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.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

I saw the first act of Amazing Spider-Man 2 on one of those little screens on the back of an airplane seat in business class.  All I could think about was how fake the CGI looked.  I saw the second and third acts on my nice tv at home.  All I could think about was how lame the story was.

Here’s the movie in a nutshell: it begins with Andrew Garfield breaking up with Emma Stone (who is wonderful in everything.  I’d watch that woman burn toast.).  So right off the bat, we know he’s an idiot.  Soon enough, we meet proto-villain Jamie Foxx.  Foxx plays a nerd as only a jock can play a nerd:  a complete loser, a barely functional basket case who just happens to be an incredible genius.  Soon enough, the nerd turns into a super villain and the movie loses me for good.

Why?  Because Jamie Foxx is an Academy Award winning actor, and the movie doesn’t trust him to show us how he’s feeling.  Instead, it gives us a horrible voice-over of his supposed inner monologue.  It’s a waste of his talent and an indication of just how simplistic and condescending The Amazing Spider-Man 2 really is.

But wait- there’s more!  This film boasts an Emo Harry Osborn who (a) doesn’t dance, and (b) should be wearing a t-shirt reading “B Story.”  He’s there solely to pad things out and provide an additional villain.  This makes no sense.  The movie’s already over two hours long.  They could have cut his entire arc and still had a ninety-minute movie.  

There’s still more!  The climax plays like it was written by some guy working from an outline provided by some other guy who not only lazily Xeroxed a page from some screenwriter’s manual, but is actually stupid.  I mean, the whole thing hinges on the audience’s willingness to believe that you can punch electricity.  There’s a subplot about airliners in danger that feels like it was added in post to generate extra tension, and that doesn’t even make any sense to anyone who knows the first thing about air traffic control.  There’s a needless death that, while well handled, eliminates the only reason I can think of to see The Amazing Spider-Man 3.  And there’s a denouement that suffers from a shockingly bad performance by Paul Giamatti, embarrassing effects rendering by the F/X department, and unearned emotional manipulation that just feels cheap.

Oh, this movie.  While Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 still stands as a high-water mark for the genre, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 feels like something hastily cobbled together by people with no investment in the material.

I even liked TheAmazing Spider-Man.  If Sony decides to have another go with this creative team, it’ll take one heck of a critical reception to get me to so much as stream it on Instant.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

{Blogger doesn't do captions very well.  If it did, the caption for this photo would be "C'mon, look at that lighting!"}

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Crazy, Stupid, Love is a romantic comedy that didn't make me laugh, but did charm me and provided a sweet, pleasant time at the movies. It's a nice movie, populated with basically good people mostly trying to do the right thing, and it benefits from a tight script that hits all the right notes.

Here's the setup: Steve Carrel, not challenging himself in a typical Steve Carrel role, asks wife Julianne Moore what she wants for dessert. Her reply: "A divorce." And away we go. Carrel and Moore both try to adapt to their new lives. Their kids experience dramas of their own, sometimes only tangentially related to that of their parents. They're all trying to figure this love thing out, as are the people they meet and the people they meet.

And so we rock through an entertaining hour and half during which Carrel gets lessons from pickup artist Ryan Gosling, who seems to have moved on from life-sized sex dolls; Moore agonizes over whether she should reunite with the star of the movie; and Marisa Tomei shows up to prove, once again, that there are no small roles.

It all works, largely due to an enormously likable cast including, in addition to the above, welcome presences Kevin Bacon and Emma Stone. More critically, it works due to a gem of a screenplay by Dan Fogelman. This is a screenplay that has been written, rewritten, edited and lathed into smooth perfection, with reveals and reversals timed just right, characters that feel like they have lives outside the confines of their scenes, and just enough unreality to keep things at a comic distance. This movie made me feel like I was being entertained by pros who knew exactly what they were doing and who were very good at their respective jobs.

So, there you have it: Crazy, Stupid, Love is a romantic comedy that's reasonably romantic, reasonably comedic, and altogether successful. It's a great way to spend some time on the couch with the one you love.

The Amazing Spider-Man

The Amazing Spider-Man is a perfectly fine superhero film.  It's professional, it has no obvious flaws, and it rocks along along at a fast clip for a good two hours.  Would I have preferred a fourth installment Sam Raimi's version?  Sure: I loved all three (here, here, and here) and was ready for more.  Nevertheless, I credit Amazing for making me forget its predecessors and capably executing its own vision.

The Amazing Spider-Man offers an origin tale that parallels its antagonist's origin, exciting set-pieces, and seamless effects work.  While its web-swinging sequences lacked the smooth, "you are there" joy of Raimi's, this film offers a unique take on spider powers that surprised and delighted me (look for a spot where Peters binds up an opponent in a particularly creepy, spider-like way).  As far as origin stories go, this is a solid take.

The film's biggest surprise comes from its lead, Andrew Garfield, as Peter Parker / Spider-Man.  Andrew Garfield (of the brutal Red Riding: In The Year of Our Lord 1974 and the atrocious 'Daleks Take Manhattan') actually made me believe that he was an American high school student, albeit one who hit puberty perhaps a bit early.  This is an extraordinarily talented actor with significant range, and I look forward to following his career in the years to come.  Emma Stone (magnificent in Easy A), punches below her weight as love interest Gwen Stacy, but a woman's gotta pay the bills.  The rest of the supporting cast, including Sally Field, Martin Sheen, Denis Leary and Rhys Ifans are as good as you'd expect (which is pretty darn good).

So I was all ready to hate this movie, but I can't.  The Amazing Spider-Man does exactly what it's trying to do, and it does it well.  Will it find a place on my shelf beside my Raimi Blu-Rays?  Probably not, but we can't fall in love with everything.

Easy A

In Easy A, Emma Stone plays the daughter of Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson.  I was already a Stanley Tucci fan and a Patricia Clarkson fan – I’m now an Emma Stone fan, as well.

Here’s the setup:  Stone plays Olive, a nerdy high school girl who’s embarrassed to admit to her best friend that she stayed home all weekend.  She concocts a story about a first sexual experience with a college boy, and she soon finds herself with a “reputation.”  One thing leads to another, and before she knows it she has a client list of social outcasts for whom she provides stories of imaginary sexual acrobatics in return for things like Bed Bath & Beyond gift cards.  As one can imagine, things spin out of control.

Holding it all together is Ms. Stone, who gives Olive a sweet combination of brains, comic sensibility, and pluck.  Stone, who was fantastic in Superbad and Zombieland, rolls into the A-list here, holding her own with Tucci and Clarkson and lighting up every minute she holds the screen.

Easy A is funny and brisk and thoroughly enjoyable, and much of that is due to Stone’s Charisma.  I understand she’s going to play Gwen Stacy in the new iteration of Spider-Man.  For the first time, I’m interested.

Superbad

SUPERBAD is the funniest movie I've seen in months. Its jokes range from broad to subtle, its characters feel and behave in comically realistic ways, and its humour feels natural, rather than forced. There's never a sense, as in BALLS OF FURY, that this film is jumping around and shouting, "Look at me! I'm funny!" It just is.

SUPERBAD follows three geeks on the cusp of high school graduation. There's the skinny one, the fat one, and the one who lives at the very bottom of the social ladder. Unlike NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, which invites us to laugh at its geeks, SUPERBAD invites us to laugh with them as they embark on a quest which, for a high schooler, is all-important: they need to score some alcohol for a party (Side note: when we were in high school and wanted alcohol, we drove around town with our prettiest friend. When we spotted a liquor store that was staffed by a man either very young or very old, we sent her in with cash and a smile. Worked every time.). Along the way, they try their hands at forgery, petty theft, setting police cars on fire, and scaring the hell out of small children. It sounds horrendous, I know, but trust me when I say that it's all in good fun. These kids mean well, they really do, and we can't help but like them and root for them.

That's fine, and it could make for a reasonably pleasant time at the movies, but that isn't what makes SUPERBAD so funny. It's the dialogue, baby, and SUPERBAD is a dialogue-rich film that creates some of the most hilarious exchanges I've enjoyed since KISS, KISS, BANG, BANG. I saw this with some friends the other night, and we've been quoting lines back and forth ever since.

Additionally, this movie has a sweetness to it that gives it a warm glow. There's no villain, per se - just situations. It' s nice, and it avoids the uncomfortable changes in tone that hurts movies like THE WEDDING CRASHERS.

Overall, I rate SUPERBAD as a huge, huge hit. It's the kind of movie one can see over and over again, and I fully intend to. What a great comedy.