Gnomeo & Juliet: Star-crossed lawn ornaments

What’s on now: Just finished Batman: Under the Red Hood. … Don’t judge me.

As I’ve said before, I don’t think it’s wrong for an adult to enjoy a “for kids” movie once in a while. Let’s just hope I don’t make a habit of it.

Gnomeo & Juliet was a pleasant surprise. I didn’t think I was going to like it for some reason. Looking back, I can’t pinpoint a specific thing about the trailer or a particular rumor that made me think that. But at any rate, it was nice that it was offered on Netflix streaming, or else I probably would have never seen it.

It’s usually a very good sign when a movie puts a smile on your face with the first line. In the case of Gnomeo & Juliet, a tiny, awkward little gnome comes out onto a stage, clears his throat, and says this, deadpan:

“The story you’re about to see has been told before… a lot.”

It’s funnier when you see it for yourself. When a movie or TV show somehow acknowledges its own quirks or makes fun of itself in some way, we’re in for a good time.

James McAvoy (X-Men: First Class, Atonement) and Emily Blunt (Wild Target, The Devil Wears Prada) lend their voices to the two title characters. The cast was stocked with a few other big names as well, including Michael Caine (The Dark Knight), Maggie Smith (Harry Potter) and Jason Statham (Snatch.). Patrick Stewart (X-Men) even had a small cameo as the voice of William Shakespeare’s statue. Although, my personal favorite casting choice by far was Ozzy Osbourne as Fawn, a somewhat dim-witted reindeer lawn ornament.

The movie was fairly set on following the basic plot of Romeoand Juliet, so I was a little concerned about how they were going to address the whole mass murder/suicide subplot that Ol’ Bill seemed suspiciously fond of in his works. Funny thing is, they even mentioned that in the film. In one scene, Gnomeo is talking to Shakespeare’s statue, looking for advice, when the statue says in his version of the story, the lovers both die in the end. Gnomeo is amusingly horrified at the prospect and pretty much writes the statue off as decidedly nuts and walks away.

Basic plot is fairly easy to surmise for anyone who ever had to take a literature class. Two feuding families (in this case, lawn ornaments from two neighboring gardens) can’t stand each other. Odd, seeing as there’s a huge fence separating them. They are competitive, racing lawn mowers and trying to outdo each other with their landscape architecture. No dance-fighting, though, unfortunately.

Enter Gnomeo, from the blue garden, and Juliet, from the red garden. They meet, and naturally it’s love at first sight, even when they find out they’re supposed to hate each other. They continue meeting in secret, until the fateful day when the ceramic-on-ceramic carnage reaches an all-time high and they find themselves in the crossfire.

Elton John supplied the tunes, which I thought was kind of random. But it worked out fine. It lent a sort of light-heartedness to a story based on the most famed, depressing and heartbreakingly hopeless love story ever written. Let’s be real, Romeo and Juliet is the mother of all love stories, even though nobody lives happily ever after (spoiler alert). Gnomeo & Juliet was a cute, kid-friendly take on a timeless tale.

And best of all, I went this entire post without using the term “star-crossed lovers.”

I’m going on a little Thanksgiving vacation for the next week or so. But I’ll be back next week with something a little different!

Starring: James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, Jason Statham, Ozzy Osbourne, Patrick Stewart

Directed by: Kelly Asbury

Rated G

2011

Rio: Angry Birds: The Movie

What’s on now: Alternating betwixt The Office and Glee streaming on Netflix. Or at least trying to, since the wifi is spotty at best in here.

I don’t think it’s wrong for adults to watch kids’ movies from time to time, even if they’re not parents. Let’s face it, there are usually plenty of jokes in there for us, too. And sometimes it’s nice to just watch something cute and funny and light.   

Rio tells the story of a blue macaw named Blu, voiced by The Social Network’s JesseEisenberg. See what they did there? Well, it could be worse. They could have left the e on there. It’s kind of like if they had simply named Simba “Lion” instead in The Lion King. Oh wait… they did.

Blu is caught by smugglers when he is just a little baby bird, quite possibly one of the cutest things I have ever seen. The bird, not the smuggling. He ends up in Moose Lake, Minnesota in the care of a little girl named Linda. He grows up with her as her best friend, and apparently only friend, since we are shown photographic evidence that the bird was her prom date. (Now that’s a whole new level of lonely, kids.) They grow up together and when she’s an adult, Linda runs her own bookstore. Because, you know, girls who like books all wear thick glasses, are socially inept, have no friends to speak of and bring pets to prom. It was like looking in the mirror for me.

One day, a Brazilian ornithologist (word of the day!) named Tulio, who happens to be just as socially inept as Linda, shows up and asks them both to come back to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil with him. Turns out Blu is the last known male of his species, and Tulio wants to breed him with the last known female, which is in Brazil. Linda agrees and we’re off on our adventure.

Things really get going when Blu and Jewel (Anne Hathaway) are stolen from their intended love shack by smugglers. I’m sensing a pattern in Blu’s life here. From there, with the help of a handful of local birds and a fruit-hat-wearing bulldog named Luiz (yes, you read that correctly), the last two blue macaws in Rio have to work together to find their human friends and escape the smugglers and the criminally insane cockatoo in their employ (yes, you read that one right, too).

My personal favorite bit was the casting of Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement as the voice of Nigel, the aforementioned homicidal cockatoo. He’s one of those people that you probably have no idea who he is unless you know exactly who he is. Kind of like in Pirates of the Caribbean, where the Isla de Muerta can only be found by those who already know where it is. Sanity-shattering paradox aside, Clement was fun in the role, and even had a very Conchords-esque musical number. Come to think of it, I wonder if he wrote it… Excuse me while I consult my sources… … … He helped write it, yes. Cool.

Overall, I would say Rio was kind of cute. Certainly not the best animated flick I’ve seen most recently. That honor at the moment belongs to How to Train Your Dragon. But Rio has a few good points.

First off, the music is pretty good. One or two of the songs were toe-tappers, and will.i.am and Jamie Foxx even had small roles as two sidekick birds with their fair share of fun quirks. The animation was as good as it typically is these days, and I do admire whoever was responsible for making sure every feather was in place and moving properly. Sounds complicated to me anyway. For all I know, it takes one guy 10 minutes during post-production.

In all, it was okay. Kids might like it better than I did. But I’ll take that as a good thing.

Come to think of it... There should be an Angry Birds movie!

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, will.i.am, Jamie Foxx, Jemaine Clement, Tracy Morgan, George Lopez, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro

Directed by: Carlos Saldanha

Rated G

2011

Safe House: A safe bet

What’s on now: Trolling IMDB for new movie trailers.

I think I found my February movie!

Backstory: I’m on a tight budget. Now that my fledgling self has officially left the nest and I am no longer living on my parents’ dime, I have to (gasp) save whatever I can so as not to go broke or hungry. Ah, freedom. Thy name is Spaghettios.

Anywho, due to the aforementioned budget constraints, I have decided to limit myself to only one new-movie outing per month. So, monthly I spring for a ticket to the nice theatre in town (you know, the kind where the floors are not coated in questionable amounts of stickiness). That means I have to wait for the best movie and take a leap of faith. So far, the system has worked out fine, and I have yet to be disappointed by a movie-of-the-month. Captain America was September’s and Real Steel was November’s, in case you were wondering. I owe myself an October. I’m saving it for when all the big deal flicks come out during the Christmas season.

On to the real reason for this post. I recently saw the first trailer for a February release called Safe House. I’d heard rumors of it already, but nothing more than the basic plot and unconfirmed cast.

The plot didn’t draw me in so much as the cast. Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds? In the same movie?? Sign me up! Washington brings the lion’s share of the acting chops and Reynolds… well, he wasn’t voted the Sexiest Man Alive for no reason! And he can act too, of course, I’m not trying to objectify the poor man. He gets that enough from… well, everybody. But I think he’s definitely shown he can keep up with someone of Washington’s seasoned caliber, especially after Buried. That one still affects me months after watching it once. I shouldn’t have watched it alone in the dark. Lesson learned.

Even so, Safe House doesn’t exactly seem like it’s going to be the kind of flick that demands too much serious acting from either of them. It ain’t exactly Shakespeare. It looks like it’s another cerebro-politico-action movie, kind of along the lines of The Bourne Identity or Salt or maybe even a little like Mission: Impossible. Yup, you guessed it, Safe House is another CIA movie. But I don’t mean that pessimistically!

Based on the preview and online synopses, Washington plays Tobin Frost, an ex-CIA operative who has gone rogue. Reynolds is Matt Weston, a relatively green (lol) non-operative employee of the agency, whose fairly boring job is to babysit the CIA safe house in Johannesburg, South Africa. Weston wants nothing more than to get enough experience so he can do something more than sit in an empty bunker all day, but he feels like his job is a waste of time. Can you see the irony coming yet?

Weston’s boring job gets a sudden jolt when Frost is brought into the safe house as a dangerous prisoner. Then things really fall to crap when someone starts attacking the safe house, presumably to retrieve Frost. It falls on Weston to keep Frost both safe and in custody. What follows is a slam-bang cat-and-mouse game between Weston, Frost and whoever is trying to kill them. Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air, Source Code) and Brendan Gleeson (Troy, Kingdom of Heaven) also star.

The trailer is rife with blazing guns, car chases, car crashes, things that go boom and plenty of yelling and running. All the necessary ingredients for a halfway decent action flick!   

Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to it. One thing’s for sure, something pretty crazy-awesome is going to have to come along to knock Safe House out of the frontrunner spot for my February movie.

Starring: Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds, Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson

Directed by: Daniel Espinosa

Rated NYR

2012

Transformers DotM: Not much more than meets the eye

What’s on now: Catching up on Supernatural. Sigh, Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki are so very very awesome.

Apparently I’m on a robot-violence kick.

The latest installment in the Transformers saga, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, was pretty much exactly what I was expecting – a whole lot of flash, not a lot of sustenance. I do strive to be fair, however, so I have to admit I was very pessimistic about it going in. I liked the first film, but the second one was “meh” at best, "WTF" at worst. The third one was on the same level as the second.

Part of the problem, I think, was that it tried too hard to be funny. There were too many goofy antics from too many characters. If or when the robots take over the world (mostly depending on whether the aliens or zombies get there first), somehow I don’t think we’ll be laughing about it. Not until we’ve all gone stark raving mad from the post traumatic stress, that is. Snark, sarcasm, and gallows humor I could understand in that situation, not slapstick.

The plot is basically the same as the last two movies. Autobots good, Decepticons bad. Decepticons enact devious plans, Autobots team up with usual suspects consisting of awkward kid, awkward kid’s mega-hot girlfriend, and a handful of America’s finest to stop aforementioned devious plans. 

Shia LaBeouf reprises his role as awkward kid Sam Witwicky, who is struggling to find a job since there isn’t much call for people who majored in extra-terrestrial delegation. That just goes to show you, kids, getting a job is all about the interview. It doesn’t matter where you went to school or how many times you’ve saved the world or how unrealistically hot your girlfriend is, if you’re a total spaz in front of the prospective boss, you’re going to be living with mommy a little while longer.

Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and John Turturro return in their previous roles as well. Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is a newcomer as Sam’s new girlfriend. Megan Fox was fired from the gig for some questionable comments made in a Wonderland Magazine interview in 2009, comparing director Michael Bay to a certain insane German dictator from the 1940s. The comments, though they barely bothered Bay (say that five times fast), certainly ruffled the feathers of executive producer Steven Spielberg, and he ordered her firing.

Overall, it was just overdone, and it ended kind of abruptly. The acting was too melodramatic, except for John Malkovich’s. He usually plays crazy anyway, so his performance was actually perfectly normal. The comedy was too goofy, forced and over-done, and the action… well, it’s a Michael Bay movie. Over-the-top action is kind of par for the course and is actually excusable in this case. There are over a dozen giant alien robots doing battle on the streets of Chi-Town, after all.

I will say this, I have a ton of respect for the special effects crew. I wonder how many programmers, designers and computer geeks sacrificed their sanity to make the robot fights look so good. I mean, you could see every little sprocket, gear, plate, paint chip, speck of dirt, every part of every robot. And that scene with the skyscraper cracking in half andfalling over that was the headliner of all the trailers? That was pretty cool. Because apparently the Decepticons have access to a kraken. Deceptikraken.

In summary, if you liked the first two movies, the third is more of the same. Mindless action, weird humor, giant robot battles, loud noises and hot chicks. For me, it was only so-so. For you? I would say go by your reaction to the second film. If you liked it, you might like this one, too. If you hated it… you probably won’t miss this one all that much.

Now, I’m off to go sign up for base jumping lessons, because apparently it’s going to be a necessary skill during the robot apocalypse.

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro, Frances McDormand and John Malkovich

Directed by: Michael Bay

Rated PG-13

2011

 

Real Steel: Bumblebee hits the boxing ring

What’s on now: Taking a break from the streaming TV shows from the moment, going with the good, old-fashioned iTunes mix. It’s the only place I can listen to Eminem, Gustav Holst, Taylor Swift, Imogen Heap and the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack without ever having to switch stations.

Remember almost a year ago in December 2010 when I preliminarily reviewed a first-look promo for Real Steel? Well, break out the sparkling cider, ’cause this blog has survived long enough to follow up!

Was it an Oscar-worthy plunge into the murky, codependent relationship between man and machine? No. Was that what I was really expecting from it? Hell no. Well, was it at least fun? Totally!

I love sports movies. It doesn’t even matter that they’re all pretty much the same movie done over and over again. Protagonist has trouble winning at (insert sport here). Antagonist is egotistical jerk. Protagonist faces life-altering event. Protagonist trains butt off. Protagonist faces antagonist in final winner-take-all clash in which protagonist is the underdog is some way, shape or form. Win or lose, leave audience feeling like they could go out and win the Boston marathon right then and there. Because after all, with hard work and a give-em-hell attitude, anything is possible.

It works. It just does. It’s a recipe that never fails, kind of like grilled cheese. Place cheese on bread. Top with more bread. Insert into Foreman grill. Remove at desired level of gooeyness. And just as everyone loves their grilled cheese as gooey as possible, so does everyone like their sports movies as inspirational and exciting as possible.

Real Steel delivered that. Hugh Jackman (X-Men, Australia) is Charlie Kenton, a washed up boxer who now makes his living fighting robots. I made that sound even cooler than it already is. He does not actually fight the robots himself, he drives them, sort of like a very intense video game, and the robots fight each other. And apparently they also fight bulls… to the death… Okay… Flagrant animal cruelty aside, robots fighting robots is pretty sweet. Then again, if the robots ever gain self-awareness, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Machinery will finally have a purpose. But then the robots will rebel and kill us all, so really there’s no point to this tangent.

Back on track, Charlie is not doing so well in the business. His robots keep getting the scrap knocked out of them until they’re worthless piles of rubble and he owes money to just about everybody. Out of the blue, he is notified that his ex-girlfriend/baby mama has died, and he has just won a brand new son. Seeing as he’d pretty much a drifter living out of a truck, Charlie is slightly less than enthused about it. He’s ready to sign over custody of Max (Thor’s Dakota Goyo) to the mother’s sister, but then strikes a deal to look after him for the summer.

Turns out Max loves robot fighting as much as Charlie, though the two of them don’t get along so well for a while. Then they find Atom in a junkyard. Atom is an old-school sparring robot, built so bigger, better robots had something to practice against (Seabiscuit much?) But at Max’s behest, they outfit him to be a fighter, and surprise, surprise, he’s actually pretty good at it!

What follows is a delightful tale of love, father-son bonding, overcoming adversity, and, of course, bloodthirsty robots. Jackman plays his signature surly loner with a perpetual five o’clock shadow. You know what, when an actor does a particular kind of character as well as that, I rarely care. Goyo is a loveable kid who actually manages to not be annoying unlike some movie kids… (coughcough). Evangeline Lilly (Lost) plays Jackman’s love interest, Bailey, and I quite liked their chemistry. It was sweet, believable and never overshadowed the more important goings-on.

The effects were good, the soundtrack was great, and the inevitable final showdown was another fun addition to the sports movie archives. I thoroughly enjoyed Real Steel, and it’s already been added to my shopping list for whenever I need a good, uplifting kick of adrenaline.

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly, Dakota Goyo

Directed by: Shawn Levy

Rated PG-13

2011