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The Lazarus Effect: Mini-Review

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Olivia WIlde

Olivia Wilde is far more glamorous here than in The Lazarus Effect

DLuke Dawson and Jeremy Slater, the screenwriters of The Lazarus Effect, must be fans of Stephen King. Their film about bringing the dead back to life incorporates bits and pieces from virtually every King book ever written, most notably Cujo, Pet Sematary, Carrie, and The Shining, and they’ve thrown in some scientific mumbo jumbo from Flatliners to boot. But when they assemble all the pieces and try to bring the script to life, the results are as successful as those by the scientist in a much older work on the same subject, Frankenstein.

A team of scientists led by lovers Frank (Mark Duplass) and Zoe (Olivia Wilde) are working on the formula to successfully reanimate dead people. They succeed in bringing a dog back, but the animal isn’t quite right in the head afterwards. But when Zoe is accidentally electrocuted in an effort to duplicate the experiment, Frank feels he has to use the formula on her to bring her back. As you might guess, when she returns, she isn’t quite right in the head either.

The Lazarus Effect is the type of movie that feels as if the filmmakers made up scene after scene on the fly with no thought as to whether these individual segments would make sense when strung together. Both the dog’s and Zoe’s personalities and powers seem to change from one moment to the next as if no one could make up his mind what the ground rules were regarding reanimation. The movie’s opening and medical tie-in are promising, but the film quickly abandons any attempts at examining scientific or ethical issues or any examination of the characters in favor of gotcha scares that director David Gelb telegraphs far too often. The talent both in front of and behind the camera is considerably better in The Lazarus Effect than in most shlocky horror films of this nature, but it’s completely wasted here. The movie stayed on the shelf for two years before being resurrected for what will undoubtedly be a brief theatrical stay. Needless to say, it should have stayed buried.
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The DUFF: Mini-Review

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Mae Whitman

Mae Whitman is no DUFF.

B- It really says a lot about an actress if she is badly and obviously miscast in a role but manages to carry the movie anyway. Mae Whitman, star of The DUFF, is not by any stretch of the imagination an “ugly fat” high school student, but she is a talented comedienne who gets viewers to overlook those details and empathize with her fictional travails.

Whitman’s Bianca Piper is smart, witty, talented, fun to be around, and best friends with two of her high school’s most popular girls. However, a chance remark by football captain Wesley (Robbie Amell) sends her into a tailspin. Wesley calls Bianca a DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend), the less attractive friend the others keep around so they look good in comparison. Naturally, Bianca thinks she needs to overcome her DUFF-ness. Not quite so naturally, but conveniently for the plot, she turns to Wesley for help, in exchange for helping him with his chemistry grade.

The Duff is based on a novel that was written by an actual 17-year-old who was undoubtedly quite familiar with the self-esteem issues high school girls face. It will probably be a big hit with girls who have never seen this type of movie any of the dozens of times it’s been done before from Easy A to My Fair Lady. Older viewers won’t fall for the Ugly Duckling theme (especially when they note that Whitman’s transformation consists solely of a wardrobe change and makeover). However, Whitman’s natural charm, no matter what her wardrobe, and some clever observations about the current state of teen culture in the social media era make The DUFF worth watching for DOUDs (Designated Older Uncool Dudes) like me.
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Hot Tub Time Machine 2: Mini-Review

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Rob Corddry

Rob Corddry is probably trying to slap whoever talked him into doing Hot Tub Time Machine 2

D+ This has not been a good month for time travel movies. First, we had the dreary Project Almanac. Now we have the often repellent Hot Tub Time Machine 2. Seeing films like these makes one wish someone would do the world an enormous favor and invent a real time machine to prevent movies like these from ever being made.

The original Hot Tub Time Machine featured four idiot losers who go back 25 years in the past and set things straight, leading to their becoming rich and famous, although still idiots, in the present day. The sequel picks up on this theme with Lou (Rob Corddry) now an internet mogul, his son Jacob (Clark Duke) a spoiled nerd, and their friend Nick (Craig Robinson) a successful singer. Both Lou and Nick owe much of their success to their knowledge of events over the last 25 years.This time out, they go into the future, to try to prevent Lou from being shot and killed in the present day by a mysterious assassin.

John Cusack, who was top billed in the original movie, wisely bailed out this time around, and the remaining film resembles what you would probably find in the bottom of a hot tub after all the water is drained out. There are a few good jokes, mostly clever observations on future culture or a closing credits sequence in which the characters keep getting involved with various past events. Mostly, however, there are crude, juvenile drug and sex jokes, the least funny of which involves two of the characters being forced to have gay sex with each other on a reality TV show. The “humor” in this joke is premised on the idea that the most disgusting thing that can happen to a man is having gay sex. In reality, the most disgusting thing that could happen to any person is to be associated with Hot Tub Time Machine 2.
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McFarland, USA: Mini-Review

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Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner has his second solid starring role in less than a month in McFarland USA.

B The sports movie of today often falls back on a familiar formula, one that I’ve dubbed “zeroes to heroes.” A team of underdog, hapless losers learns how to compete and eventually win, usually thanks to that one coach who really cares. Still, no matter how familiar the formula, occasionally a movie manages to put just enough of a fresh spin on it to make it interesting. In the case of McFarland,USA, that fresh spin is a healthy dose of salsa.

Kevin Costner has seemingly made a career out of sports movies, and, now that his “playing days” are over, he’s moved on smoothly into roles on the sidelines. Costner plays the aptly named Jim White, who was fired from a number of high school football coaching jobs for disagreements with school administrators. He gets what may be his last chance as a PE teacher at McFarland High School, most of whose students are the children of Hispanic farm workers. He notices that some of his students have a knack for running, so he persuades the school to start a cross-country team. Some of his runners have to help their parents out in the fields, so he has to balance their practice time with both school and work time.

As you might expect, the team starts out poorly, but gradually they start winning. And, as you also might expect, White learns to make the most of his last chance and to help repair his relationship with his own family. But McFarland, USA is not Hoosiers in track shoes. Jim White has to bridge a huge racial and cultural divide to connect with his team and winds up being assimilated in the adopted community in which he and his family now live. McFarland, USA is formulaic, but it’s also sincere, and White’s situation is far enough removed from the norm of movies like this to keep audiences interested, even though they know full well how it’s likely to end.
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Kingsman – The Secret Service: Mini-Review

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Colin FIrth

Once again, Colin Firth gets a chance to play a King(sman)

BMatthew Vaughn, the creative writer/director who simultaneously spoofed and paid homage to the superhero genre in Kick Ass, has done it again. This time  he takes on world of secret agents in Kingsman: The Secret Service, and the results are just as over the top and just as much fun to watch.

The Kingsmen are a clandestine organization of secret agents who keep the world safe from evildoers like media tycoon Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), who plans to save the planet from environmental destruction by killing off most of its population. The chief Kingsman on Valentine’s trail is suave Harry Hart (Colin Firth), who has recently sponsored for membership in the organization “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton) the son of a colleague who sacrificed himself to save Hart. Before Eggsy can help Harry out on the mission though, he has to prove himself in a training regimen that would put the Navy SEALS to shame.

Matthew Vaughn knows the conventions of the secret agent genre and has a lot of fun going to extremes with them in Kingsman. Firth and Jackson know exactly what is expected of their characters and deliver—Firth’s underplaying matching Jackson’s scenery chewing. Of course, Vaughn  is not a subtle director, so the action scenes in the film are often filled with often artistically graphic violence. Heads explode, limbs are ripped off, and one person is sliced in two. Some of these action scenes go on too long, but, for the most part, the violence is stylized and stylish. It’s also very easy for the audience to follow and appreciate the action, with Vaughn making extensive use of slow and stop motion. The real find in the movie is Egerton, a virtual novice, who holds his own against his illustrious co-stars (who also include Michael Caine as the head of Kingsman). Eggsy graduates from street kid to suave in less than two hours and, like Eggsy, Kingsman passes the audience test with flying colors.
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Fifty Shades of Grey: Mini-Review

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Jamie Dornan

Jamie Dornan’s suits fit him far better than the role of Christian Grey does.

DNot surprisingly, most of the discussion surrounding Fifty Shades of Grey has revolved around the rather unconventional relationship in the film between hunky billionaire Christian Grey and unsophisticated college student Anastasia Steele.  However, once you look at the actual nature of their relationship, the movie plays more like the romantic fantasy of a teenage girl rather than a kinky fantasy of the Marquis de Sade.

Grey (Jamie Dornan) first meets Anastasia (Dakota Johnson) when she interviews him for the college newspaper. What follows is a whirlwind romance as Grey is smitten by her charms and showers her with fancy gifts, lots of attention, and lots more of his devilish charm. Of course, Grey does have his dark side, as Anastasia discovers after their initial, more conventional coupling. He wants to continue the relationship, but only if she agrees to his conditions, many of which involve bondage and pain.

Fifty Shades of Grey is bad on so many levels that it’s hard to begin describing them all in a review this short. For starters, it’s completely lacking in credibility. Unlike other Cinderella-type romances like Pretty Woman, it’s hard to imagine Grey pursuing Anastasia, especially after she indicates she’s reluctant to play his type of games. She comes across as nothing more than a moderately cute college student.  Even worse, Grey seems reluctant to play his type of games as well, practically begging Anastasia to stay with him. Of course, in the movie’s rather sanitized depiction of its sex scenes, the kink and danger factors is practically non-existent (with the exception of one brief sequence late in the movie). There’s plenty of sex in Fifty Shades of Grey, but little eroticism of any variety, or, for that matter, little literary or cinematic quality either.
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Still Alice: Mini-Review

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Julianne Moore

Julianne Moore is still the odds on favorite for the Best Actress Oscar for Still Alice

BIn recent years, the Best Actress Oscar competition has been decidedly one-sided, with one actress blowing away the competition with a stunning performance. That trend is almost certainly going to continue this year. Julianne Moore is simply so good in Still Alice that her fellow nominees’ performances pale in comparison.

Still Alice provides Moore with the type of role that often leads to an Oscar nomination, the person with a disability. She plays Alice Howland, a professor of linguistics who is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s shortly after she turns 50. The movie flows her inevitable downward spiral, from the first indications of forgetfulness through the various coping mechanisms she develops to deal with he increasing disability leading, eventually, to the final stages of near complete helplessness.

Despite a talented supporting case including Alec Baldwin as Alice’s husband, John,  and Kristen Stewart as her younger daughter, Still Alice focuses almost exclusively on Alice’s struggles. Scenes such as one in which she tries to deliver a speech become moments of high drama, but nothing in Moore’s performance seems overplayed. Instead, her actions are generally understated, as she often forgets as simply as others remember. However, Alice’s tragedy isn’t hers alone; it’s a family tragedy. The movie touches on her husband’s and children’s emotions but spends too little time with them. So, audiences see John as a man who is pretty much aloof rather than a man who’s undoubtedly deeply conflicted between a desire to care for his wife and the realization that he can’t destroy his own life as well. Thanks to Moore’s performance, Still Alice gives viewers rare insight into the mechanics and progression of Alzheimer’s disease, but, in essence, it’s just a well-acted disease movie of the week rather than an insightful drama about a family in crisis. 
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A Most Violent Year: Mini-Review

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Jessica Chastain

Jessica Chastain is a lot tougher in A Most Violent Year than she looks here

B+Writer/director J.C. Chandor‘s last movie, All Is Lost, was a saga of one resourceful and courageous man, alone in a small boat, fighting for survival on the high seas under continually deteriorating conditions. His new movie, A Most Violent Year, is about another resourceful and courageous man, who’s also pretty much alone, who’s also fighting for survival in an even harsher environment under continually deteriorating conditions. The only difference is that, here, the environment is the heart of New York City in the year 1981.

Abel Morales (Oscar Isaac) isn’t a sailor on the high seas, but a businessman trying to steer his family heating oil business through some highly stormy conditions. He’s under pressure from all sides. His trucks keep getting robbed (probably by goons working for his crooked competitors), he’s under investigation by a district attorney (David Oyelowo) looking to score political points, and he’s strapped for cash at a time he desperately needs some to close the biggest deal of his career. Finally, his wife (Jessica Chastain) keeps urging him to fight back. Abel, however, is determined not to stoop to his enemies’ level but to do business honestly and ethically.

As the movie progresses, we gradually learn just what Abel’s version of honesty and ethics really is. In the movie’s best line, Abel tells his wife that he always wants to do “the most right thing.” But, as the audience comes to realize that “most right thing” seems to keep changing. A Most VIolent Year is a powerful, well acted, and at times nearly brilliant movie that manages to be a morality tale, a study in ethics, and a gripping suspense film.
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Jupiter Ascending: Mini-Review

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Mila Kunis

Mila Kunis isn’t waving at the critics who panned Jupiter Ascending

C-Supposedly, Jupiter Acending, the latest science fiction spectacular from the Wachowskis, cost $176 million to make and millions more to market. For that amount of money, the Wachowskis can lay claim to a rather dubious cinematic honor. Their movie has now eclipsed David Lynch‘s Dune as the most pretentious money wasting bore of all time.

As in Dune, wealthy capitalistic dynasties own the universe of Jupiter Ascending. The earth is actually owned by Balem Abrasax (Eddie Redmayne) a simpering psychopath who plans to “harvest” everyone on the planet—killing them for their genetic material, which the wealthy use to prolong their lives. Balem’s plans hit a snag when he discovers that Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), an otherwise ordinary maid, is actually an exact genetic match for Balem’s mother. Under the law, Jupiter now owns the earth, if she can claim the title before Balem kills her. Fortunately, she’s got a powerful warrior (Channing Tatum) to protect her from Balem’s minions.

The Wachowskis obviously put a lot of thought into the science fictional society of Jupiter Ascending, but most of it is frightfully dull onscreen, especially segments with Balem’s largely superfluous brother and sister, who want Jupiter kept alive for their own purposes. If the storyline is plodding, the action scenes are jarringly annoying and almost impossible to follow. Each individual shot seems chosen for how it will look in 3D, and the overall effect is similar to seeing an extremely loud July Fourth fireworks show photographed in nearly blinding close-ups. Stars Kunis and Tatum are game and generally enjoyable, but they are simply overwhelmed by other plot elements that are either too dull or too much of an assault on the senses.
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Seventh Son: Mini-Review

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Julianne Moore Jeff Bridges

Julianne Moore and Jeff Bridges can’t possibly be talking about Seventh Son here.

D+Between them, Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore have ten Oscar nominations and one Oscar (a total that’s likely to grow before the end of the month). I think it’s a safe bet that that’s ten more nominations than everyone associated with the dismal mess known as Seventh Son is likely to receive. 

Seventh Son is the latest attempt to cash in on the YA science fiction/fantasy market in search of a viable franchise. It’s the story of Master Gregory (Bridges), an elderly knight who’s more of a witch hunter than a traditional knight, and his latest apprentice Tom (Ben Barnes), who are on the trail of Mother Malkin (Moore), a powerful witch thirsting for revenge against Gregory, her former lover. Complicating matters is the fact that Tom also has the hots for a witch, Alice (Alicia Vikander), who happens to be Malkin’s niece and has somewhat conflicted loyalties.

The storyline of Seventh Son is similar to that of the TV show Grimm, except that Grimm has a lot more energy and is much more fun to watch. The role of Gregory should be a natural for Bridges, but he looks and moves like Don Quixote’s grandfather and talks like Rooster Cogburn with a lobotomy. It’s also distractingly obvious that he’s been replaced by a stunt double in his poorly staged fight scenes. Barnes is extremely bland, and his scenes with Bridges lack any real tension or humor. In fact, the only real humor or energy in the movie is supplied by Moore, who is enjoyably over-the-top. Still, her relatively brief performance can’t disguise the facts that the movie’s special effects are routine, and the action sequences are dull.  For a film about magic, Seventh Son entirely lacks any magic of its own.
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The SpongeBob Movie Sponge Out of Water: Mini-Review

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Antonio Banderas

Antonio Banderas is in the mood for Krabby Patties

B-Most of the marketing of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water has concentrated on those last three words of the title. Indeed, SpongeBob, Patrick, and the rest of the gang do leave their underwater home to hobnob with us surface dwellers. Ironically, however, the movie is much better when the gang is in their world rather than ours.

As fans of the show might guess, the only thing that could persuade SpongeBob and company to leave their aquatic abode is a Krabby Patty, the favorite food of one and all. More precisely, SpongeBob leaves in search of the secret formula for Krabby Patties, which has mysteriously disappeared, leading to post-apocalyptic chaos in Bikini Bottom. We soon learn that the formula was stolen by the villainous Burger Beard (Antonio Banderas) who uses it to make and sell his own Krabby Patties from his food truck.

The first two-thirds of the movie mostly takes place underwater in and around Bikini Bottom. This section resembles an expanded version of a typical episode of the show with the same simple traditional animation, hilarious sight gags, puns, and loopy non sequiturs. The added length allows the writers to go off on extended tangents, including sending SpongeBob and his arch enemy Plankton traveling through time. It makes no sense, but, frankly, that’s what makes the show itself such fun. Unfortunately, once the gang leaves the sea to do battle with Burger Beard, SpongeBob becomes a one-joke movie that quickly devolves into crude, childish, unfunny slapstick. The film isn’t helped by the fact that the computer-animated characters aren’t nearly as charming as their hand drawn counterparts. In culinary terms, the first hour of SpongeBob resembles a Krabby Patty, but the last 30 minutes seems more like Plankton’s rival concoction, the Chum Burger.
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Black or White: Mini-Review

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Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner loses the beard before he plays a lawyer in Black or White

B-It’s easy to bash Black or White, writer/director Mike Binder‘s earnest effort to explore race relations in 21st century America from the point of view of a wealthy white man, and many critics have done just that. The movie is not a documentary, and the racial issues it explores are not nearly as pressing as those that have regularly made the front page in the last couple of years. Yet, before it falls apart in an overly melodramatic third act, Black or White is an engaging and at times insightful family drama.

The wealthy white man in this case is Elliot Anderson (Kevin Costner), a newly widowed attorney with a bi-racial granddaughter Eloise (Jillian Estell) and a major drinking problem. Eloise’s other grandmother Rowena (Octavia Spencer) wants to be a bigger part of the girl’s life but Elliot refuses because of his ill will towards Eloise’s father Reggie (Andre Holland), a drug-addicted petty criminal. Since Rowena’s brother (Anthony Mackie) is an even higher-powered powered attorney than Elliot, a major custody battle ensues. 

Kevin Costner carries Black or White with one of his best acting performances in years. Elliot at times seems a stereotype (he even resorts to referring to Reggie by the n-word), but Costner’s chemistry with young Estell is amazing. He makes Elliot comical without ever becoming a total joke. Mike Binder has a firm hand on his material for most of the movie and gives most of his characters just enough depth to make Black or White interesting and at least somewhat unpredictable. Unfortunately, Binder apparently couldn’t think of a way to resolve the custody issues, so he resorts to a bizarre, violent plot twist that makes the ending anticlimactic and far too convenient. Ending aside, Black or White is a generally entertaining crowd pleaser that at least raises some significant issues, even if its answers are by no means comprehensive.
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