"How to Train Your Dragon"
Richard's Review: 3 1/2 stars
"How to Train Your Dragon," the story of a kind-hearted Viking boy who becomes a Dragon Whisperer, is one of the best animated films yet from Dreamworks, home of "Shrek" and "Madagascar". It will likely engage audiences of young kids (But no tots please! It's too intense) and their willing parents, but as good as it is it still doesn't come close to the lyrical beauty of a Pixar film.
Based on the kid's books by Cressida Cowell, Jay Baruchel stars as Hiccup, a skinny outcast in his remote Viking village, located, as he says, "in the meridian of misery." Killing a dragon is "everything" around there but he is too young, too inexperienced and too clumsy to be of much use as a dragon hunter.
To make up for his lack of prowess he develops a sling shot that should be able to fell the dreaded Night Fury, a winged beast described as the "unholy offspring of lightning and death itself." Low and behold, it works, but when he captures one of the creatures he discovers two things. One, he can't bring himself to kill the dragon, and two, the dragons aren't the fearful creatures everyone thinks they are.
"How to Train Your Dragon" differs from "Shrek" and other Dreamworks offerings in that it is an action adventure first and a comedy second. Gone are the pop culture references that populate (and instantly date) the scripts of "Shrek" and "A Shark's Tale." They've been replaced by well executed action scenes and an underdog story that uses humor to accentuate the story, not dominate it.
Scenes of Hiccup riding Toothless, his domesticated dragon, are a step toward Pixar territory for Dreamworks. They are marvelously rendered in thrilling 3D and wouldn't look too out of place in "Avatar." The three dimensional work in those scenes is lovely, but doesn't add much to the Earthbound sequences. The village scenes have depth but no eye popping effects.
As usual for this kind of animated feature, celebrity voices dominate the voice work. Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson play the elder Vikings with vigorous Scottish accents, and Jonah Hill brings some fun to Snotlout even though his character is a dead ringer for a young Jack Black. But Baruchel brings the heart and soul to the film. His nasally twang is easy on the ear and perfectly suits the nebbishy character who thinks that if he kills a dragon he'll get a girlfriend.
"How to Train Your Dragon" has some good messages for kids about not judging a book by its cover and several rousing action sequences. It's not Pixar good but it is a leap in the right direction for Dreamworks.
"Chloe"
Richard's Review: 2 1/2 stars
Despite being a remake of a French film the new movie from Atom Egoyan bears all the earmarks of the director's work. Continuing his career-long examination of sexual taboos and miscommunication he's made a movie that is part sexual Scheherazade, part "Single White Female" but is also his most straightforward movie in years.
Starring Amanda Seyfried as an escort hired by Catherine (Julianne Moore) to test her husband's (Liam Neeson) fidelity, it's a steamy thriller the director calls "an extreme examination of how to re-eroticize a marriage." Add to that a layer of sexual obsession and you get a film that feels like a throwback to the erotic thrillers of a couple of decades ago.
Egoyan has crafted a feature that breathes the same air as "Fatal Attraction" and "Basic Instinct" -- films made when the director was busy making his own subtly sexual films like "Exotica." At the time Roger Ebert wrote, "There is a quality in all of his work that resists the superficial and facile. Even at the very start, he wasn't interested in simple storytelling." Until now, Roger, until now.
There is no question that Egoyan is as gifted a filmmaker as we have working in this country, but "Chloe," I'm afraid doesn't denote a high-water mark in his filmography.
He does, however, bring much to the table.
The film is gorgeous to look at -- from the beauty shots of Toronto, to the collective "wowness" of the cast. To match the rich visuals he's brought his own sensibility to the story, and instead of simply remaking "Nathalie," the French film "Chloe" is based on, he has populated the plot with strong female characters. And, as befits any erotic thriller there are twists and turns galore. Unfortunately most of them will be obvious to anyone who has ever read a Joe Eszterhas script and that is the film's Achilles' Heel.
The movie's closing moments play like a predictable b-movie, albeit a highbrow one, but a b-movie nonetheless.
Chloe marks the first time Egoyan has worked from a script that he didn't write and despite its angels -- nice performances and beautiful photography -- it made me yearn for the auteur of the "Exotica" years who would have made an uncompromising movie with a more dramatic ending.
"Hot Tub Time Machine"
Richard's Review: 3 stars
"Hot Tub Time Machine" has a Frank Capra life is wonderful feel. The story of three old friends who try and relive the wildest weekend of their lives, and literally jump back in time all the way to the Regan years, is Capra-esque... if Capra swore like a sailor and infused his movies with sexual humor and vomit gags.
Following the attempted suicide of Lou (Rob Corddry) his only two friends Adam (John Cusack) and Nick (Craig Robinson), try and cheer him with a trip to the scene of their greatest party weekend ever -- the Kodiack Valley Lodge.
The place has seen better days, but through a magical combination of a hot tub and some illegal Russian Red Bull they are transported back in time to a sea of fluorescent coloured ski suits, Walk-men and oversized Ray Bans—a.k.a. the Regan years.
To a soundtrack of 80s hits like "Kick Start My Heart" and "Safety Dance" the guys and Adam's nephew (Clark Duke) grapple with the mysteries of the space and time continuum. By exactly recreating the Winter Fest 86 weekend they hope to find a crack in time and get back to present day. Of course, the only thing more complicated than a fissure in time is three middle-aged guys with a case stuffed with cocaine and booze.
I'm sure director Steve Pink (and producer Cusack) are likely hoping to emulate the success of that other recent buddy comedy of bad manners "The Hangover." They have a good chance -- it's the only comedy opening this weekend -- but its sense of absurdity and disjointed feel may dampen audience enthusiasm a tad.
Having said that, the movie aims to please audiences who would pay to see a movie called "Hot Tub Time Machine;" the nudity -- both male and female -- you'd expect from a whirlpool movie is in place, although just enough to keep it on this side of a PG rating.
There's also loads of Apatow-style toilet jokes, barfing and off colour jokes, but what good-time audiences may not be as prepared for is the sentimentality that follows the Cusack character. Luckily that and the "will it be their chance to start over" dilemma is dispensed with fairly quickly and only briefly throws the movie off balance.
Comedy-wise "Hot Tub Time Machine" belongs to the lesser known members of the cast. Corddry, best remembered as the manic second banana in movies like "Blades of Glory" and "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay," is off the hook as the volatile Lou.
Rather than worry about the consequences of tampering with time, he looks at the upside of a slightly altered world -- a future where Miley Cyrus doesn't exist and "Manimal" is still on the air. Finally someone has figured out how to put Corddry`s unhinged energy to good use.
Craig Robison, seen every week on "The Office" and, recently, as the best thing in lame movies like "The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard," and "Miss March," brings a great deadpan to the mix and owns several of the film's funniest moments.
"Hot Tub Time Machine" could have been the comedy equivalent of "Snakes on a Plane," a great title and not much else, but despite a couple of dead spots and jokes that may not mean much to anyone born after 1976 -- will they get the Cold War jokes? -- it aims to please and is loud, overbearing and fun -- kind of like the decade it pokes fun at.
"Greenberg"
Richard's Review: 2 1/2 stars
"Greenberg," the new film from "Squid and the Whale" director Noah Baumbach, is the kind of navel gazer where upper middle class people spend a great deal of time wondering what they're going to do with their lives. The movie sees Ben Stiller in "master thespian" mode playing the title role; a character so disagreeable he makes Larry David seem like Tinkerbelle.
In this story of Yuppie angst Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) is fresh out of treatment for depression. Determined to "try and do nothing for a while," he takes on the easiest job he can find -- house sitting for his brother while his sibling is on business in Vietnam.
It should be six easy, breezy weeks, but nothing in this guy's life is easy breezy. Between a sick dog, an alienated best friend and his brother's assistant Florence (played by mumblecore queen Greta Gerwig), he is reduced to a pile of misanthropic neurosis. Fighting off happiness wherever it may appear in his miserable life he alternately seduces and rejects Florence, playing her like a yoyo.
"Greenberg" benefits from Baumbach's ear for dialogue and his insight into the human condition, it's just too bad he wasted his talents on these two characters. Placing lines like "youth is wasted on the young… life is wasted on people," in Roger's mouth is clever and almost makes you like Roger, but Stiller plays him as such a self-pitying sad sack; so socially awkward to the extreme with an anger management problem to boot, it is impossible to get onside with him.
Stiller's best work has been characterized by tetchy characters, but in his comedies the angry edges are smoothed out by an underlying sweetness he brings to his roles. "Greenberg," the film and the character, are much more grown up than Stiller usually plays, but that maturity has brought with it an unpleasant edge.
In Florence, Greta Gerwig has found an aimless character that seems to have stepped out of one of the low budget mumblecore films she is best known for. She's a doormat with enough self awareness to realize that she "has to stop doing things because they feel good" but seems to be unable to find the inner strength to improve her life or her choice of men.
Gerwig, in an extremely natural and unselfconscious performance, however, plays her with no small amount of charm. The way she strokes the dog with her foot as they wait for the vet to see them is touching, subtle and very real. It's as un-Hollywood a performance as we're ever likely to see in a Ben Stiller movie.
The most convincing relationship in the film occurs between Greenberg and Ivan (Rhys Ifans) an old friend and former band mate. Their scenes overflow with the well worn familiarity of two old friends who have grown apart.
The trailer makes "Greenberg" look much more like a Ben Stiller comedy than it actually is. While well made and intermittently amusing it is more a rambling character study of the kind of people you would normally spend your time trying to avoid.
