"Arthur"
Richard's Review: 3 stars
Your enjoyment of "Arthur," the remake of the 30-year-old Dudley Moore comedy, is in direct ratio to your enjoyment of Russell Brand. His brand of Brit-speak verbal diarrhea works in small doses. The trick here is to see whether audiences will sit through two hours of word-play rivalled only by Charlie Sheen on a crack-fuelled Internet rant.
Brand is Arthur Bach the ne'er-do-well heir to an enormous fortune. He's a womanizing playboy, a drunk man-child whose nanny (Helen Mirren) describes him as "merely shaped like an adult."
When his "savant-ish gift for defying death with fun" embarrasses his mother she brings down the hammer. Either he straightens up and marries the beautiful but all-business Susan or be disinherited. Trouble is, he's in love with Naomi (Greta Gerwig) a charismatic Grand Central Station tour guide.
"Arthur Redux" isn't an improvement on the original, but it isn't a waste of time either.
Brand is front and center here, chewing the scenery as though he hasn't eaten in years. For the first hour he delivers every line as if it was a punch line, which would be OK if they were all actually punch lines, but they're not. Brand, like the character he's playing here, isn't nearly as charming as he thinks he is and even though he hits the mark 40 per cent of the time, the delivery gets tired.
Luckily the movie improves when it takes a turn for the touching. The Naomi love story works because of Gerwig's natural charisma and once Mirren's character actually becomes a character, and less a sounding board for Brand's antics, she adds some depth to the story.
"Arthur" isn't going to erase the original from people's minds -- it's a tad too long and a titch too predictable -- but its mix of comedy and romance is almost as intoxicating as whatever Arthur swigs out of his ever-present flask. And it's worth it to see Mirren in a Darth Vader mask.
"Hanna"
Richard's Review: 4 stars
Is Saoirse Ronan the new Meryl Streep? For years Streep was almost as well known for her facility with world accents as she was for her acting ability. Her aptitude for everything from Danish ("The Bridges of Madison County") to Polish ("Sophie's Choice") to New Zealand ("A Cry in the Dark") to Bronx ("Doubt") to Midwestern ("A Prairie Home Companion") dialects became such a topic of conversation that even her Wikipedia page has a section titled "Accents and dialects."
Now along comes Ronan, a prodigiously talented young actress who speaks with an Irish brogue in real life but uses a variety of inflections on-screen. Scottish ("Atonement"), American ("The Lovely Bones), Polish ("The Way Back") and English ("Death Defying Acts") -- she can do it all.
In her new film, "Hanna" she aces a German accent putting her one step closer to Streep territory.
She plays the title character, a blonde, blue-eyed killing machine the right age to be a Hannah Montana fan, except she's never heard music and has no idea who Miley Cyrus is. She was home-schooled with über tough love by her father and ex-CIA agent Eric (Eric Bana) in the remotest part of Finland. He trains her to survive, to adapt or die. When her boot camp is completed she activates an electronic signal and with the words, "Marissa Wiegler, come and get me," begins a wild life-or-death chase through Morocco and Europe. CIA operative Wiegler (Cate Blanchett) is desperate to bring Hanna in before a secret about her past is revealed.
"Hanna" isn't exactly an action movie, although there are a number of breathless fight scenes. It's more of a coming-of-age story about a feral girl learning about the outside world. Director Joe Wright weaves the action sequences throughout, but never forgets to develop Hanna's character.
Ronan plays her almost like an alien or someone from another time. She's unaccustomed to TV, electricity and the comforts of modern life and you can really see the learning curve on Ronan's open face. It's a remarkable performance aided by Wright's sure-handed direction.
Set to an anxiety inducing soundtrack by The Chemical Brothers, Wright frames every scene with its own personality. For instance, when Hanna is with an English family she adopts for a time, the pace is gentle, there's music and the tone is poignant as she observes a real family for the first time in her life. When she's on her own the settings are discordant and strange. It's engrossing filmmaking -- check out Hanna's introduction to the modern world in a hotel in Morocco -- that wordlessly brings the viewer into Hanna's world.
"Hanna" is as good a thriller as we've seen for a long time, but it's about more than just the thrills. There's genuine heart here and that's what makes it great. That, and the mini-Meryl acting skills of Saoirse Ronan.
"Born to be Wild 3D"
Richard's Review: 3 ½ stars
Wildlife documentarian David Lickley has learned a thing or two in his decade of making movies like "Jane Goodall's Wild Chimpanzees." He knows how to weave effective environmental stories into his films while letting the babies do all the work. That's right, he knows that nobody can resist a baby anything and uses that appeal to tell his stories of animal conservation and rehabilitation.
His new IMAX film "Born to be Wild 3D" is a 40 minute look at two selfless scientists who've dedicated their lives to saving orphaned orangutans and elephants. Flip-flopping between the Kenyan savannah and the rainforests of Borneo to tell the stories of elephant authority Dame Daphne Sheldrick and primatologist Dr. Biruté Galdikas, the film tells a mostly kid-friendly story of how these women have dedicated their lives to rescuing these vulnerable animals.
There are lessons to be learned, facts about how and why the animals became orphaned, but by-and-large Lickley lets the pictures do the talking, showing the baby orangutans and elephants as they are cared for and mature under the careful eyes of their adopted parents. It's educational but it's the baby animals that will likely make the strongest impression. Beautifully and intimately photographed, words like adorable and delightful come to mind when searching for adjectives to describe these young'uns. There's a reason why the most viewed YouTube videos feature small animals. "Born to be Wild 3D" takes advantage of that appeal to introduce the larger story of conservation. Let the babies do the work.
"Born to be Wild 3D" is heart-warming stuff geared for families topped off by the dulcet tones of Morgan Freeman as narrator. Very small children may find the animal's back stories a bit upsetting, but overall this should appeal to everyone in the house.
"Soul Surfer"
Richard's Review: 2 stars
"Soul Surfer," based on the inspirational life story of Bethany Hamilton, plays like an ad for the Hawaiian Tourist Bureau… right up to the point where young Bethany gets her arm chewed off by a rogue shark.
But "Jaws," this ain't. "Soul Surfer" sees AnnaSophia "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" Robb play Hamilton, an award-winning surfer who survived a shark attack and went on to become the Venus de Milo of the surfing world, competing professionally and winning the Best Comeback Athlete ESPY Award.
A well-intentioned movie like this is hard to be cynical about. But just because a movie is made with good intentions doesn't mean it's a good movie. Sure, it's filled with strong messages about the importance of friends, family and faith but they are covered in a thick layer of treacle that would make even the producers of the overly-earnest "After School Specials" blush. Inspirational is one thing. Feel-good is another.
Then there's "Soul Surfer," set in a world where a shark attack is a teachable moment and it's possible to have a poignant scene with a ukulele.
Hamilton's story is inspirational and surely deserves a better movie than this. Perhaps a documentary would have spared us the trite dialogue, clichéd near-death sequence complete with bright white lights and stirring liturgical music and passé villain who we're supposed to know is bad because she's the only girl with dark hair in a sea of blondes. But that's the kind of movie this is, literal to a fault.
"Rubber"
Richard's Review: 2 stars
"Rubber" is an odd movie. It's become fanboy-fashionable to rave about the story of a killer tire -- yes, you read that right -- with psychokinetic powers -- think "Carrie" with treads -- who terrorizes the American southwest and I'll throw my hat in the ring, but only to a certain point.
Writer/director Quentin Dupieux begins the film with an existential manifesto, an ode to the "no reason" element he says is crucial to the success of any movie. "In the Steven Spielberg movie ‘E.T,' why is the alien brown? No reason," says Lieutenant Chad (Stephen Spinella) in the film's opening minutes. "I could go on for hours with more examples. The list is endless. You probably never gave it a thought...but all great films, without exception, contain an important element of no reason." The speech, while entertaining, is a dodge that allows the director to present all the story's bizarre twists with a straight face but it is kind of disingenuous.
Of course there is a reason why the tire comes to life and kills people. Just like there is a reason why there is a group of people in the desert watching the tire's killing spree through binoculars as though they are watching a movie. I could go on for hours with more examples, to quote Lieutenant Chad, but you get the point.
It's an absurdist tract on how and why we watch movies, what entertainment is and the movie business, among other things. But frankly, mostly it's about a tire rolling around the desert. While there is something kind of hypnotic about watching the tire on its murderous journey -- think "Natural Born Killer" but round and rubbery -- that doesn't mean "Rubber" is a good movie. For all its subtext, style and audacious storytelling it is still essentially a cool short film idea stretched beyond comfort to 82 minutes (with credits).
