Central Intelligence

2.5 Stars (out of four)

Saving the world takes a little Hart and a big Johnson.  So starts one of the funnier taglines to one of the funnier films I've seen for awhile.  Continuing the big/small sight gag of Laurel and Hardy all the way to to Twins, Central Intelligence is a kind of childish, but very fun movie.  Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson (if you don't know who plays who, I can't help you) add a considerable dose of charm and charisma to the well-worn trope to lift this film from the doldrums of "I've seen this before" to a relatively charming and genuinely fun movie.  The movie works well because of their winning charm and their chemistry, and would not have worked with, say, The Undertaker and Johnny Galecki.

Hart plays Calvin Joyner, a once-popular guy from high-school who is a mild-mannered accountant in a dead-end job.  He gets a Facebook Friend request from Bob Stone (Johnson), a guy who says he knew him back in high school.  When they meet, Joyner doesn't recognize Stone at first because Stone used to be very fat and is now a muscle-bound monster with the demeanor of an awe-struck fan.  Through a series of adventures, Joyner ends up in the middle of a case of international intrigue as Stone is part of the CIA. But all may not be what it appears as other CIA agents show up and tell Joyner that Stone is a dangerous rogue psychopath and a traitor.

This is one of those movies you have to turn your brain off and just go with it. I have loved Johnson's gallery of interesting and quirky performances from his first role as The Scorpion King to the gay club bouncer in Get Cool, to the naive but incredibly dangerous bodybuilder in Pain and Gain.  He is this generation's Arnold Schwarzenegger, with simultaneous self-aware/deprecating humor and demeanor, not to mention charisma oozing out of every pore.  The guy is movie magic and is always a blast to watch.  On top of that, he eschews most of the roles you'd expect he would take for quirkier or funnier fare, which more often than not, really works for him.  Add to that Kevin Hart, the next Chris Tucker rapid-fire delivery guy (but who still manages to stay funny), you have two very likable and very funny talents coming together in a perfect storm of comedy.  Is it deep or sublime?  Not really, but it is still a lot of fun to watch.  I'd like to see these guys do another buddy-type flick.  I think it has staying power.

X-Men Apocalypse

2.5 Stars (out of four)

I went into this movie with a great amount of trepidation.  The best I've heard about it was that it was so-so, with most of the reviews overwhelmingly negative.  And while I don't think it's great by any stretch of the imagination, I don't think it's particularly bad, either.  If you are very insistent that the film follow source material and be a super-nerd about everything in the movie, yes, you will not like it.  20th Century Fox has been monkeying around with the X-Men continuity from the beginning.  However, this is the first time that Marvel Studios actually was part of the process, and it shows.  I have yet to see an X-Men movie blow me away, but ever since they have moved down this new prequel path starting with X-Men: First Class, it has been gradually improving.  It is less a cynical cash grab than X-Men: The Last Stand was, but it's no Iron Man either.

The movie opens in ancient Egypt, where we find the first incredibly powerful mutant, Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac), who is betrayed by his followers and is buried underneath a gigantic pyramid.  Skip ahead 10,000 years or so, and the ruins are found and he is set free.  He feels he must take over this corrupt world and sit at the head as our god, but he never really elucidates this.  He just rants a lot about weakness and corrupt leaders and laws a lot without making much sense.  It is now 1983, about 10 years after the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is in hiding in Poland with a new family.  They end up accidentally killed and Magneto swears revenge.  Apocalypse finds him and enlists him in his genocidal crusade.  Meanwhile, Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) has set up his school for gifted youngsters with the dreams that mutants and humans can live together in peace someday.  Of course, he and the X-Men go up against Apocalypse to fight for the world.  We have old faces Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and new ones Scott Summer aka Cyclops (Tye Sheridan) and Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), setting up the Dark Phoenix saga (yes, again) for the next movie.

The problem with big ensemble movies like this is that there are too many characters to focus on, usually shortchanging one at the expense of another and almost always at the expense of the plot.  Star Trek works well in this case because there are three main characters, Kirk, Spock and McCoy, with the rest of the cast in support.  The Next Generation movies didn't really work because we know so much about each character and are invested in all of them, but there isn't enough time to delve into each of them completely.  X-Men suffers from the same problem.  There are too many characters, with more introduced each movie, that it is impossible to spend any great deal of time with any one of them.  Do so, and you take away from the central plot.  Focus too much on plot, and the characters are cardboard cutouts.  The first Avengers movie was the only ensemble in recent memory to actually pull off this balancing act successfully, but then again, it had five movies beforehand (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Iron Man 2, and Captain America: The First Avenger) to lay that critical groundwork. X-Men have never had that luxury.  

The movie also doesn't make a lot of sense, with characters inexplicably changing motivations (Mystique, Storm and Magneto) with no real explanation.  The movie is a hodgepodge that feels like it was written on the fly.  But it is fun to watch and if you put your logical mind on hold for awhile, especially the nerdling impulses to slavishly follow the comics, you may have a good time.  The main character performances are fairly good, particularly Fassbender, who seems incapable of putting out a bad performance.  The producers just need to stick to a good story, and the rest will work out.  And the nerds have to understand the movie must be different than source material.  If you want to see the exact same story, just read the comic.  Movies, by their very nature will have to amend and cut stories to fit the time needs.  So, that said, it's fun, a bit stupid, but generally satisfying overall.  Instead of a five-course meal, it's junk food for the soul.

Finding Dory

3 Stars (out of four)

I've waited for this one for awhile now.  Finding Nemo is arguably Pixar's best movie as far as depth goes and is possibly my favorite.  And while Finding Dory does not necessarily capture the magic of its predecessor, what sequel ever does?  Ever since John Lassiter left the reins of Pixar behind to get his dream job, head of animation at Disney, Pixar has been in a creative slump lately with such middling offerings like The Good Dinosaur and Monsters University. While at the same time, Disney is having its best creative run since The Little Mermaid era, with movies like Tangled, Frozen, Big Hero Six and Zootopia.  That can't be a coincidence.  Now, it's unfair maybe to compare Pixar's past success with now, but it admittedly set a very high bar.  Finding Dory may be the first step on the way back, but I think Pixar is headed for some trouble as it keeps mining old material (Toy Story 4, The Incredibles 2, and Cars 3 are all in the works) while Disney keeps putting out great original fare.  While I hope it isn't true, Pixar may be bankrupt of new ideas at least for the near future.

Finding Dory starts with a very young Dory and her parents telling her about her short-term memory loss problem.  They are a very happy family and her parents dote on her.  Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneris again, easily the best thing about the film) accidentally loses her parents when she gets stuck in an undertow and is whisked away.  She immediately forgets where she is from and gradually even forgets her parents.  We see a montage of her growing up until she literally runs into Marlin, (Albert Brooks) Nemo's father.  We skip ahead a year and now Dory, Marlin and Nemo live together as a family until one day, Dory has a flash of her parents in a memory.  She realizes she is from a marine park in California and she, Marlin and Nemo set off to find her parents in a new adventure.

So, is the movie good?  The short answer is yes. It still deals with the bonds of family and friends, and even breaks some new ground about how to treat each other and relying on your talents, especially when you are handicapped in some way.  The themes are deep and hit closest to home, but the film does lack a little magic. Part of the wonder of Finding Nemo was the journey itself, the obstacles to overcome, the gradual bonding of Marlin and Dory, the interesting characters they meet on the way. Finding Dory has shrunk because we spend most of the time in the marine park itself, essentially making the world smaller and less interesting.  There are some great moments, almost all of them with the cranky octopus Hank (Ed O'Neill) who is constantly trying to break out of the park, but a lot of the ground is old and already covered in the first movie.  The themes of family are not bad, and I like the positive way in which they are portrayed, but it feels a little worn.

That said, I can't go without mentioning Ellen DeGeneris' performance.  She was probably the best thing in Finding Nemo, and because this movie is all about Dory, the responsibility of the story working falls on her shoulders.  This character could easily devolve into a very annoying caricature, but Ellen's mixture of earnestness and innocence in the movie really sells it.  She is fantastic in this role and it's too bad she doesn't do more in film instead of that stupid talk show she does.  She is so much better and talented than that show allows her to be.  I would love to see if she could do serious drama, because her timing, likability and charisma really work.  This is a great movie to see, just lower your expectations a tad from the first and I think you will have a lovely time.

The Conjuring 2

3 Stars (out of four)

So, director James Wan has done it again.  He has managed to make a singularly good horror picture. I would like to see if he could break out of horror, though.  I've seen 4 of his pictures now (Saw, Insidious, and the original The Conjuring) and they are all good in their own ways.  But speaking from a technician's point of view, the reason his movies work is because he knows all the little secrets that scare the hell out of you and plays them like a master violinist (or, does he, as Alfred Hitchcock once famously said, play the audience?).  It doesn't matter.  What matters is that he is obviously well-versed on how to set a camera, pace, and stage a scene to its maximum effectiveness to scare us.  If he has this much mastery of the craft, he shouldn't be wasting it anymore on horror.  12 years is enough.  I want to see what he can really do with something meaty.

The Conjuring 2 starts like the original.  It is another true story from the files of Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprising their roles from the first movie), two of America's most gifted paranormal researchers.  Ed is the only lay demonologist who was sanctioned by the Catholic Church, and Lorraine is a gifted medium.  For 40 years, they investigated psychic disturbances, hauntings, and even demon possessions.  This story begins with a short intro featuring their most famous case, which propelled them to celebrity status; the 1976 Massachusetts haunting in Amityville, sensationalized as The Amityville Horror.  Directly after that, in 1977, England had its own Amityville case, in a north London working-class town called Enfield.  In this case, a malevolent spirit possessed the body of a 12-year-old girl named Janet Hodgson, one of four children living with their single mother.  What is at first thought to be the spirit of a man who died in the house years earlier, is actually an incredibly malevolent demon that had been hounding the Warrens themselves.  The usual investigation and showdown with the demon unfolds among many genuine scares.

While this movie is not as good as the one preceding it (which sequel ever is?), it is still incredibly effective.  First and foremost is the helmsmanship of director James Wan.  He has demonstrated again and again just how good he is with this type of subject material.  Many critics sort of dismissively say he is using old, but effective tropes, and that is why the movie works.  I would agree with them up to a point, but I think it is unfair to dismiss Wan as a simple horror director.  Like the first film, this movie does not rely on the "Boo!" factor, something that needs to jump out at you all the time.  He uses it, of course, but he does something much more subtle.  He relies on building dread, true horror, through its gradual crescendo to a heart-stopping climax.  True horror movies like this are hard to do.  Anyone can shock with slasher-style gore or torture-porn repulsiveness.  True horror requires craft and diligence as it is the mind you're playing with.  There are all sorts of psychological tricks a director can use, and Wan uses them all.  But other elements come into play as well.  Wilson and Farmiga are incredibly charismatic in their roles, but not so much that it overpowers the story.  The real Warrens, in interview after interview, always stated their main motivation for their work was to help people.  This purity of purpose, in addition to their chemistry together as a husband and wife who truly love and support each other, really sells the two actors as very likable people without being necessarily heroic in the classical sense.  Also, like the first movie, the family being tormented are very likable and sympathetic.  You want them to make it through this, and not root for their deaths like most slasher films.  The script is top-notch until the demon showdown at the end that is way over the top.  But then again, how else should the movie end?  I was shocked in the first movie that it took a definite moral stand about the nature of good and evil, something sorely lacking in most horror pictures.  While this one isn't as blatant, it emphasizes the Warrens are good people who want to help others.  If only more people were like them.

The Nice Guys

3.5 Stars (out of four)

What do disco, an alcoholic widowed PI father, the porn industry, a reformed (sort of) leg breaker, catalytic converters, the Justice Ministry, three very off-kilter hired killers, a suicidal porn star and 1977 California have in common?  One of the most surreal and fun movies to come down the pike since 2013's Pain and Gain.  This movie is alternately cerebral, surreal, funny and quite brutal, sometimes all at the same time.

The story takes place in 1977 LA, at the height of the disco era.  Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is investigating the disappearance and suicide of porn star Misty Mountains (3 guesses as to why she has that particular stage name).  Holland is a drunk and horrible father to his 14-year-old daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice), who is totally devoted to him and wants to help (and usually does) with his investigations.  Incidentally, Rice is the highlight of this film.  She steals every scene she is in with a queer mixture of earnest sassiness mixed with doe-eyed naïveté with world-weary experience because of the element her dad associates with.  Through a strange twist of fate, leg breaker Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) is working the same case but for a different client who wants the investigation shut down and not come to light.  What follows is a bizarre descent into the confluence of porn industry insiders and radical environmentalists.  (Don't ask, you have to see it). The movie follows a path more twisted than a snake's back.

Any movie that deals with the porn industry in the late 70s in any depth is going to be bizarre, humorous and surreal.  Witness the amazing 1997 Boogie Nights and you'll get an idea of the rabbit hole you're going down.  As it was written by Shane Black, responsible for the Lethal Weapon series, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Long Kiss Goodnight, The Last Action Hero and The Last Boy Scout and at least one other film that doesn't start with the letter L, one should expect a great actioneer filled with unexpected humor, flawed heroes, beautiful women, grotesque brutality and an absolutely intriguing storyline that you don't know where it will lead.  The Nice Guys is no exception.  Lest you think I am panning this movie, I absolutely am not.  I found it exhilarating and intoxicating in its reveling on the dark side of the street in the gutter.  It is absolutely unapologetic in its tone and yet is redemptive in the end.  It is a wholly satisfying, adult romp.  The only real criticism I have is that it may be a bit too clever for its own good with the plot twists.  I will need to see this again, just so I can keep up with it.  I think part of the reason for some of the incoherency is that it may have suffered from some post-production editing for time.  Other than that, I highly recommend you see this.  It is utterly original (a commodity more and more rare in Hollywood) and thoroughly entertaining.

Zootopia

4 Stars (out of four)

So, Disney has done it again.  And by Disney, I mean animation director John Lassiter, whose string of hits continue since his time in Pixar.  This guy is one of those great geniuses in moviedom, like Spielberg or even dear old Walt himself, that seems to instinctually understand what makes a great story and brings it out of some of the most talented people who ever lived.  Ironic, that his original dream job was to be an animator at Disney and was turned down.  He went on to found Pixar, and after a string of a couple of movies you may or may not have heard of (Toy Story 1-3, Cars 1-2, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Monsters Inc., etc), he is now the helmer of Disney's animation department that has made another couple of mid-range hits that include: Bolt, Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and Big Hero Six.  So needless to say, this guy is good.  His newest film Zootopia continues this amazing run of great story, characters and humor.

Zootopia is a world where there are no humans and all animals live together in harmony, more or less.  The main character is the cute as a button Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), a little bunny rabbit who is determined to be the first bunny police officer in Zootopia.  Unfortunately for her, the police force is made up of large, mostly predator animals.  She is immediately dismissed by her coworkers and water buffalo Chief Bogo (Idris Elba).  They immediately make her a meter maid until she discovers a crime that many people want to hush up.  The key witness to the crime is a con-artist fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman).  Officer Hopps and Nick must not only solve the case, but learn how to work together as they are natural enemies (predator/prey).

This movie has a lot going for it.  Not only is it utterly charming and very funny, but also, like many great animated films, there's a lot going on underneath.  First and foremost, the movie deals with believing in yourself, not matter what the odds.  Judy is small and insignificant next to the lions, tigers and elephants that are her coworkers, but she is determined to prove herself as the first non-predator on the police force.  The film also deals with prejudice in a very unique and interesting way.  See, in the city of Zootopia, predator and  prey species live side-by-side in an uneasy truce, with prey animals never fully trusting predators.  It is always in the back of their minds that predators will revert back to the natural order of things.  Furthermore, animals that are natural enemies (i.e. a fox and a rabbit) are predisposed to be snippy with each other.  The movie hinges around this dynamic as it builds the relations between Judy and Nick.  Neither particularly like each other at first, but circumstances throw them together and they have to work out their prejudices in order to do what they need to do to solve the crime.  Ultimately, the movie is wonderful and fun with great little in-jokes.  My particular favorite is that the DMV is staffed entirely by incredibly slow-moving sloths.

This is a great movie no matter what the age.  It has something for everything, and pulls everything off almost perfectly. It is thoroughly entertaining and I recommend it highly.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2

3 Stars (out of four)

Hollywood is always hoping to create lightning in a bottle again and again.  With movies geting more and more expensive to make, it is taking a toll on creativity.  This is nothing new, of course, but it is becoming more and more blatant lately, with films that are becoming more and more predictable, vanilla, and dull. In 2002, the original My Big Fat Greek Wedding grossed almost $369 million dollars, making it, at the time, the most profitable movie ever made until Paranormal Activity came along.  This, of course, spawned a short-lived TV series and now, this sequel.

The premise is actually pretty good.  Toula (Nia Vardelos) and her husband Ian (John Corbett) now have a daughter Paris (Elena Kampouris) who is getting ready to graduate high school.  In a parallel to her father, Gus (Michael Constantine), she is having a hard time letting her child go. Meanwhile, her mother Maria (Lainie Kazan) and Gus realize their original marriage certificate was not signed by the priest due to the chaos of WWII in Greece, so they are not technically married.  What follows is that Maria and Gus decide to get married again in the big, Greek style we saw in the first film.

The movie works overall, but the problem is that some of it seems forced.  The overall idea that Maria and Gus aren't married gives a nice counterpoint to their badgering of Toula and now Paris to get married ais that Gus and Maria are, technically, living in sin.  But there is not enough new life in the story to warrant a new film.  Now, don't get me wrong.  The story is charming, and like the first one, at its core, it demonstrates the wonderfulness and agony and, ultimately, importance of family.  It is a very sweet message and is just as earnest as the last movie, but it falls sort for original material.  And what is original seems shoehorned in to placate modern sensibilities.  For instance, the most glaring example is making a previously established heterosexual character suddenly switch sides.  Now, I don't have a particular problem with homosexual characters, but this introduction felt forced and not organic to the story at all.  It felt like a Sesame Street lecture on the importance of treating everyone well and therefore takes us out of the main story in an odd way.  It feels like it doesn't belong and was added as an afterthought.

The humor, while continuing with a light touch on the eccentricities of a first-generation immigrant family against white picket fence suburbia, is mostly a retread of what we have already seen before, except it is now young Paris who is looking "old" as her grandparents continually say, code for homely, which Kampouris is neither.  The ctricism sounds a little mean to heap on a seventeen-year-old girl.  Many of the same old jokes come up again, from Greeks eating a lot, to their smothering love for their family members. However, that is not to say the film is bad.  It is still, at its core, a very sweet story about very likable and relatable people.  Every actor has returned to reprise their roles, and they all shine.  This movie would not have worked if they hadn't.  So go see it with lowered expectations, but I think you will still be entertained.