"The Dilemma"
Richard's Review: 2 stars
In "The Dilemma," the latest from director Ron Howard, Vince Vaughn and Kevin James star as car designers trying create a new, sporty hybrid automobile. It's a fitting job for them as the movie is kind of a hybrid itself, two parts screwball comedy to one part drama.
Vaughn and James are Ronny and Nick, best friends and business partners who relate to one another mostly by speaking in football metaphors. By day they work together, creating a new hybrid car for Dodge; at night (in the beginning of the movie anyway) they and their significant others, girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Connelly) and wife Geneva (Winona Ryder), hang out, tight as peas in a pod. Everything changes one day, however, when Ronny sees Geneva kissing another man, the muscle-bound stud Zip (Channing Tatum). Enter the dilemma. Does he tell his best friend that his wife is having an affair and risk ruining their marriage and adding stress to Nick's life when they are on the cusp of the biggest business deal of their careers?
At the heart of "The Dilemma" is Vince Vaughn, once the charming actor of "Swingers" and a series of comedies like "Wedding Crashers," now a one-trick-pony who relies a bit too heavily on his uncanny ability to string together long uninterrupted phrases of hip back talk. It was funny in 2005, amusing in 2007 and has now worn out its welcome. What happened to the actor capable of interesting work in movies like "Into the Wild"? He's become guilty of recycling the same character from movie to movie with only small variations.
Here he plays a self-centered meddler who sticks his nose where it doesn't belong. Sure there are a few laughs -- and only a few -- along the way, but they come with a been-there-done-that feeling of déjà Vaughn.
Otherwise it's an adult sit-com whose idea of humor is to have the stocky Kevin James deliver lines like, "Love can be very filling, like a warm stew." The serious stuff, and there's more than you would expect in a movie marketed as a comedy, doesn't really ring true, but at least Jennifer Connelly brings an air of authenticity to the relationship end of her story.
Most of "The Dilemma's" best moments are in the trailer, a two-minute synopsis of the story, which benefits from the lack of Vaughn's motor-mouth riffing. Come to think of it, the entire movie could have benefitted from less Vaughn and more jokes.
"The Green Hornet"
Richard's Review: 3 stars
Superhero movies don't generally get January releases. Typically they're summer fare, warm weather entertainments catering to teens looking for something cool to pass the school break. But "The Green Hornet" isn't a typical superhero movie. Directed by French art house favourite Michel Gondry and starring Canadian comedian Seth Rogen, it adds something new to the masked crime fighter genre -- whimsy.
An all-star cast, including Rogen, Oscar winner Christoph Waltz, Cameron Diaz and Taiwanese superstar Jay Chou, headline the updated adventures of the Green Hornet. In this version Britt Reid (Rogen), heir to his late father's publishing company, enlists martial arts wiz Kato (Jay Chou) to form a masked crime fighting duo. Together they hatch an unusual strategy to help Britt get over his serious daddy issues and take on the leader of the city's underworld, Russian criminal Benjamin Chudnofsky (Waltz).
"The Green Hornet" has all the elements usually associated with superhero movies -- cool gadgets like a car that would make "Knight Rider's" Kit green with envy, wild action and a dastardly villain -- but it also, for better and for worse, has Seth Rogen. Rogen fans will likely take to his slacker party-boy interpretation of Britt Reid -- imagine Paris Hilton with chest hair and you get the idea -- but I'll guess there will be more than one "Green Hornet" purist who will find his take on the character somewhat sacrilegious.
He neither really looks like or behaves like the crime fighters we've become used to in "Batman" and the like, and if you can get past that there is much to enjoy here. If not, maybe stay home and rent "The Dark Knight." Again.
On the other hand Jay Chou over-compensates in the hero department. As sidekick and chauffer Kato he's a cool character with great moves and some of the movie's best lines, and even pays sly tribute to Bruce Lee, who played the role in the TV series.
Christoph Waltz, the very definition of evil in "Inglorious Basterds," is suitably evil and seems to be having some fun, but seems to be calibrating his performance more toward the cartoony "Batman" television series villains than his finely crafted (and award winning) Colonel Landa.
Cameron Diaz is fine in the Gwyneth Paltrow "Iron Man" role but is given little to do.
"The Green Hornet" is a more a comedy than action movie -- although there are some nice action sequences -- brave enough to pay tribute to the original while bringing the story and the characters into Rogen and Gondry's strange universe.
"Another Year"
Richard's Review: 4 stars
"Another Year," the new kitchen-sink drama from British director Mike Leigh should more accurately be titled "Look at All the Lonely People." A nicely rendered portrait of forlorn folks, it's as if Leigh tried to make a film as dour as his last movie, "Happy-Go-Lucky," was effervescent.
Much of the action in "Another Year" revolves around the home of Tom and Gerri (Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen), a happy couple just a few years shy of retirement. With open arms and open hearts they welcome a diverse cast of characters -- people as unstable as they are stable -- into their home, including Gerri's desperately unhappy co-worker Mary (Lesley Manville) and Tom's old friend Ken (Peter Wight). Stirred into the mix are the couple's geeky son (Oliver Maltman), his girlfriend (Karina Fernandez) and Tom's recently widowed brother ("Harry Potter's" David Bradley).
As the title suggests, "Another Year" takes place over the course of a year, divided into four sections, each representing a season. Presented as a slice-of-life look at this group of people -- very light on plot but heavy on character -- it has little to do with the passing of time, except to imply that time doesn't really heal all wounds, but the loose structure gives form to the otherwise shapeless, although entertaining, story.
Performances rich in nuance abound -- Broadbent is his usually effortless self and Sheen is warm and watchable -- but it is Lesley Manville who steals the show. Her take on Mary is the personification of dissatisfaction and distress and dominates the movie.
"Another Year" isn't a traditional narrative but like the best of Leigh's films it is unflinching in its portrayal of real -- not reel -- life.
