Category: #WWMD

140 Character Movie Review: #140RVW

Unnecessary but solid sequel extends the story without necessarily enhancing it. Focus on making epic franchise distracts from the humor…

Spoiler-free Review of How To Train Your Dragon 2:

British author Cressida Cowell has written a dozen books in the How To Train Your Dragon series, so I suppose my assertion that this sequel isn’t strictly necessary may seem ridiculous. Nevertheless, I persist that as much as I loved the original, it was a complete story that didn’t really need to go any further.

I do realize that there is a tv show as well as some straight to video releases. I have watched a few of them and they’re pretty good for tv. They are on an excellent production level and even have most of the same voice talent, which is remarkable. This isn’t what Saturday morning cartoons were like when I was a kid. TV cartoon versions of movies, even animated movies, fell off hugely in quality, budget and by virtually any other measure.

The setting and premise are perfect for more stories. I’m just not sure they are big screen stories. There’s an expectation, entirely reasonable in my mind, that movies you shuffle off to the theater for and shell out cash had better be significant. It puts a lot of pressure on filmmakers to produce epic spectacles.

And that’s really what’s happening here. Instead of a cute little movie about a boy and his friend, they’ve turned this thing into part 2 of a grand saga. Writer/director Dean DeBlois, who co-wrote/co-directed the original, even insisted on turning this into a trilogy as a condition of making a sequel. Sigh. What is it with trilogies? Do we have this spot in our brains that isn’t happy unless stories fit into three parts?

DeBlois has stated that his model for the film is Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back. C’mon, son. You don’t say that. You don’t even think that. Don’t invite comparisons to the greatest sequel ever made. Everyone aspires to equal Empire when they make a sequel, but what they really mean is “let’s get dark and serious”. Persistently forgetting that what makes Empire so good isn’t that it’s darker; it’s just such an amazing story. And this isn’t the franchise to go dark with.

Mind you, I love what they’ve done here. It is epic and it is well done. It just isn’t all that fun and even less funny.

The visuals are absolutely stunning. It is simply gorgeous and the character models are among the best CG I’ve ever seen. But I just can’t get past the fact that they’re making a cartoon. This level of animated brilliance has indeed produced possibly the best dragon movie yet. But it’s still populated with these goofy looking people. The better the backgrounds, fire effects and animation gets, the more ridiculous it is that we’re stuck looking at these big-eyed round faces. CG animation continues to evolve with every new picture in every facet except for the people. It’s like they got to a certain point of reasonably good looking caricatures of humans and stopped. I’m guessing because every time they’ve tried the next step, it looks creepy. Better to keep them looking like cartoons where they won’t be expected to be facsimiles of life. I understand that, I suppose, but it does mean that every studio’s output now looks identical. Worse, I’m left with the feeling that we’re in a transition stage and when we finally reach the next step of reproducing CG actors, all this stuff won’t play.

How To Train Your Dragon 2 is a really good movie, I don’t mean to be negative or imply that it isn’t. I was impressed with it and did enjoy it. I simply didn’t enjoy it in the same way as the first film. It wasn’t hugely funny – it’s not that the jokes weren’t successful, it just seemed like there weren’t many of them. It’s not a fantasy action comedy; it’s a comedic fantasy actioner. Think Dragonslayer, not Ghostbusters. Nothing wrong with that (I LOVE Dragonslayer). It’s just not at all what I was expecting. I imagine I’ll like it much better the second time when I know what I’ll be getting. Because it really is a good looking film.

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Fail

The Representation Test Score: B (7 pts)

(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)

[schema type=”movie” name=”How To Train Your Dragon 2″ description=”When Hiccup and Toothless discover an ice cave that is home to hundreds of new wild dragons and the mysterious Dragon Rider, the two friends find themselves at the center of a battle to protect the peace.” director=”Dean DeBlois” ]

Main Cast	Jay Baruchel Hiccup (voice), Cate Blanchett Valka (voice), Gerard Butler Stoick (voice), Craig Ferguson Gobber (voice)
Rating	PG
Release Date	Fri 13 Jun 2014 UTC
Director	Dean DeBlois
Genres	Animation, Action, Adventure, Comedy, Family, Fantasy
Plot	When Hiccup and Toothless discover an ice cave that is home to hundreds of new wild dragons and the mysterious Dragon Rider, the two friends find themselves at the center of a battle to protect the peace.
Poster
Runtime	102
Tagline
Writers	Dean DeBlois (written by), Cressida Cowell (“How to Train Your Dragon” book series)
Year	2014

#140RVW

Watered-down, kid-friendly sequel proves that with enough talented people phoning it in, you can still sometimes come up with something ok.

What’s more:

Ghostbusters II is not a bad movie. It has the unenviable job of following up a nearly perfect movie. It can’t hope to equal the quality or success of the first film, and doesn’t.

Like so many sequels, the biggest problem is that it’s completely unnecessary and a blatant cash cow. There was nothing more to say, nothing original to add, and it doesn’t. The creative team behind the first film, (writers Dan Aykroyd & Harold Ramis and director Ivan Reitman) had absolutely no interest in revisiting the story to make a sequel, but were talked into it. That lack of enthusiasm shows. It’s just kind of half-baked.

It’s really a testament to how likeable the actors and the main characters are that the movie works at all. The story is terrible, but it’s not as though the story for the first film was the reason for its success. There, as here, the movie lives and dies because of Messrs. Aykroyd, Murray & Ramis. But this time around, they are suffocated by the indifferent story.

The story picks up with the group disbanded after being sued for all of the damage they caused in the first film. That’s not a bad setup, and leads to some great stuff. I would strongly argue that most of the good moments in the picture occur before they ever get back into the suits. You’ve got Ray & Winston singing to “Ungrateful little yuppie larva”, Venkman hosting the world’s best bad psychic show and Egon taking away a child’s puppy. Dana and Peter have some good dialogue and the courtroom scene is great. Everything after that is just slime…

Ahh, yes, the slime. The slime has feelings, it has emotions. The slime likes music and responds negatively to those grumpy New Yorkers. Are you serious with this? It’s a deal-killer. If you haven’t seen this in a while and are saying “C’mon, it was a good movie and really funny”, cue up the picture again. Watch the toaster dance to Fats Domino. Watch the Statue of Liberty inspire the citizens by blaring elevator music. See the bad guy defeated by the hardened city folk singing. Bobby Brown is in the movie, for God’s sake. The only way you remember the movie fondly is in fact by not truly remembering it. Not all of it…

Rick Moranis is brought back for no real reason at all, except due to my previously noted rule of minor characters being overused in sequels. Let’s go ahead and call it the Louis Tully rule, because this film is the best example of it. Both this character and the character of Slimer (who wasn’t really a character at all in the first movie) are here in large part because they were made into more “meaningful” roles in the Real Ghostbusters cartoon. Yes, Ghostbusters II was made primarily because of the success of a Saturday morning cartoon. Still confused about the goofy tone of the film?

Poor Ernie Hudson. He barely gets any more screen time than he did in the first picture, and in that one he wasn’t even introduced until the second half.

The Vigo the Carpathian bit works fairly well from a humor perspective; not quite as well as the big bad. Peter MacNicol is absolutely perfect with his Dr. Janosz Poha character. It’s over the top in all the right ways.

I retain mostly positive memories of Ghostbusters II. It’s got more than enough funny material to compensate for the lousy effects and weak story. It works best if you completely forget all of the lousy feel-good moments. The ending is as sickly sweet as Murray’s previous film, Scrooged. Must have been something in the water with these late 1980’s movies.

Ghostbusters II was a box-office hit upon release, but the reviews were negative, and after Batman came out a week later, it looked sickly by comparison. No one was clamoring for another sequel. So it’s unfortunate in my opinion that our nostalgia for the original has rekindled plans for a Ghostbusters III. The project has even gained momentum after the death of Harold Ramis. Such an ill-advised idea. I hope to be proven wrong, but I’m not waiting up nights. I’d be far happier if it rotted on the vine and left this flawed but fun sequel as the last chapter for our boys…

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Pass

The Representation Test Score: C (4 pts)

(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)

 

Main Cast	Bill Murray Dr. Peter Venkman, Dan Aykroyd Dr. Raymond Stantz, Sigourney Weaver Dana Barrett, Harold Ramis Dr. Egon Spengler
Rating	TV-PG
Release Date	Fri 16 Jun 1989 UTC
Director	Ivan Reitman
Genres	Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Plot	The discovery of a massive river of ectoplasm and a resurgence of spectral activity allows the staff of Ghostbusters to revive the business.
Poster
Runtime	108
Tagline	Be ready to believe us.
Writers	Dan Aykroyd (characters) and, Harold Ramis (characters) …
Year	1989

#140RVW

If less is more then its corollary that more is less is certainly the case here. There’s nothing really wrong with Thor 2; just kinda there.

What’s more:

The first Thor was a pleasant surprise. I’ve never had even a mild interest in the character and I just assumed they’d pass on making a film version of the God of Thunder since he was just so silly.

So I was unexpectedly engaged by Thor (2011). They crafted a great story of an arrogant royal brought low by hubris and his resultant quest for worth by accepting responsibility. It deliberately traded weighty importance for a more funny and irreverent tone that was far more accessible, while still taking the story and characters seriously. Just not too seriously, thankfully. The political intrigue and scheming of the gods was actually interesting and provided flavor. It had a classic fish out of water tale, buoyed by good acting, a lovable villain, and it was a hell of a lot of fun.

Chris Hemsworth & company are back for Thor: The Dark World, minus director Kenneth Branagh. Who would ever have thought that the movie that was overly dramatic and full of epic grandeur was NOT the one directed by the Shakespearean scholar?

I don’t think I’ve ever given up on a plot so quickly. Hopkins hadn’t even finished the pre-title exposition before I was completely lost (and indifferent). That’s got to be a record.

I’ll be the first to own up to a more than passing bout of superhero fatigue, and I’m sure that colored my opinion somewhat. But my daughter is right in the sweet spot for heroes right now – she can’t get enough of these. And she was underwhelmed.

Note: when we hit pause a little more than halfway through the movie to grab a snack from the kitchen, she looks at me and says “What do you think?” I said I was really enjoying it, but I could instantly tell we weren’t on the same page. “It just seems like they’re trying too hard to make it HUGE and EPIC” she commented. Hmm. Well spotted, I think.

It’s definitely the Motorhead approach to movies (“everything louder than everything else”). Nothing really wrong with that – it is a comic book movie about a huge dude with an enormous hammer, after all. Subtlety is not required.

But it definitely suffers from the modern CG action movie problem of lack of weight. The more destruction the less it seems to matter. There are these massive things happening but none of it feels particularly important.

I think it really comes back at some point to the story. It just isn’t fresh or strong enough to lift this thing above the pile of big action movies with lots of things smashing and exploding. The Macguffin is as uninspired as the villain, played by the Ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston, who presumably brought the costumes for himself and his elf henchman with him from the set of Doctor Who. They look ridiculous.

What I’m supposed to love most about the movie, I suppose, is the interaction with Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. And I do; he was the best thing about the 1st movie and The Avengers. But I think they’ve gone to the well one time too many here. Overexposure has weakened the character somewhat, and while he’s still the best thing in the picture, that’s faint praise this time around.

I actually enjoyed Thor 2 at the time, it just didn’t stay with me. Only days after seeing it I could barely remember anything about it. It was perfectly fine as a popcorn movie, I guess; I suppose I’d hoped for more.

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Pass

The Representation Test Score: C (4 pts)

(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)

 

Main Cast	Chris Hemsworth Thor, Natalie Portman Jane Foster, Tom Hiddleston Loki, Stellan Skarsgård Erik Selvig
Rating	PG-13
Release Date	Fri 08 Nov 2013 UTC
Director	Alan Taylor
Genres	Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Plot	When Jane Foster is possessed by a great power, Thor must protect her from a new threat of old times: the Dark Elves.
Poster
Runtime	112
Tagline
Writers	Christopher Yost (as Christopher L. Yost) (screenplay) and, Christopher Markus (screenplay) …
Year	2013

#140RVW

EXACTLY what it appears to be. That’s not a bad thing, really. Tidy little story for kids, funny & well executed. We should all be so lucky.

What’s more:

Going to be hard to stretch this review out, because there really isn’t a ton to say when a movie is so completely transparent about what it plans to accomplish. Hotel For Dogs knows exactly what it wants to be and what it wants to do, then proceeds to do exactly that.

Based on a 1971 novel, orphan siblings Andi (Emma Roberts) & Bruce (Jake T. Austin) are struggling to get by and running out of time and chances with foster parents, as they want to stick together but keep getting themselves into trouble. Their current foster parents, played by Lisa Kudrow and Kevin Dillon, are self-absorbed wannabe rockers who have little interest in the kids and no interest in letting them keep a dog.

While caring for their stray dog, Friday, they chance upon an abandoned hotel where they plan to keep Friday. The hotel is already inhabited by two strays, Georgia and Lenny, and if you can’t see where this is going I suggest you re-read the title.

Did you spot the metaphor? Unwanted dogs = orphans? Well done. Don’t be afraid to ask for help on the hard ones.

It’s a fun little movie. Undeterred by the adage “never work with children or animals”, director Thor Freudenthal manages to competently handle both in what couldn’t have been an easy shoot. Working on these type of family pictures is sort of a thankless job; you really only get recognized if you screw it up. But the production is very good, and the machines that young Bruce designs to care for the dogs are a blast.

But the young actors are cute and precocious and when you find out that Nickelodeon was behind it you may fall over from non-surprise. Everything is very safe.

Most of the enjoyment of the film comes, obviously from the animal talent. It really is quite impressive how well the animals are trained. They hand of man is completely absent here; the animals behave so believably for the camera that you completely forget that there are probably 50 trainers standing six inches out of frame. This movie could have been make with CG animals and they wouldn’t have had to change a thing – that’s how perfectly the dogs “act”.

I appreciate movies that punch their weight, and Hotel For Dogs certainly does. Unlikely to remain long in anyone’s memory, it is nevertheless certain to captivate kids for years – until they watch the next family-friendly movie…

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Pass

The Representation Test Score: B (9 pts)

(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)

 

Main Cast	Emma Roberts Andi, Jake T. Austin Bruce, Lisa Kudrow Lois Scudder, Don Cheadle Bernie
Rating	PG
Release Date	Fri 16 Jan 2009 UTC
Director	Thor Freudenthal
Genres	Comedy, Family
Plot	Two kids secretly take in stray dogs at a vacant hotel.
Poster
Runtime	100
Tagline	No stray gets turned away
Writers	Jeff Lowell (screenplay) and, Robert Schooley (as Bob Schooley) (screenplay) …
Year	2009

140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW

I really thought Gremlins 2 was a better movie than the original. I believed it for years. Then I re-watched them now back to back. Oops…

Spoiler-free Movie Review of Gremlins 2: The New Batch:

Gremlins 2: The New Batch is almost certainly the most unusual, atypical sequel ever made. It’s quite divisive for the same reason. It’s really interesting; there must be an equal percentage of people who liked and hated it, but it would be very hard to predict what percentage of each of those groups would count themselves fans of the original film.

My informal straw poll of acquaintances over the years finds that most people never even saw it. I suppose that isn’t very surprising. I didn’t see it in the theater, myself. The sequel came out in 1990, six years after the first film. That’s a little too long for a sequel for this type of movie. The film landscape had changed quite a bit in that time. There was no way this tale of a cute puppet that turns into monstrous puppets was going to have the same impact second time around.

Director Joe Dante really didn’t want to make a sequel, and the movie languished in development hell until he was persuaded to return with complete creative control. But a lot of time had passed; Chris Columbus, who came up with the original story, was now an accomplished screenwriter and director and about to hit it out of the park with the film Home Alone. Special effects wizard Chris Walas had also moved on to a directing career (if less successfully), and so the look of the Gremlins and therefore the film was going to have to change.

With the extra leash Dante had earned, he set out to make a film that would effectively skewer the very concept of sequels. Dante made a film like someone who has been talked into something and either a) wants to get fired, or b) knows he never will be fired and can therefore do whatever he wants. Gremlins 2 is a subversive cartoon of a movie.

The film was written by Charlie Haas, who is a fairly interesting choice based on his previous credits. My exhaustive research (i.e.; looking it up on imdb) shows him as the screenwriter of a pair of early Matt Dillon movies, Over the Edge & Tex, and some TV movies. I wonder what it was that caused the producers to hire him. Whatever it was, I’m grateful, because this is a great script, as is his follow-up, the wonderful Matinee.

FX legend Rick Baker came aboard to take on the thankless task of updating someone else’s work. He was likely persuaded by Dante & Haas’ vision of many more varied Gremlins. This produced mixed results.

It’s a crazy movie. It even starts off very unusually, with a Looney Tunes intro. Warner Bros was celebrating the 50th birthday of Bugs Bunny at the time and shoehorned this whole animated bit into the film. The plus side is that it reunited animation legend Chuck Jones with the characters that had made him so famous. The down side, of course, is that it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to have the cartoon lead-in. It was initially a few minutes long, but when studio execs found it confusing (which it was), they cut it back to a very brief intro (which did nothing to make its inclusion less confusing). This may seem to be an odd point to focus on, but it really is a bizarre decision. I think the concept was to let the audience know that the movie they were about to watch would have a cartoonish zaniness to it – it didn’t. It made you wonder what the hell was going on and gave you the impression that what you were actually in for was total madness. Hmm, actually, maybe it did work…

Because that tone is prevalent throughout the film, and this is really where the dividing line sits. If you thought the first movie was too dark, you were in for a treat. If you thought the first movie wasn’t dark enough, you were in for a long night.

Gremlins 2 as a sequel has the unique distinction of being criticized both for being too derivative, and too dissimilar. Sort of depends on what you thought about the first film.

The setup is nearly exactly the same, but the delivery is completely different.

Billy & Katie have left their hometown of Kingston Falls for the big city, where they both work in a futuristic automated tower, the province of billionaire media mogul Daniel Clamp (perfectly played by John Glover). Through an unlikely chain of occurrences, Gizmo ends up in the tower and briefly back in the custody of Billy. Of course Gizmo gets wet, spawns a bunch of mischievous Mogwai who will manage to turn into Gremlins nearly before the first act is complete.

Here’s where it gets a bit different. The whole picture takes place in one main location – the office building. The choice of single location is inspired; aside from the interesting things you can do with monsters in a tower, it provides a setting from which to completely satirize 1980’s society. And this is where you begin to realize that we’re in for more of a comedy farce.

They make the unusual decision to distinguish the Mogwai, leading to some of the all-time worst character designs Rick Baker has ever been responsible for. One has “crazy eyes”, which is always a sign of trouble; another seems to be channeling Edward G. Robinson of all people.

In order to keep things interesting, the Gremlins get into a genetic research lab (run by Christopher Lee because why not) where they can sample different formulas that will transform them into different Gremlin hybrids. Sort of interesting, but it also instantly takes the movie from scary to silly. I don’t think anything about this movie could ever be confused with the borderline horror feel of the original.

They even bring in John Astin (Gomez Addams) for a cameo and cast Robert Prosky as Grampa Fred, a Grampa Munster type character just to underline the camp horror aspect they’re going for.

For the most part, the humor is excellent, particularly the automated messages from the building itself or the building staff picking apart the ridiculousness of the 3 rules for the Mogwai. It’s good satire, but the whole movie is seriously dated as a result. All the topical 80’s references simply don’t play anywhere near as well now. In the first film, Gizmo marvels as Clark Gable as a race car driver and recreates the role later in the film as he’s becoming the hero. I didn’t need to explain to my daughter who Clark Gable was – it was an archetype, not an in-joke. But when Gizmo goes Rambo in the sequel, I did have to pause the movie to explain the whole Rambo thing. And don’t get me started on the Hulk Hogan cameo…

Once the movie settles into the endless scenes of Gremlin shenanigans, the style moves directly into cartoon territory and never looks back. This is the stuff you came to see. The original also basked in the insanity of the Gremlins misbehaving and taking over the town. Interestingly, when you think about it, while the Gremlins do a lot of damage, they appear to do little real harm. Only the school teacher and the nasty realtor buy it in the first film. After that, all the humans make miraculous recoveries. (A big change from the first script, which had the creatures going to McDonalds to eat people.) It’s even more toothless here. I’m not sure anyone actually conclusively dies in the whole movie.

The movie also suffers from a sequel trend found in many films but nowhere so much as in the 1980’s: what I’m going to call character creep. You have a bit part in a movie, it’s funny, people like it. (Judge Reinhold in Beverly Hills Cop, Rick Moranis in Ghostbusters, Dick Miller as Murray Futterman in Gremlins) They make a sequel and think “Let’s bring them back but now they’re one of the stars! Everyone wants more of them!” No, we don’t. Not at all. It worked because it was an aside, a little extra color to the film. No one wants more sprinkles on their ice cream – a little bit is enough.

For years I told anyone who would listen that Gremlins 2 was a chaotic, funny, subversive and great movie and superior to the original. Now I’m not so sure. It really doesn’t age well in comparison to the original. The of-the-moment jokes really date it, and while the cartoonish craziness is still very funny all of the varied Gremlin characters cross the line into actual cartoons. Like the Looney Tunes characters that interject themselves into the closing credits, the zaniness goes too far and feels out of place.

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Pass

The Representation Test Score: C (4 pts)

(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)

[schema type=”movie” name=”Gremlins 2: The New Batch” description=”Billy Peltzer and Kate Beringer move to New York City and meet up with their Mogwai friend, Gizmo, when a series of accidents creates a new generation of diverse gremlins. Billy, Kate, and Gizmo must once again use all their experience to prevent another catastrophe.” director=”Joe Dante” actor_1=”Zach Galligan” ]

Main Cast	Zach Galligan Billy Peltzer, Phoebe Cates Kate Beringer, John Glover Daniel Clamp, Robert Prosky Grandpa Fred
Rating	PG-13
Release Date	Fri 15 Jun 1990 UTC
Director	Joe Dante
Genres	Comedy, Horror
Plot	The Gremlins are back, and this time, they’ve taken total control over the building of a media mogul.
Poster
Runtime	106
Tagline	Take Your Batch to See the New Batch.
Writers	Chris Columbus (characters), Charles S. Haas (as Charlie Haas) (written by)
Year	1990