Planes; Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

Planes

As a pilot, I was primed to enjoy Planes. It features lots of details that aviation folk will understand, it tells an inoffensive “believe in yourself and all will be well” story, and it does as fine a job of skirting the horrifying realities of the post-singularity world it portrays as its predecessor, Cars.


Here's the setup: a crop duster wants to be a racing plane. It races. It wins. The kids pass out in a Red Vines -induced coma during the closing credits. Done.

And that's pretty much it. Planes is an inoffensive, effective entertainment with a nice eye for aviation detail. You could do worse.


Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2

Hey, do you like puns? Do you like visual puns? Do you like food-related visual puns?

If so, then Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is for you. It's pretty much one pun after another, and your enjoyment of the film will vary directly with your enjoyment of that kind of humor. Personally, I like that kind of thing and, while it didn't make me laugh out loud, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 put a smile and my face and kept it there for 95 minutes.

The story? It doesn't matter, as it only exists to keep things moving along between gags. The performances? Professional. The animation? Great fun in conception, acceptable in execution. The entire package? A perfectly fine way to spend an evening on the couch with your little one(s).

The Day The Earth Stood Still

Y’know, I like Keanu Reeves. The guy’s a terrible actor, but he chooses such fun, interesting projects that he generates enough goodwill to overcome his handicaps. THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, in which Reeves plays an alien inhabiting a manufactured human body, makes a virtue of its star’s woodenness while serving up a giant helping of marvelously stupid entertainment.

Here’s the setup: an alien (Reeves) and its giant robotic henchman have come to Earth to tell us that we have two options: stop destroying our environment or die at the hands of aliens who have never seen Star Trek and, thus, are unaware that the galaxy is choc a bloc with habitable planets. It’s aided in this by the formerly beautiful but now disturbingly anorexic Jennifer Connelly, an American scientist called in to consult the U.S. Government and provide some kind of outlandishly miscegenetic love interest.

The movie never overcomes the first question to occur to the viewer: why doesn’t the alien, who appears to be compassionate, offer to teach mankind how to, say, make a paint-on photovoltaic paste that’s as cheap to produce as paint, or show us other ways to stay an advanced civilization while cleaning up the environment? Why must the only two options be regression to a 17th-century energy paradigm or mass murder? For that matter, why do none of the humans think to say, “Show us how” instead of “Give us another chance to figure it out on our own.” I mean, c’mon, clearly the alien is the emissary of a postindustrial civilization: somewhere along the way, its people must have figured this stuff out. And those are just the questions raised by the premise. Wait until we get into the details. When the alien is asked what its real form is and it replies, “Telling you would only frighten you,” why does the film think that compelling its audience to imagine that Yog Soggoth works for Greenpeace does anything to generate any emotions other than fear, distrust, and revulsion? When, at the end, the alien does us a favor by not destroying the world but, instead, instantly shutting down every electrical and mechanical invention created after, say, 1870, do the moviemakers think this is a hopeful note? Have they not seen Mad Max? Can’t they imagine the horror produced by all those planes falling out of the sky, all those medical devices ceasing to function, all those pumps and valves and heating and cooling devices and various other things on which we rely to keep us alive just up and quitting? How are coal miners supposed to get out of their holes now that the elevators are down? How many submariners are going to die cold, dark, and alone? And good luck dealing with the mass starvation brought on the by the instantaneous destruction of the global food production and distribution system. You know what? On second thought, maybe the people in this movie were on to something when they chose not to ask the alien for advice. The answer, apparently, would have been, “Death. Death to all. Destroy all that you hold dear while madness fills your soul and you quake in fear before the Elder Gods.”

Thanks, but no thanks, Soggoth, you patchouli oil - smelling galacto-hippie. Go panhandle for the whales on some other planet.

Shrek the Third

SHREK THE THIRD ("Shrek 3," hereafter), is a joyless slog through a never ending stream of tired jokes. Sure, my kid liked it plenty, but my kid is eight years old. You gonna trust him?

Here's the setup: Just as Shrek departs on a voyage to find the heir to the kingdom, Prince Charming rallies the forces of evil to conquer said kingdom so he can, um, put on a show. Ok, fair enough. Problem is, Shrek 3 can't do anything more with this premise than it did with the two earlier, funnier installments. The fun of having fairy tales turned on their head has diminished, and this movie has little to add to that formula.

On the up side, Shrek 3 employs some terrific actors. It's always great to see Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Eric Idle, and (the surprisingly good and versatile) Justin Timberlake get work. There are no performances that pull one out of the viewing experience, though it's a shame that they're in service to such an uninspired story.

Ah, well.

Valiant

VALIANT, the story of a british homing pigeon in WWII, retools the standard heroe's journey for a young bird trying to do his part in the war effort. The bird, voiced by Ewan McGregor, befriends a slovenly Trafalgar Square pigeon on his way to the recruiting depot, and before you know it they're in occupied France, working with the mice of the French Underground to get a vital message back to the allies.

It's standard stuff, but it's well-crafted stuff. The ocean work is so beautiful that it merits several pauses and rewinds, the chases and aerial stunts imaginative and visually exciting, and the whole enterprise serves as a good introduction to war movies for the younger set.

Would I recommend VALIANT to people without kids? Absolutely not - as I said, it's pretty standard stuff. For those with kids, however, this one is worth it for the eye candy alone. VALIANT makes me want to spring for an HD-DVD player.