The Croods; Rush; A Most Wanted Man

The Croods

The Croods is fine.  It’s pretty, it tells a nice story, and its voice cast includes personal favorites Nicholas Cage, Emma Stone, and Cloris Leachman.

That’s about all I can say for it, however.  I didn’t laugh.  I didn’t cry.  I just sorta rocked along pleasantly for an hour and half.  That ain’t bad.  It ain’t great, either.  It’s fine.  No, really.  It’s fine.

Rush

I spent the first hour or so of Rush not enjoying the movie.  Like Amadeus, the film sets up a conflict between a natural talent (Chris Hemsworth, a British Formula One driver) and a grinder (Daniel Brühl, his Austrian nemesis (the actor also appears in A Most Wanted Man, discussed below)).   Thing is, I identified with the grinder. Hemsworth’s character put my teeth on edge.

Then the movie took an unexpected turn, went in an entirely different direction than I’d expected, and made me hold my breath, tense in sympathy to the action onscreen, and hang on every twist and turn of the competitors’ races.

I feel like I started out with Days of Thunder and finished with something wonderful.  Rush is the most surprising movie I’ve seen this year. 

A Most Wanted Man

Some deaths get to you, even if you never really knew the person in question.  I still miss Phil Hartman.  I miss Philip Seymour Hoffman.

In A Most Wanted Man, Hoffman plays the Hamburg chief of a small German intelligence organization occupied with hunting terrorists.  The film, based on a John le Carré novel, occupies itself not with fast cars and gadgets, but with the nondescript, dedicated, and frequently exhausted people who actually make the intelligence community go.  Hoffman, overweight, disheveled, and brilliant, is a perfect match for this world.  His character belongs in dimly lit bars, crafting plans and making deals, and I believed in him every step of the way.

The plot?  Well, it’s a le Carré story, so it features twists and surprises and a kind of mundane weariness that feels all the more immediate because we can imagine it happening right in the next booth over.

The effect?  Well, mostly sadness.  Sadness for the characters in the story, but particular sadness for the loss of Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of our generation’s great actors and a talent that I’m sure to miss for a long time to come.

Sky High

I enjoyed the heck out of SKY HIGH.

SKY HIGH's hero is one Will Stronghold, a young man born of superhero parents whose power, it seems, is his ability to look just like an adolescent Scott Bakula. It's Will's first day of superhero high school, and he hasn't yet manifested powers cool enough to elevate him above "sidekick." That's the least of his problems, however. He has to make friends; find his way; handle a new enemy; and choose between the unbelievably hot Gwen, a sexually aggressive girl with super-techno powers, and Layla, the reasonably attractive childhood friend who's good with plants. Hmm, tough call: do you go with the knockout who builds cool gadgets and wants to jump your bones, or the proto-hippie who can, uhh, grow fruit? My answer: I went to the wrong high school.

One of SKY HIGH's pleasures is its cast. From a perfectly cast Kurt Russell as Pa Stronghold/The Commander to Kelly Preston, Cloris Leachman, Bruce Campbell, Kevin Heffernan, and Lynda Carter, this movie can afford to coast by on goodwill alone. It doesn't, whoever, boasting instead a clever script, excellent effects, and a pleasing, consistent palette.

Did I love SKY HIGH? No, I can't say that I did. The heavier stuff tends to exercise a firmer hold on my imagination. Did the movie make for an enjoyable family evening gathered around the enormovision? Absolutely. SKY HIGH is worth the rental.