine, paranormal crime-fighting organization — the movie benefited from the guiding influence of writer-director Guillermo del Toro, who returns in both capacities on Hellboy II: The Golden Army. The results this time around are a bit more mixed, but still for the most part engaging and entertaining, an eye-popping rendering of some unabashedly bubblegum material.

There’s no tortured superhero back story to Hellboy II, only a brief textual prologue that reminds viewers of the above-mentioned inception, and the fact that Hellboy (Ron Perlman) really likes both cats and television. After a brief scene in which a teenage Hellboy’s father-figure and mentor, Professor Broom (John Hurt), relates the bedtime story of an army of unstoppable killing machines, we’re thrust forward into the present day, where Hellboy lives in secluded semi-secrecy with his pyrotechnic girlfriend, Liz Sherman (Selma Blair, above right).

Earth is threatened when an anarchical underworld elven prince, Nuada (Luke Goss, looking vaguely like a cousin of those albino twins from the Matrix sequels), plots to awaken the name-checked, long-dormant mythical army, and disrupt a truce with humankind, whom he abhors. Nuada’s twin sister, Princess Nuala (Anna Walton), escapes with a piece of crown that he needs to enact his scheme, and Hellboy and Liz, along with aquatic empath Abe Sapien (Doug Jones, above left) and gaseous medium Johann Krauss (voiced by Seth MacFarlane), set out to save her and thwart Nuada.

Del Toro’s project between the two Hellboy movies, the multiple-Oscar-winning Pan’s Labyrinth, gave him a bump in profile amongst serious cinephiles, but more importantly a bump in self-assurance. The stamp of that blooming confidence is felt everywhere in Hellboy II, from the rich, woozy background detail and character design to the film’s ending, which… well, let’s just say I didn’t expect a Barry Manilow tune over the end credits when I first strolled into the theater.

In a way, that odd combination of auteurish swagger and vulnerability perfectly matches the material. Just as del Toro yearns for both artistic and commercial embrace, there’s a certain pleasure in the airy, parenthetical nature of Hellboy’s quest; he’s searching for the love and acceptance of the entire world, but the actual saving, the physical feats of derring-do, are entirely incidental. He just wants to fit in, to not be regarded as a freak or outsider, and that’s very relatable.

Still, the tremendous appeal of the character notwithstanding, there are a few bumps in the road. More than its predecessor, which had the advantage of chewing up fresh new ground at almost every turn, the action sequences here seem as obviously set up as hugely marked highway exits. They’re part of the ride, but you sometimes question the forthrightness of the directions. There’s some choppy editing, too. If these bits sometimes disrupt the flow of Hellboy II, the movie’s visual imagination and hand-crafted feel is still huge, and alluring. And there’s no self-importance or angst, either — just streamlined, B-movie kicks, the type for which popcorn is popped. For the full review, from Reelz Channel, click here. (Universal, PG-13, 114 minutes)

The latest brawny, slick, slow-motion-fed shoot-’em-up to air-quote reinvent the action genre, Wanted is a hyper-stylized swirl of color, outlandish gunplay, acrobatic escape sequences and punishing sound design. It will titillate and enthuse a young, rabid (and overwhelmingly male) fan base for the summer, doing big box office business and leaving a deep international footprint. And then, like The Big Hit or Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever or Aeon Flux, it will disappear with a gentle plunk!, to be not much thought about outside of its fan-boy base until it pops up on cable television some drizzly evening 10 years hence.



Directed by Timur Bekmambetov, the Russian filmmaker behind Night Watch and its 2006 follow-up, Day Watch, the highest-grossing native movie of all time in his homeland, Wanted is based on a series of comic books by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones. Filmed in Prague against a panoply of architectural styles, the movie centers around Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy), an accountant who leads a droning office existence (a la Office Space, and The Matrix), and is so non-confrontational that he can’t even bring himself to dump his girlfriend, a harridan who’s cheating on him with his equally insincere and duplicitous best friend.

Wesley’s life gets turned upside down when hit-woman Fox (Angelina Jolie) crashes into him on the business end of a smoking gun, and informs Wes that his presumed long-dead father was actually an elite-level killer just recently cut down by the vengeful Cross (Thomas Kretschmann). Escaping a rubout from the latter, Fox whisks Wes away and introduces him to the not-very-originally-named Fraternity, a secret, thousand-year-old sect of assassins derived from… weavers? Yes, honestly. Leader Sloan (Morgan Freeman) then explains that they “keep the order and balance” by bumping off individuals whose names are spit out from a loom, encoded in binary form by whether certain strands lay above or below other stitching. (Seriously, one can’t make this stuff up.) Drawn into the Fraternity, Wes learns to slow down and focus the 400-heartbeats-per-minute panic attacks that besiege him, all as he trains to seek revenge against Cross.

As shot by Transformers cinematographer Mitchell Amundsen, Wanted is an anthology of eye-popping steeplechases and nutso special effects, with characters leaping across city streets and flipping cars to fire guns down through the top of open sunroofs. It’s extreme and willfully over-the-top, in other words. It’s also very well put together, powered by special effects from Bekmambetov’s own visual effects house in Moscow. Several of the action scenes (Fox scooping up Wes in a red Viper, saving him from Cross; a train-set sequence which concludes in crashing fashion on a bridge between two steep cliffs) get the blood pumping. There are also cool visual conceits — like a waxy rejuvenation chamber which heals bruises, cuts and apparently bullet and knife wounds as well — and an exacting sense of each of the main characters’ presentations. “Toil” and “Tears” read the tattoos on the insides of Fox’s arms, accompanied by a string of ones and zeroes on her left wrist, presumably the code for some long-past target of special importance.

The problem is a matter of rootedness. Wanted aims to position itself as an outrageous slice of aspirant pop-cinema, about the transformation of a “nobody” into an unparalleled enforcer of justice; indeed, part of the direct-address marketing campaign touts the fact that “six weeks ago I was just like you.” The inspirations for the source material, and its cinematic translation, are fairly obvious, from Star Wars to The Matrix and Fight Club. A bigger part of the problem, though, is that the movie never convincingly sells us on its tone, and setting. Keanu Reeves’ transformation into Neo in The Matrix worked because of the differentiation established between two worlds. Here, everything is angled, and “extreme,” right down to Wes’ obese, grotesque boss (Lorna Scott), who could be something out of a Tim Burton film, or maybe even a Dr. Seuss book.

Centuries of presumed Fraternity customs, traditions, codes and the like are boiled down to vague directives (“Like an apostle, your task is not to interpret, but deliver”) and even vaguer overall motivations, and Bekmambetov can’t stop himself from pitching things at an ironic angle. Bits like the rejuvenation chamber, meanwhile, notwithstanding their visual appeal, render large chunks of the action wholly irrelevant. The movie also ends on a needlessly nasty and condescending note, with a direct-address dismissal of its core viewership.

Wanted isn’t lastingly odious or offensive — in its own warped way, it’s perfectly serviceable for what it is — but it is emblematic of what I like to think of as Cinema of the Now, which is to say films that answer to no greater sense or discipline than what works in the moment. Entertainment like that can wash over one pleasantly at times, but it isn’t ever a cleansing rain. Nor a particularly memorable one. (Universal, R, 108 minutes)

It’s only June, but with Wall▪E, the latest collaboration from
Pixar/Disney, the pole position in the race for the next Best Animated
Feature Oscar has clearly been staked out. A bold, wondrous and
touching work that thrills and entertains even as it strives to impart
a message of moderation and environmental respect, Wall▪E is two parts
robot love story and one part cautionary conservation tale, with just
enough anarchic intergalactic adventure thrown in to sweeten the pot
for wide-eyed adolescents.

Set in an apocalyptic, consumerist wasteland seven or eight centuries into the future, the movie centers around squat, solar-powered WALL•E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-Class), who’s apparently the last robot on the planet. Wall▪E wanders around the dust storm-ravaged landscape, where seemingly only Twinkies and his pet cockroach have survived, dutifully compacting trash into neat cubes, and stacking them into towering structures that summon to mind the leaning garbage towers in Mike Judge’s Idiocracy.

Wall▪E possesses a unique combination of loyal obligation and instinctual yearning. He keeps performing his “directive,” even in the face of its absurd futility, but also watches clips from Hello, Dolly! over and over, and collects various knick-knacks and trinkets which catch his eyes, stashing them in scrupulously ordered bins, as much for a sense of domestic comfort as any future practical use.

Wall▪E discovers a new purpose in life, though, when a sleek search robot named EVE (an acronym for Extraterrestrial Vegetation Examiner), lands on Earth to search for signs of photosynthesis. Trepidatious at first, Wall▪E befriends EVE, who comes to realize that, in the form of a small seedling, WALL•E has inadvertently stumbled upon the key to the Earth’s future. When this revelation kick-starts an automatic departure, WALL•E gives chase after his new love.

Pixar’s meticulous attention to detail, both visually and conceptually, makes Wall▪E an absolute joy to watch — in fact, to experience may be the operative word. Wall▪E’s personality — his curiosity, compassion and desire for connection — comes through with crystal clarity. His Earthbound rituals — struggling to get his treads on in the pre-dawn morning, like a commuter before their coffee — feed a strong and sympathetic identification with him.

Like Brad Bird’s The Incredibles and Ratatouille, too, the film pushes the envelope for kid-pitched big screen fare, underscoring the fact that animation is a medium and not a genre in and of itself. Andrew Stanton, a co-director of A Bug’s Life and the driving force behind 2003’s Oscar-winning Finding Nemo, delivers a movie with considerable heart, narrative substance and characters to care about. A few moments early on may be tough for younger viewers to translate, given that a viewing of Wall▪E requires one to engage more actively than a lot of animated films, which trade chiefly in noise and color. It is, in many ways, particularly its first third, a very adult film about keeping the wolves of loneliness and despair at bay.

Its concessions toward kids, though — a gallery of malfunctioning, rogue robots that become Wall▪E and Eve’s protectors during a frenetic chase sequence, say — actually always feed the story, though, instead of merely some checklist of scatological humor. As it is thoughtful, Wall▪E is about caring for others and the environment around all of us, and the regenerative value that comes from both. For the full review, from Reelz, click here. (Pixar/Walt Disney, G, 103 minutes)

A fun, fairly crisp opening hour gives way to a muddled, entirely unsatisfying ending in the action-comedy Hancock, which finds Will Smith starring as a sullen superhero trying to win over the population of Los Angeles via a very public makeover. Delivering very much more in personable half measures than in thrilling fashion on its actual premise, Smith’s first summer entry in four years — coming on the heels of his biggest Stateside hit in more than a decade in the form of last December’s I Am Legend — should own the box office for a week-plus after its July 2 opening, but face stiff sci-fi action competition when Guillermo Del Toro’s Hellboy II bows the following week.



When we first meet Hancock, who’s awakened to stop some fleeing bad guys shooting up a highway, he’s swigging bourbon from a bottle and blowing his nose on his hand — hardly the behavior audiences have come to expect from Smith. Disgruntled, sarcastic and misunderstood, Hancock gets the job done, but his heroics often leave a trail of enormous municipal damage in their wake. After being saved by Hancock, public relations executive Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) pitches his rescuer on an image rehabilitation. He advises Hancock to turn himself in on an outstanding bench warrant for his arrest, hypothesizing that a needy public will appreciate his act of penance and also come to recognize and more fully appreciate his indispensability. Begrudgingly, Hancock acquiesces. While Ray’s young son idolizes Hancock, even in his imprisoned state, Ray’s wife Mary (Charlize Theron) seems to regard him much more cautiously.

When Hancock finally is summoned from jail, he foils a bank robbery that looks like it was staged by guys who might have watched Heat one time too many (perhaps too overt of a tip of the cap by director Peter Berg, given that producer Michael Mann also cameos in the film). Hancock also inadvertently starts learning a bit more about his past, of which he has heretofore had no recollection.

Hancock gets by for the bulk of its running time on the relative strength of its character, which allows Smith both to display his roguish charm and play against type, as squinty, pained and reticent. Hancock‘s truly fatal miscalculation, however, comes in its final third, when the script tries to get into its protagonist’s past, but ends up peddling all sorts of incongruous information. Outright baffling choices mark the last 30-35 minutes of the movie, even if its special effects work mostly sings and zings. For the full original review, from Screen International, click here. (Sony/Columbia, PG-13, 92 minutes)

Los Angeles television writer-producer Taylor Peters (Matthew Broderick) has kicked most of the bad habits (drink, drugs) that conspired to throw his career off track, but still finds himself addicted to gambling. When his wife (Maura Tierney) tells him that his 20-year-old niece Amanda (Brittany Snow) is working as a prostitute in Las Vegas, Taylor all too eagerly volunteers to go collect her and deliver her to a cushy, expensive rehab facility back in Pasadena. Naturally, old habits die hard.

The co-creator and executive producer of FX’s Rescue Me, writer-director Peter Tolan has an extensive list of writing credits that represent badly botched concepts (America’s Sweethearts), cloying hunks of high-concept goo (Just Like Heaven), or both. Finding Amanda, though, doesn’t even have a good reason to exist. I neither know nor care if this has any kernel of rooted truth in Tolan’s life. The fact is that apart from the contrived main scenario there’s no compelling reason for any of these characters to be who they are (since we never see Taylor win or lose, we feel no real connection to his past), and Tolan doesn’t even bother trying to connect the allegorical occupational dots between writer and whore, which might give this pointless, cardboard-thin premise an ounce or two of subtext.

The performances sink to the level of the material; Broderick completely phones it in as Taylor and Snow, auditioning in perky, signpost-emoting fashion in an effort to break out and be the Next Big Thing, neither elicits sympathy or pervy titillation. Peter Facinelli, as Amanda’s jerky boyfriend, and Steve Coogan, as a casino manager who feigns chuminess with Taylor, fare no better.

And about that writing — no matter his own private agenda (gambling, free from his wife’s questioning gaze and checkbook-free allowance for at least 36 hours or so), would Taylor really locate Amanda while she was propositioning drunken skeezers in a hotel lobby, and then unblinkingly acquiesce to her chirpy wish to meet back up later that night, after she “finished working?” I mean, really? Good God, man. By the time Amanda’s pimp starts pitching Taylor his idea for a script, you might think Tolan is trying, in his own inside-baseball kind of way, to deliver a Sin City super-sized version of the careening, serial phantasmagoria of After Hours, albeit awfully; when the inevitable, teary, wholly unearned soul-searching late third-act moment finally arrives, you realize, more to the point, he’s just been dicking around the entire movie. (Magnolia Pictures, R, 90 minutes)

Not counting some assorted supporting players in the Austin Powers films, it’s been more than a decade since Mike Myers has debuted an original character on the big screen, which he does in The Love Guru with a rascally self-help guru who actually needs to learn to love himself. Eschewing what could have a more interesting and provocative treatment of the same concept, the film instead trades in Myers’ favored trademark steady diet of scatological humor, outlandish asides and laboriously constructed sexual double entendres. Laughs are intermittent but detached from any sense of a cohesive whole, and the sum product makes a persuasive case that manic relentlessness is not by itself a film virtue.



An American who was left at the gates of an ashram in India as a child, Myers’ Pitka was raised alongside Deepak Chopra — with whom he still has a rivalry — and mentored by Guru Tugginmypudha (Ben Kingsley). Now the head of a successful self-help and spirituality empire that spins simple truths from all sorts of trademarked acronyms and tweaked bromides, Pitka’s unorthodox methods are put to the test when he’s hired to settle a rift between Toronto Maple Leafs star hockey player Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) and his estranged wife (Meagan Good). Out of revenge, Roanoke’s wife has started dating L.A. Kings star goalie Jacques “Le Coc” Grande (Justin Timberlake), sending her husband into a major professional skid.

With the two teams squaring off in the Stanley Cup championship, Maple Leafs owner Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) and Coach Cherkov (Verne Troyer) look to Pitka to get Roanoke back on his game, so the team can win. Pitka, meanwhile, nurses a crush on Jane, believing that she can unlock the chastity belt with which he’s been saddled since youth.

Some of The Love Guru‘s haphazard gags (a voiceover machine with a Morgan Freeman setting; the repeated, blessed invocation of Mariska Hargitay, which invites a cameo by the actress of the same name) are inspired, even if a bit industry-specific. Myers, dropping his voice register to a honey-dipped professorial tone that spikes when he’s stricken with devilish delight, is as invested as ever in character, and one sees in Pitka much possibility with regards to a new franchise.

The Love Guru‘s chief problems are twofold. The first lies in tone, and narrative direction. The coexistence of highbrow and lowbrow is always a tough marriage, but if attempted, the former tone has to take a background position of subjugation, or jostle for attention in the form of a contrasting character who cluckingly disapproves of the unevolved events swirling all around him. Pitka, though, seems to embody both highbrow and lowbrow, but only based on what’s convenient for a given scene. This leads one to question his sincerity, and the movie’s veracity, even within its own parameters of heightened absurdity. Not rooted in character, much of the film’s scatological humor feels like not particularly clever attempts at shoring up tween audience support.

The second problem is more specifically related to Myers’ portrayal. Debut director Marco Schnabel certainly keeps things moving at a brisk pace, and has a visual conception for the story, but there’s no honest check on Myers’ hammy instincts, which drain a good bit of pop and surprise from many of the lines. Less mugging for effect would have certainly bred a stronger attachment to the story, and a more natural appreciation of the jokes.

In supporting turns, a zonked Stephen Colbert and straight man Jim Gaffigan breathe some life into their roles as sportscasters calling the hockey action. Singer-actor Timberlake has fun playing big, meanwhile, in more ways than one (his character is legendarily well endowed, you see) and Malco (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Baby Mama) continues to display fine comedic timing and plenty of charisma to burn. (Paramount, PG-13, 86 minutes)

Five not-so-long years have passed since Ang Lee’s Hulk, which grossed $245 million worldwide, but “only” $132 million Stateside, since I guess it irked comic book fans with its Shakespearean undertones and lack of “Hulk smash!” forthrightness. This time studio executives seem to have actually read the screenplay — by frequent superhero scripter Zak Penn (Elektra, X-Men: The Last Stand) — upon which the production is based, and the result is a very standard summer actioner that delivers reasonably well, if straight down the middle, on audience expectations.

After the obligatory experiment-gone-terribly-wrong credits montage, set to pulse-pounding music, The Incredible Hulk opens in exotic Brazil, where on-the-lam scientist Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) is working at an energy drink bottling plant as low-key hired help. It’s been five-plus months “without incident,” and Banner has training with breathing and relaxation exercises to control the gamma radiation poisoning that turns him into a not-so-jolly green giant when he becomes overly excited, angry or stressed. He’s also been working to cure himself, consulting via encrypted web chat with a doctor (Tim Blake Nelson) who advises him of potential natural remedies. The secret of his location leaks out, though, and Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (a mustachioed William Hurt, chewing cigars if, pleasantly, not scenery), the Army general who oversaw the experiment that triggered the changes in Banner, sets out to find him, hoping to harness Banner’s Hulkian rage for military application. Spearheading Ross’ team is Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), a Royal Marine apparently “on loan” from the United Kingdom.

Despite the significant manpower dispatched to bring him in, Banner escapes and makes his way back to the States, where he finds out his ex-girlfriend and fellow Culver University colleague Betty Ross (Liv Tyler), also Thunderbolt’s daughter, has taken up with a new guy. Ross the senior commands a new squadron to capture Banner, but also gives Blonsky a dose of “super soldier” juice, which only whets his appetite for a bigger taste of what Banner has. Explosions and more battles ensue; Banner, as the Hulk, escapes one showdown, but not another. As he’s being helicoptered off, however, Blonsky’s souped-up alter ego, Abomination, goes on a Rampage-style… well, rampage, and, hand forced, General Ross lets the Hulk do his thing.

Directed by Louis Leterrier — who brought a level of hand-crafted kick to the two Transporter films, starring Jason Statham — The Incredible Hulk hits all its beats, in both story and action, fairly dutifully. Norton is certainly fine, if a bit gangly, which the movie pokes small fun at in a scene or two. Roth and Hurt underplay what could have been much more snarlingly over-the-top characters, and Tyler bats her eyes in fine, dewy fashion. All of this slow-pitch character work serves as counterpoint to the mountingly aggressive action, with the exception being Nelson’s awestruck scientist, who comes across a bit unhinged.

The CGI special effects work is nicely shaded, and there always seems to be a rainfall and/or full moon to help show off the Hulk’s musculature. On that note, the Hulk’s skin — still like a leathery potato — is perhaps a bit darker than in Ang Lee’s film, but he still never seems much worse the wear for all the bullets, splinters and tranquilizer darts he takes, which feeds a bit of shrugging indifference with the entire affair if one cares about such a thing as a legitimate sense of imperilment.

Leterrier is set loose to get his foot-pursuit action ya-yas out in a parkour-style rooftop chase that very much summons to mind The Bourne Ultimatum, but the rest of the movie, including a finale in which the Hulk and Abomination lay waste to an entire city block, is very much about Hulk (and Abomination) tossing things about and pounding the holy hell out of one another. In fact, if the Hulk had Internet access and could bookmark his favorite web sites, at the top of the list would surely be CarsAsBoxingGloves.com.

This is all fine and well — the movie’s spell is brief, but harmless. But like a lot of superhero movies, though, The Incredible Hulk reaches a point of pulsing, ultimate stupidity, when it runs out of sensible narrative motivation and then has to figure out a way to cram in a big action, rock-’em, sock-’em showdown regardless. That moment occurs here about 15 minutes from the finale, when Banner convinces General Ross to turn around the helicopter they’re on (above) so that he can fight Abomination. To… I don’t know, save time, he decides to free-fall plummet from several thousand feet. “You don’t have to do this — you don’t even know if you’ll change!” says Betty to Banner. (Given what else the movie has taught us, in the form of an aborted love scene, it makes just as much sense that she should jack him off before he jumps.)

But no, merely because it’s “dramatic,” the movie gives us a lingering kiss between the pair, and then a tumble. Banner hurtles through the air and then smashes down onto the asphalt below, where he emerges from the rubble as the Hulk. Wait… what? So he fully transformed the exact moment before he hit the concrete? Or since he’s the Hulk, Banner too is impervious to injury? I know, I know… who cares. But by cheating on the effects shots that would have explained this very important detail, one is painfully reminded just how entirely fabricated this flung-together set-up and, by extension, this entire finale, is. From there, as the videogame smash-up unfolds before your eyes, the Hulk even learns to talk, if seemingly only to counter the taunting Abomination. Oh, and so that he can deliver his signature line: “Hulk… smash!” Yes, indeed, Hulk, yes indeed. (Universal/Marvel, PG-13, 112 minutes)

Kung Fu Panda, the latest animated effort from the folks at DreamWorks, is an energetic and surprisingly colorful family adventure tale that trumps formula through sheer force of personality. Obviously owing a debt to Joseph Campbell, the movie tells the story of a big-hearted panda bear who follows his bliss, and discovers the unlikely hero within himself.

Enthusiastic, big and more than a little clumsy, Po (voiced by Jack Black) is the biggest fan of kung fu around — he has vivid, participatory dreams in which he stars as a swaggering, heroic figure, and foes “go blind from exposure to pure awesomeness.” Unfortunately, none of this exactly comes in handy while working every day in the noodle shop of his very practical father, Mr. Ping (voiced by James Hong). Po’s dreams unexpectedly become reality when he’s chosen to fulfill an ancient prophecy by the aged Oogway (Randall Duk Kim, more or less doing the Yoda thing). Tapped to defend his city and learn the secret of the sacred “Dragon Scroll,” which will grant him unlimited power, Po joins the world of elite kung fu and studies alongside his idols, the legendary “Furious Five” — Tigress (Angelina Jolie,
purring proudly), Monkey (voiced by Jackie Chan), Mantis (voiced by Seth
Rogen), Viper (voiced by Lucy Liu) and Crane (voiced by David Cross, of
Arrested Development).

With the looming threat of an attack by the vengeful, all-powerful Tai Lung (voiced by Ian McShane), Oogway’s decision doesn’t sit well with his former pupil, and the trainer of the Furious Five, Master Shifu (voiced by Dustin Hoffman). He had envisioned one of his charges inheriting the mantle of leadership, certainly not a pudgy panda bear. Shifu tries to make life for Po so miserable that he’ll quit, but before they know it, bitter snow leopard Tai Lung — Shifu’s adopted son — is headed their way, and it’s up to Po to defend everyone from the oncoming threat. Putting his heart (and considerable girth) into the task, Po tries to live up to everyone’s expectations of him, and the unlikely hero ultimately finds that his greatest weaknesses might turn out to be strengths.

You wouldn’t necessarily know it from a lot of the advance promotional clips, but Black’s intentionally overbearing voice work– which completes a circular lap of total investment and then does another 180 degrees for good measure — turns out to be a good match for Po, who compensates for his nervousness through excess (both eating and talking). There’s something infectious about his indefatigability and lack of self-pity; Po doesn’t eventually succeed merely by his wits, physical skill or pure happenstance, but rather a combination of all three, something that seems to ring true to real life.

Leaning a bit on Asian art and animation style, Kung Fu Panda eschews the rounded angles and cuddly style of a lot of youth-skewing animated flicks, and is better and more intriguing and visually engaging for it. Co-directors John Stevenson and Mark Osborne do a good job of balancing slapstick comedic elements with fast-paced action, while never straying far from the core story, or awkwardly cramming in referential modern gags or bathroom humor. Shifu and the Furious Five, too, are nicely drawn; while the latter each have different feelings about being passed over for Po, the point is that they have these feelings and work through them, they aren’t reduced to overly broad, two-dimensional slapstick sounding boards.

While the reasons for Tai Lung’s bitterness are well sketched, there isn’t necessarily a strong sense of imperilment with respect to the town as a whole. In fact, it’s never quite clear, apart from his physical brutishness and some hastily pronounced expository balderdash, what real threat Tai Lung presents; he’s an antagonist because of his snarling discontent and blinding personal ambition, not any true opposition.

If one wants to further nitpick, the action match-ups — particularly the finale, with Po having progressed a bit in skill — aren’t necessarily based on any principles of counterweight. No, Shifu’s training technique is instead just based on having Po imagine food, and then dangling these tangible rewards just out of his reach. (Somewhat weirdly, there’s a silly but important mystical finger hold that seems nipped from the ending of Hot Rod — or vice versa, since it’s just as easy to assume, given the typical gestation of an
animated film — and also pops up in the trailer’s for this week’s You Don’t Mess with the Zohan.) Still, the visual pop and thrill of these action sequences don’t disappoint — indeed, among the high points of the entire movie, alongside a bridge-set battle between Tai Lung and the Furious Five, is a wild, dumpling-inspired training montage, which could play favorably alongside scenes from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That’s enough for kids and tweens, certainly, and parents won’t be suffering through this with rolled eyes, either. (Paramount/DreamWorks, PG, 91 minutes)

Admired and respected as one of the world’s great film artisans, Roman
Polanski has led a life full of its own dramatically cinematic highs
and lows. Now a happily settled and seemingly at-peace family man, he’s
been a Holocaust survivor, a brash raconteur and l’enfant terrible,
an Oscar-winning director, a shockingly sudden widower and a fugitive
felon. It’s the latter description, of course, that still hangs most
heavily over him — the result of a 1977 guilty plea for unlawful
sexual intercourse with a minor — and that’s the subject of the new
documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, premiering this week on HBO.

Chock
full of infrequently reported intriguing details (the incident took
place at Jack Nicholson’s house, while he was out of town) and some
speculative sidebar analysis (the prosecutor ruminates on “corruption
winning out over innocence in or over water” in all of Polanski’s films
up to that point), Wanted and Desired
is a fascinating exploration of a complicated case that is still hugely
misunderstood. Serving as both a differential snapshot of the law from
a bygone era and a warts-and-all exploration of the case and its
bizarre, messy aftermath (European press tended to see Polanski as a tragic, brilliant figure, and forgive his faults; one American writer covering the case called the director a “malignant, twisted dwarf”), the movie opens with a statement that at
first blush seems a self-pitying stretch, with the filmmaker subject, in an archival interview snippet, comparing
himself to “a mouse that’s being toyed with by an abominable cat.”
Remarkably, while not excusing the crime, director Marina Zenovich
slowly shows that to be more or less true.

Like many, Zenovich  at first knew only the barest
details of the case: contracted by a European fashion magazine,
Polanski had arranged for a private photo shoot with the then
13-year-old Geimer, signed off on by Geimer’s mother. Charged with a litany of felony counts, including providing drugs to a
minor, he later plead guilty to one count, and fled the country before
sentencing. What Zenovich found out, though, was that Polanski actually served six weeks in Chino State Penitentiary for psychological
analysis, as part of a strange, elongated pas de
trois between legal counsel and adjudicator.

This isn’t a revelation in and of itself, of course, just an underreported fact from the past, but how the case arrived at that point in an era of indeterminate sentencing —
where Polanski could have been sent to jail from anywhere from six
months to 50 years — is a twisted story of play-acted justice. For that, Polanski needs a foil, and while Wanted and
Desired is indeed awash in grey in the picture it delivers of
Polanski, one of the more interesting characters that emerges is the
judge in the case. Laurence Rittenband had previously shown an
inclination for the spotlight, requesting and receiving oversight of
paternity suits against Spencer Tracy and Marlon Brando, among other
celebrity cases. His strange and overly solicitous courtship of the
media turned what was already a circus — with European press, not
bound by victim confidentiality rules, descending on Geimer’s school
and outing her identity — into something even more surreal and fatally flawed. (As an interesting sidebar, lifelong bachelor
Rittenbrand also had at least two girlfriends — “one for the cooking and one for the other stuff, he once explained to a friend — one of whom was 30 years
younger than him.)

A
riveting examination of the story behind the sound-bite, Wanted and Desired is superbly constructed with archival footage and modern day interviews, and is notable for the unanimity it
locates amidst all the murky morality of the situation. Even prosecutor
Roger Gunson, a straight-arrow Mormon who would eventually publicly side with
defense attorney Doug Dalton in some of the more explosive allegations
regarding the handling of the case, says that under the circumstances
he’s not surprised Polanski fled. As for Polanski, one can abhor
the crime, but still glimpse the pathology that informed it, dating
back to the brutal 1969 murder of his pregnant fiancée, Sharon Tate. As
he revealingly says in a rare interview with Clive James from 1984
which bookends the film, “Well, different people deal with things in
different ways — some go to whorehouses, some go to monasteries.” (HBO/ThinkFILM, unrated, 99 minutes)

An exercise in purebred, string-pulling craft, debut director Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers is an effectively grim, exceedingly well made horror thriller. Wringing atmospheric tension out of the familiar set-up of a besieged young couple, the movie compares favorably to recent genre cousins, mixing pulse-pounding scenes of more explicit menacing with passages of stalking more rooted in sustained dread.

Opening wide this week as goosing, modestly-budgeted counter-programming to the big screen version of Sex and the City, The Strangers won’t be able to pull in the sort of younger teen audiences that made a $48 million domestic hit out of 2006’s remake of When a Stranger Calls. Positive word-of-mouth, though, should give it some Stateside repeat-business staying power, especially given a lack of direct genre competition.

After a narrated textual introduction that frames the movie, somewhat dubiously, as “inspired by true events,” The Strangers unfolds over a period of several hours, almost exclusively at night. After leaving a friend’s wedding reception, Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) and James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) head to a relatively secluded country home that once belonged to James’ parents, for their own supposed night of celebration. Not long after their arrival in the dead of night, however, they’re visited by a woman creepily asking only if “Tamara” is there. After politely responding in the negative, James and Kristen are later attacked by a trio of mysterious, masked strangers — two women and one man — who take an unarticulated psychosexual delight in toying with their intended victims.

The story itself here, also penned by Bertino, is perhaps slim, but between the exacting care paid to its execution and a certain amount of subtext, there’s certainly enough here to make a convincing case for the film as a metaphor. It’s not an explicit self-critique of cinema like Michael Haneke’s recent remake of his own Funny Games, but rather a more general commentary that, in its own way, takes the temperature of these nervous times.

As with Nimrod Antal’s Vacancy, Bertino shades the material somewhat interestingly by having the young lovers at his story’s center begin quite apart from one another; Kristen has turned down James’ marriage proposal, at least for the time being. This choice, along with strong, dialed-in performances from both Tyler and Speedman, help quickly create a shared sympathy for the characters in what is otherwise a fairly streamlined tale.

By being unafraid to trade so heartily in silences and tension rather than solely crashing thrills, Bertino crafts a work that easily outstrips the typically baser impulses of so much like-minded fare. It’s not merely about keeping one guessing with story choices; as with the best, most unnerving thrillers, there’s a parallel sense of unease that comes from not knowing exactly what a film wants from you as an audience member. The Strangers works in this vein because its antagonists are physically unknown and also driven by unexplained impulses that extend beyond “just” killing.

For the most part eschewing desultory jump-scares, Bertino favors wide-angle compositions and floating, hand-held camera work, from cinematographer Peter Sova (Donnie Brasco), that help give the movie a fantastically accumulated sense of unease. This care extends to the film’s soundtrack, too, which makes fine use of crackling fire and record player pops in the background. For the full review, from Screen International, click here. (Universal/Rogue, R, 85 minutes)

Based on a simple plot description, it sounds, of course, like another “down-market,” slapstick-laden comedy — a movie perhaps destined to play as part of a late-night, cable TV double feature with 2006’s drab Employee of the Month, which starred Jessica Simpson as the mutual object of affection for a pair of feuding retail warehouse workers played by Dane Cook and Dax Shepard. But The Promotion, in which two assistant managers of a supermarket chain vie for the position of manager at a newly constructed store in a hip area of Chicago, is — pleasantly, if to its own potential commercial detriment — the exact opposite of the overly demonstrative goofball comedy that it easily could have been, especially if handed over to the likes of a director like Fred Wolf (Strange Wilderness) or Steven Brill (Drillbit Taylor).

Previously titled Quebec, it ignores farcical broadsides, shots to the groin and contrived dashes through aisles of precariously balanced glass bottles in favor of swallowed awkwardness and lingering customer service issues, and the result is probably one of the most low-fi movies about masculine competitiveness and existential crisis ever put to film. The feature directorial debut of Steve Conrad, the writer of The Weather Man and The Pursuit of Happyness, The Promotion is about both the momentary awakening and eventual, shrugging receding of an alpha impulse in two otherwise beta males.

The story centers on Doug (Seann William Scott) and his young wife Jen (Jenna Fischer), a nurse, who share an apartment with paper-thin walls, and all the frustration that brings. Doug is the ranking assistant manager at a nearby grocery store, and his boss (Fred Armisen) seems to agree that he’s a shoe-in for the head spot at a new location. But when the slightly older Richard (John C. Reilly) arrives, new to the area with his family, from Canada, those odds take a hit. Subtle jockeying and gamesmanship ensue, with each man trying to impress the company’s board while not seeming to totally denigrate his competition.

As his previous writing credits suggest, Conrad has a certain way with masculine malaise. Here, Doug and Richard are each in their own way felled by pride, yet the movie as a whole takes just about every inwardly held expectation one might have about the concept and subverts it. This means no elaborate, unrealistic schemes of sabotage, no over-the-top physical comedy. Conrad instead parcels out a number of outlying character details which at first seem to be bluffs designed to give Doug and Richard some measure of false insight and confidence over the other. There’s also a shrewd sense of detail; Doug bemoans being a “short-sleever” for life, so Jen’s gift of long-sleeve dress shirts favored by more senior management triggers a quiet tidal wave of guilt over his lie to her that he’s already received the promotion. Everything here is perfectly to scale, and the fibs and actions both guys make and take have realistic consequences.

The Promotion isn’t necessarily for all tastes, but it deepens as it keeps unfolding, and never stops finding small and meaningful ways to surprise its audience. In a summer of explosions and desultory set pieces, its quiet grappling is a welcome, witty diversion. (The Weinstein Company/Dimension, R, 86 minutes)

In the late 1950s, as the post-war rise of Abstract Expressionism became the new wave of painting in the United States, a small but determined band of California painters, curators and collectors exercised impulse over calculation, and in the process created their own scene. Eschewing the trickle-down influence of the New York City set, and battling an apathetic public and L.A. Board of Supervisors who derailed citywide arts fairs under the rationalization of communist infiltration (at one point claiming a painting of a sailboat nefariously concealed a hammer and sickle), these headstrong Left Coasters brought a new and vigorously American slant to contemporary painting, as this lively new documentary details.

Director Morgan Neville has to his name a smattering of excellent serial biography small screen credits, and had a hand as a writer-producer in the excellent tele-doc The Night James Brown Saved Boston, about a Beantown concert following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Here, he imbues The Cool School with a style at once engaging and unpretentious. Using the late Walter Hopps, co-owner of the influential Ferus Gallery, as its
nexus, the film shows how art of the time came to be informed by the
laid-back, anything-goes culture of the Southland, and particularly
Venice Beach. Similar in perspective to Stacy Peralta’s Dogtown and
Z-Boys and Riding Giants, which documented the origins and rise of
skate and surf culture, respectively, The Cool School is a fascinating,
well-packaged and artfully told story of outsiders cracking the
mainstream. Jeff Bridges provides the narration, and interviewees
include critic Peter Plagens and dozens of notable artists, as well as
scenester benefactors Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper. (Arthouse Films, unrated, 86 minutes)

It’s never really a good idea to have a character, late in your movie, say, “I don’t understand,” and then have that followed by a lengthy recap explanation of what’s just happened. It rather needlessly and obviously opens one up for all sorts of exasperated cracks about shoddy, tangled storytelling. And yet that’s just what happens at the end of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the hotly anticipated latest installment in the whip-cracking, period piece adventure trilogy.

When we last saw Harrison Ford’s globe-trotting archeologist Indiana Jones nearly two decades ago, the year on screen was 1938, and the world stood on the brink of war as Dr. Jones chased down evildoers to find the Holy Grail. Nineteen years later, he’s cracking his whip again, and many things have changed but some have remained the same. Again the world is at a precipice, this time caused by the specter of nuclear annihilation, and Indy’s struggle is to once more ensure that a precious, mysterious object remains safe from those bent on destroying humanity.

The early scenes find a captured Indiana Jones grappling with “Stalin’s fair-haired gal” Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett, exercising a severe accent and an even more severe hairstyle), a brilliant and ruthless Russian scientist intent on scooping up items of paranormal interest, with an eye toward their potential military application. So when the movie opens, we’re back in the same massive government warehouse glimpsed at the end of 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the spoils of unearthed civilizations and all sorts of other secret artifacts are kept.

With both his father and good friend and colleague Dr. Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott) having passed away, Indiana is now a bit more isolated and alone in the world, even though new dean Charles Stanforth (Jim Broadbent) has his back, and is a trusted friend. Pal George “Mac” Michale (Ray Winstone) is a bit more suspicious, though; he sells Indy out, then much later claims it was a game of play-acted double agent, which seems curious given all the very real bullets flying around in the opening act.

After escaping both Spalko’s grasp and a nuclear test blast (more on this in a moment), Indiana is approached by Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf, above right), a young, headstrong biker kid who apparently took all his clothing and grooming cues from Marlon Brando in The Wild One. Mutt pitches a tale of woe related to an old mutual friend, Professor Oxley (John Hurt), and after escaping some more Ruskies, he and Indiana set out for the jungle in search of the title’s crystal skull, eventually reconnecting with Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), spitfire leading lady of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

All the proper details of nostalgia are pretty much spot on, and Ford’s well-worn embodiment of the timeless adventure hero is equally enjoyable, particularly for boomer audiences who may have long ago dragged their kids to see the original trilogy. Part of the problem here, though, lies in the updating of the character and the passage of time. Director Steven Spielberg and his cohorts wisely acknowledge Indiana’s advanced age, in both word and deed, and yet also cling strongly to the same B-movie logic that allows for cartoonish set pieces and escapes. These sequences are technically of a piece with the rest of the series (after all, who can forget Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom‘s airplane dive on an inflatable raft, down a snowy mountainside, and then into a river?), but come off as cheats in a sense, because what’s the point of exposing Indiana’s fallibility if it doesn’t translate to some degree to his feats of derring-do? This credibility gap is exposed early on when Indiana Jones ducks into a lead-lined refrigerator to protect himself from a nuclear test. The lesson: if you don’t accept this, here, as a sort of live-action Looney Tunes cartoon, you’re going to have issues with how things unfold. (On the other hand, now we have a good idea of how Indy will die — from cancer from radiation poisoning.)

Spielberg, of course, is a technical maestro on many levels, so the movie more or less quickens pulses when it should — you can easily envision the theme park ride, complete with wild jungle chase and CGI ants — and there’s some pithy, whip-crack enjoyableness to some of the dialogue (“You fight like a young man — eager to begin, quick to finish!” says Spalko to Mutt at one point, during a sword fight set on speeding jeeps). But if anything, the script here — credited to David Koepp, from a story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson — seems a bit bored with its own labyrinthine back story. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull introduces the tantalizing possibility of aliens, or “inter-dimensional beings,” which would seem an interesting way to bridge the E.T./Close Encounters of the Third Kind/A.I. branch of Spielberg’s canon with his swashbuckling instincts, but gets too bogged down with Hurt’s catatonic Professor Oxley, a yawning connective plot element.

Indiana Jones is at his best as a character when grappling with or confronted by something parallel to his own nature — be it amoral plunderer/shadow self Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman) from the first film, or the complicated nature of his bickering relationship with his father (Sean Connery) in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Marion and Mutt are meant to provide that here, but — while offering some fitful fun — that strand doesn’t sing as a legitimate throughline. That fact, combined with the aforementioned criticisms, creates somewhat of a strange generational gap — and probably still the first wholly nostalgic action adventure blockbuster. (Paramount, PG-13, 124 minutes)

Ascendant funnyman Danny McBride stars in this comedy about a small town martial arts instructor struggling with a couple life crises, an amiable but meandering tale that wears out both its threadbare premise and welcome long before the end of its running time. The micro-budgeted The Foot Fist Way — its title the literal translation of tae kwon do — shot in three weeks as a self-financed feature, premiered at Sundance in 2006, and saw the addition of new material after Will Ferrell’s production company finally picked up the film for distribution via Paramount Vantage. In much the same manner Napoleon Dynamite did in 2004, The Foot Fist
Way angles to position itself as the low-fi, counter-programming
alternative to clamorous summer genre product. But middling
word-of-mouth and the relatively low current profile of McBride — who
costarred in last fall’s Hot Rod, and appears in this August’s Tropic Thunder — likely won’t be enough to push domestic returns into eight
figures.

Set in small town North Carolina, the movie centers around tae kwon do
instructor Fred Simmons (McBride, above left), who owns and operates a strip mall
martial arts business, and lectures his students, adults and kids
alike, about focus, self-control and perseverance. Fred’s wife Susan
(Mary Jane Bostic), though, doesn’t respect what he does, and starts to
cheat on him. This rocks Fred’s world, and things don’t get much better
when Fred eventually meets his idol, competition champion turned
preening, entitled movie star Chuck “The Truck” Wallace (Ben Best), and
finds his hero not all he’s imagined.

Somewhat interestingly, and to its credit, The Foot Fist
Way doesn’t
infantalize Fred or portray him as a loser for his occupation. The script, though,
co-written by McBride, Best and actor-director Jody Hill, never locates
a convincing, persuasively amusing tone. It isn’t rooted in a specificity of character, and none of the
supporting players have the arcs or depth of quirk that comprised
Napoleon Dynamite‘s amusing background tapestry. Whereas that film — another zonked comedy centered around a strange, headstrong character —
located something approaching universality in its portrayal of seething
nerd petulance, The Foot Fist
Way never particularly seems anchored to
anything other than its makers’ passing fancies. It floats, and flits
by. It happens. And then it’s over.

McBride, though, brings to bear
plenty of his wry, burly charisma. The roundabout manner in which
Fred assays his problems (indicating irritation with his wife’s
behavior, he leaves a rambling phone message, in part saying,
“Wondering why you haven’t called, I’m a little ticked off… and
super-pissed, so… change it”) attests to the fact that everyone is
the star of their own private narrative. With that canted cadence and steeled self-confidence, McBride acquits himself scene to scene. The performances of the mostly non-professional actors appearing as Fred’s students,
meanwhile, lend the movie a nice sheen of realism with respect to its
setting. For the full original review, from Screen International, click here. (Paramount Vantage, R, 87 minutes)

Dan Brown’s bestselling The Da Vinci Code popularized, in discussion if not belief, the theory that Jesus Christ escaped his crucifixion, married Mary Magdalene, and had a child, and that the Catholic Church and others have engaged in a conspiracy to suppress this fact. The ample, worldwide commercial shadow of that book and its subsequent film adaptation provide the necessary cover for mushroom cinema like this documentary, which includes interviews with a mysterious, finger-tenting, alleged Priory of Sion member and investigates archaeological proof of said theory in southwest France via amateur English adventurer Ben Hammott.

Directed by Bruce Burgess — whose other credits, it turns out, include movies about Bigfoot, the Ark of the Covenant, and the Bermuda Triangle — Bloodline is unfortunately the type of film that confuses investment of time with insight and evidence. Burgess’s refusal to put Hammott and his many discoveries through the wringer (despite, say, the mostly empty bottle of vodka lingering in the corner of a frame during one morning interview) at first comes across as curious and then just increasingly negligent, finally culminating in a passage which confirms a piece of Hammott’s evidence using … other pieces of Hammott’s own evidence. It’s shoddy filmmaking like this — no matter the high inherent intrigue factor here, especially for docu-philes — that makes Bloodline ridiculous, no matter how much one may want to believe what it’s peddling. For the original review, from CityBeat, click here. (Cinema Libre, unrated, 118 minutes)

Mister Lonely — the first film in eight years from Harmony Korine, the
erstwhile l’enfant terrible behind 1995’s Kids, as its screenwriter,
and, later, the even more avant-garde Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy —
summons to mind nothing quite so much as, from U2’s “Hold Me, Thrill
Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me,” the following lyric: “Dressing like your
sister/Living like a tart/They don’t know what you’re doing/Babe, it
must be art!”

Of course that song, a one-off contribution to the soundtrack for 1995’s Batman Forever, was an acknowledged exercise in ironic, self-referential vamping. Co-written with his brother Avi, Korine’s movie is part deadpan acting class exercise, part metaphorical art school construct. It’s also never less than wholly sincere, which is why it comes off as such a tangled mess of unruly intentions, like the drunken, yammering high school friend of yesteryear trying to tell you three stories at once.

The main story here centers around a Parisian Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) who meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton) and takes her up on an impulsive offer to move back with her to a commune in the Scottish Highlands, where Marilyn lives with her husband Charlie Chaplin (Denis Lavant), daughter Shirley Temple, and a group of other impersonators that includes Sammy Davis, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, the Three Stooges, Madonna, Buckwheat and James Dean. All the nutty goings-on at this sort of island for misfit toys — which include ping pong, drunken carousing and prepping for a talent show that will in theory provide a much-needed cash infusion — are crosscut with unrelated events in a Latin American jungle, where nuns flying food-drop aid missions with a chattering priest (Werner Herzog) come to realize they are blessed with a special gift.

Korine has an undeniable eye for images — witness the slow-motion opening credit sequence set to Bobby Vinton’s heartbreaking title tune (above), and some amazing skydiving nun footage — as well as an occasionally deft touch with mood. What he needs, though, is someone to impose more rigid structure. Very loosely, Mister Lonely is about locating thankfulness in a topsy-turvy world, and yet part of its dark metaphorical conclusion relates to the special death that those who dare to dream out loud die. (Very literally, the commune’s diseased sheep are put down early in the movie, yet similarly harsh fates await other characters.)

Korine seems to lose interest in Michael as a focal character, though, and the film suffers as a consequence. Without him as our cracked protagonist, or a stronger sense of the ensemble characters, things that could or should be funny — like Buckwheat giving an unruly, sobbing Pope a bath, or Lincoln riding bitch on a motorcycle, drumming up talent show business through a megaphone — only serve to reinforce the point that Mister Lonely is less than the sum of its colorful parts. (IFC, unrated, 112 minutes)

It’s perhaps appropriate that I caught Larry and Andy Wachowski’s Speed Racer in the miserable throes of a head cold/flu, hopped up on a cocktail of over-the-counter meds. After all, it’s essentially the big screen equivalent of a hallucinatory cattle prod to the senses.

A hyper-charged, gumball-colored family flick (the production design
seems inspired by Dick Tracy, The Cat and
The Hat and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the action by Ice Cube’s biker flick Torque) based on the old cartoon by Tatsuo Yoshida,
and debuting simultaneously in conventional theaters and on IMAX
screens, Speed Racer certainly has to set some sort of cinematic record
for screen wipes. It’s shot in tight close-ups, and never lets you
forget that it’s a movie. A funny thing happens on the way to the dulling, sensory overload,
though: the exacting construction of the Wachowskis’ script, as well as
some invested performances by its cast, creates enough of an emotional
through-line that one can, with a hard squint, almost take Speed Racer seriously. Almost.

As his name would suggest, the pure thrill of driving is everything to
young Speed (Emile Hirsch). Racing is in his blood, and the mechanical
skill of his father Pops (John Goodman), the designer of his thundering
Mach 5, and the support of his Mom (Susan Sarandon) and longtime gal
pal Trixie (Christina Ricci) have helped lay a sturdy foundation for
Speed, even if he is still haunted by the memory of his older brother
Rex. After turning down the ego-maniacal owner (Roger Allam) of Royalton
Industries, though, Speed finds himself grappling with the realization
that racing isn’t just about honest competition — it’s big business,
and a dirty one at that. Teaming up with Inspector Detector (Benno
Fürmann) and the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox), he sets out to foil
Royalton and other corrupt corporate interests.

Like other Hollywood studio-peddled tales cautioning about the reach
of big business or government (Paul Weitz’s In Good
Company, and the Wachowski-produced V for Vendetta, say), the
anti-establishment story at the core of Speed Racer seems more than a bit
incongruous if pondered for too long. I’d allow, though, that just as
with the Matrix series, the Wachowskis manage to undeniably create a
new thing here; the movie is a technical marvel on
many levels. Yet for all its ample visual pop, the racing scenes never
really meant a thing to me; all the CGI renders them, well, just a
cartoon. Late in the film, a stylized, group-rumble fight sequence, meanwhile,
plays as the logical, hyped-up extension of the old bam-pow! Batman TV
fisticuffs. Rightly or wrongly, after bullet-time, that feels like a
water-treading ploy for wide-scale embrace, an acquiescence to the
corporate cookie-cutter culture that Speed Racer claims to rail
against. (Warner Bros., PG, 135 minutes)

After a protracted rights hang-up that saw its release delayed more than a year from its Sundance 2007 bow — until after the recent Rambo sequel — the canted coming-of-age comedy Son of Rambow [sic] finally hits theaters this week. Set in small town Great Britain in the 1980s, the movie centers on floppy-armed, pint-sized pre-teen Will (Bill Milner, below right), a fatherless member of a puritanical religious sect in which recorded entertainment is strictly forbidden. When Will sees a pirated copy of First Blood, though, his imagination explodes in sugar-rush fashion. At first blackmailed by rascally ne’er-do-well Lee Carter (Will Poulter, below left) into helping him out on a stunt reel, Will convinces his new pal they should make their own action epic. When disenchanted French exchange student Didier (Jules Sitruk) catches wind and demands a part, suddenly everyone wants in on Will and Lee Carter’s film.

Written and directed by Garth Jennings (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the
Galaxy), Son of Rambow exudes a handcrafted feel, and is at its best
when seducing us with its
madcap, visually inventive style. Will and Lee Carter are “types,” though, and their relationship runs a bit hot-cold; I wished the movie showed more of them actually bickering and working things out. I was also really intrigued and amused by Didier, and the notion — introduced in a throwaway bit late in the movie — that he
was a bit of a poseur, which is to say alien-cool to the Brits, but a dork to all the rest of the French kids. Jennings unfortunately wastes the rich comic potential of this premise. Finally, the movie too is more than a a bit unrealistic with regards to Will’s mother’s sudden slide away from the hermetic existence which they’ve been leading; that just doesn’t pass the smell test. In fact, less is more; Son of Rambow doesn’t earn or need the tearful scene of familial reconciliation, centering around the return of a watch belonging to Will’s late father. This is a extra-familial story, about finding acceptance and brotherhood outside of conventional structures.

Still, the two lead performances here — one salty, one sweet — give this movie lift. The gangly Milner in particular is unforcedly charming, and physically sort of a live-action version of Fievel Mouskewitz, from 1986’s An American Tail. Son of Rambow has an undeniable pinch of that same comic-tinged nostalgia that makes 1983’s A Christmas Story the de rigueur holiday viewing for all the alt-cool Christian families out there. For a condensed version of this review, as originally published in CityBeat, click here. (Paramount Vantage, PG-13, 96 minutes)

A slickly attractive, well cast and solidly constructed piece of mainstream, action-adventure entertainment, Iron Man represents the latest Marvel comic property to go legit, and would seem, based on its top-shelf execution, to have all the ingredients of another successful franchise-in-waiting. Anchored by an enjoyably charismatic performance from Robert Downey, Jr., and serving as the logical extension of Jon Favreau’s directing skill, the movie should represent a positive kick-off to the summer box office season for distributor Paramount.

Occupying the same early-May slot that has typically been reserved for sequels like Spider-Man 3 and Mission: Impossible III the last couple years, Iron Man should have no problem turning out Marvel’s devoted fan base. With a forward-leaning protagonist seeking a more moral interaction with the world, the film also seems to have the potential to expand on its core audience. While it’s not an ensemble hero piece like the X-Men series, the rest of the cast are involved enough in the story to give it a broader sense of moorings, and one can easily envision a grander series blooming from this origin story.

The absence of a hugely marketable action star, and relative stature of the comic book title, may somewhat suppress international turnout when compared to other superhero adaptations, but positive word-of-mouth and critical reaction should push Iron Man close to an even split with domestic returns. Ancillary marketplace value will be additionally robust, with extensive excised scenes, presumably re-included, driving DVD sales.

Downey, Jr. stars as billionaire industrialist and genius inventor Tony Stark, the second-generation CEO of the government’s top weapons contractor. A rascally charmer derided as being constitutionally incapable of responsibility, Stark has achieved political-celebrity status by protecting American interests around the globe for decades, and enjoying himself while doing it. This embrace of the limelight costs him, though; following an overseas weapons test, Stark’s convoy is attacked. Injured by shrapnel embedded near his heart, Stark is tasked with building a weapon, but instead builds a suit of armor to escape captivity.

Upon his return to America, this erstwhile lord of war is transformed, and vows to take his company in a new direction. Despite resistance from long-time aide Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges, below right), Stark secretly sets about personally developing a cybernetically controlled suit of armor that, with its proprietary repulsor-ray technology, gives him superhuman strength and the ability to fly. Distraught by his company’s complicity in a tangled case of arms double-dealing with global implications, Stark sets out, with the help of his devoted assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and trusted friend and military liaison Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard), to right past wrongs.

Some of the seams of Iron Man‘s screenplay — the first draft of which was penned by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, then punched up by Children of Men co-writers Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby — show, given the lengths to which the movie goes to establish the multi-ethnicity of its terrorist bad guys. These bits, and swathes of its third act action finale, sometimes feel like an exercise in obligation, albeit dazzling in their technical execution.

Still, there’s a playfulness to many especially introductory scenes that benefits Iron Man, and informs the crusading yet wryly self-effacing spirit of its protagonist. The true test of a superhero movie, especially a series debut, is whether it could survive without any of the action scenes, and Iron Man definitely could. Favreau exhibits great care and investment in establishing the relationships of all the characters, and the latent exasperation many feel for Stark; his gift with actors is evident in carefully attuned supporting performances from Bridges, Paltrow and Howard.

Also, while he previously proved his talent at juggling fantasy action elements — albeit on a much different scale, in the under-regarded kids’ flick Zathura — Favreau here shows himself skilled as a cinematic constructor, a master of attention to the component parts of filmmaking. He’s abetted by fantastic, sleek work from Industrial Light & Magic. The different iterations of the Iron Man suit are all interesting, as is the giant Iron Monger suit — resembling a marauding version of the title creature from 1999 animated flick The Iron Giant, from Brad Bird — that Obadiah Stane uses to battle Stark late in the movie. Other technical credits are equally top-notch.

Stark possesses intellect, ingenuity, rakishness and more than a little self-destructive single-mindedness, and Downey wonderfully captures all of those aspects of his personality. Owing to Downey’s dramatic chops, there’s also a glimpse of the deep reservoir of pain that comes through, effectively shading the material without explicitly dwelling on many of the darker elements present in the comics, namely Stark’s alcoholism. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here.