Space Chimps

On Friday, we found out that my wife is pregnant. As we sat down for a pre-movie lunch on Saturday, she opened two bottles of a charming Sicilian brew called Birra Morretti Rosso, one for me and one for her. Then we both remembered – no alcohol for the duration.

Thus it was that I rolled into “Space Chimps” with two drinks under my belt. I strongly recommend that you do the same.

You know your movie is in big trouble when Patrick Warburton can’t save it. Warburton plays the foil, a champ chimp who treats the new guy like a chump (By the way, if you think that was funny, see this movie today. You’ll love it.). Warburton chomps (!) into the role with his usual gusto, but not even he can breathe any real life into a character whose primary role is to (a) serve as a comic foil and (b) make jokes that consist of inserting the word “chimp” into other words. It’s chimpdiculous. Andy Samberg, batting 0 for 2 in comic films, voices the Chimp Out of Water, Hal III, who’s forced to leave his circus gig to join NASA. His delivery is limp. Perhaps he’d make a good gimp. Even better if he dressed like a pimp.

Aw, to hell with it. “Space Chimps” is poorly written, poorly animated, poorly executed rubbish. Every lame joke I’ve made in this post is better than the entirety of the film. Chimp this one out.

Madagascar

My 6yo has been dying to show me MADAGASCAR. Tonight, I made the time to sit down and watch it with him.

Here's the worst thing about watching a terrible movie that your child adores: there's no escape. You can't pick up a paper; you can't check your e-mail; you can't strike up a conversation with your significant other. Your child is monitoring your attention like Big Brother, and brother, you'd better be paying attention.

MADAGASCAR assumes that New York and New Yorkers are inherently interesting. They aren't. MADAGASCAR assumes that pop-culture parody is more interesting than character - based comedy. It isn't. MADAGASCAR thinks racial and cultural stereotypes make for great entertainment. They don't.

Here's the story: a lion, a zebra, a hippo, and a giraffe all live at a New York City zoo. They're happy. Their needs are met by the attentive and competent staff. They have everything they want. Except for the zebra. The zebra's pen sits opposite a frescoe of zebras frolicking in nature, and said zebra hatches a plan to escape and see the wilderness for himself. One thing leads to another and, before you know it, the friends wind up on the island of Madascar - an place which, though it holds a population of over 18 million and has a serious deforestation and desertification problem, looks like that island from "Lost" and doesn't appear to have a single human within its borders. Some of the animals want to go back to New York, some love it on the island, and everyone has to figure out a how carnivore is supposed to get along with his herbivorous friends without
zookeepers bringing him steaks every night.

The movie feels NYC-centric. Its animals are proud New Yorkers, and MADASCAR thinks that jokes about which train runs to Connecticut generate big laughs. The movie so thoroughly roots itself if NY culture that one wonders whether anyone involved in the financing or production of this film ever step foot outside of Mahattan. I've passed through and flown over New York a few times - I mean, I can find the Museum of Natural History - , but I'm not particularly vested in that city or its denizens (In the collective. Shari and Andy are both great.). I didn't empathize with the animals' love of their metropolis and I didn't find the NYC-centric gags (Look! The police horse has a Brooklyn accent!) particularly amusing.

The movie, a Dreamworks production, loves pop-culture parody and references. After the towering success of the SHREK films, they've probably written it into the corporate bible. Problem is, those kinds of jokes age extraordinarily quickly. Many of them already felt passe, and many of them would've made me grown had I been watching alone. (Which I wouldn't have. At least, not past the first twenty minutes.) MADAGASCAR is supposed to be a comedy. It made my child laugh, but the gags that they mixed in just for me simply did not work.

Finally, we have stereotypes. Oh, how I love 'em. But the fat hippo as sassy-black-Big-Momma? Who are these people?

I'll tell you, MADASCAR hurt. But a dad's gotta do what a dad's gotta do.