About a year ago I saw the preview trailer for this movie and couldn’t wait. You probably did too. It shows this little squirrel type animal trying to bury his acorn in the ice. Without a word, he probes and pecks trying to store his nut for the winter until he sets off a huge avalanche. It was like being transported back to my days as a six year old watching a “Roadrunner” cartoon. This thing, which is called a “scrat”, a combination of a squirrel and a rat, is a hoot. I may have ended up seeing this trailer a dozen times and like a little kid, never got tired of it. Watch the little guy’s eyes bug out as he gets in more and more trouble trying to bury his food. Watch him stick his foot out or drop his nose to the ground to “test” out an idea. And the two or three noises he makes as things go awry. Classic stuff!
Of course, since this was the whole preview, it made me wonder what the entire movie would be about. Too bad “scrat” is not a real big part of it. In fact, the opening scene of “Ice Age” is identical to the trailer. But then there’s over an hour to fill and much of that is taken up by the story of three very different animals “teaming” up for a cause.
The team is made up of a wooly mammoth named Manny, voiced by Ray Romano, a sloth named Sid whose voiced by John Leguizamo, and a sabre-toothed tiger named Diego. The voice of Diego belongs to Dennis Leary. Manny is big and grumpy and sarcastic and needs a visit to Oprah to work through some family related issues. Sid is a talkative dope that most would like to avoid, and Diego is actually up to no good. The cause they are involved in is to bring a lost human baby back to its tribe. Diego, however, is supposed to instead lead the mammoth and the sloth to their demise so his pack of tiger friends can grab and slaughter the baby. Nice kid’s movie, isn’t it?
Oh, I guess I haven’t mentioned that all of this takes place as the ice age is taking over the earth’s climate. I’ll give you that much since it is the title after all. But I should tell you that people and animals do die in this movie. Sort of reminded me of that “Bambi’ problem. It’s all done off camera but I think if you’re protective of some of your young ones you ought to know that.
As for the entertainment value of this movie, it’s not bad. There are some laughs as annoying Sid and cranky Manny bond, but I can’t say it’s that funny. You’ll smile or you’ll just ignore some of the lines, but once in a while you’ll notice something a few levels above on the humor scale. This movie is barely seventy- five minutes long, so I doubt you’ll be bored. There’s one scene where the group ends up sliding it’s way through icy caves and tunnels that definitely hold your attention. Even “scrat” ends up joining in the adventure. Thanks to sequences like this, I can even forgive the “political correctness” of the some of the story line, which points out that the real evil is man who hunts the poor mammoths and tigers down with his nasty spears.
But here’s the bottom line for me on this movie. “Scrat” does the opening scene which I mentioned was the preview trailer, and he gets the last scene which I won’t tell you much about except to say is was also big time funny. It reminded me that I missed this type of humor too much throughout this movie. I’m not sure you can build a whole story around this guy, but I wouldn’t mind them trying. He steals the show and that’s too bad for the rest of these guys, but that’s what happened to me. I give “Ice Age” a “7.0”, but “Scrat” gets a “9.0”.
Friday, March 8th, 2002
You may have heard there was a howl raised by several Catholic organizations over the release of this movie. If not, I’ll give you the short version – a young guy vows to give up all forms of sex for Lent. He’s also got an older brother entering the priesthood who is on the verge of realizing sex is too important to give up forever.
I’m not sure how many people give up sex for Lent, but I’m sure there have been men who decide they can’t handle celibecy and opt out of the robes. So why can’t we have one character in one movie who does that? That’s what I can’t stand about these protests. If they decide one character in one movie depicts what they stand for negatively, the calls begin and the protest is underway. It doesn’t matter if that character represents something that could happen or did happen, the objectors refuse to sit down.
That having been said, those who object to this movie have nothing to worry about. It’s a stinker. Talk about not funny – Josh Hartnett plays the guy whose just lost his long time girl and can’t get her out of his mind. To solve that problem, he takes the Lenten vow. That includes self stimulation, in case you were wondering. Are you doubled over laughing yet?
Of course, he meets his real dream girl shortly after the “fast” begins. That I don’t mind because she is actually truly the only watchable character in this movie. Everybody else is a bad cartoon caricature. See if you find this funny – Josh’s problems begin when he keeps getting distracted during sex by the ceiling overhead ripping apart. Yes, he’s imagining this. So why not get on top so you can’t see the ceiling? Well, he tries this but the agressive girl he’s with tosses him back on his back. This is followed by Josh’s faking an orgasm and then looking to fill the condom with white-out to fool the girl into thinking he finished the job. Oh, and as he tries to do that, he does the old zany “banana peel” slip and fall routine. Do you have your money out of your wallet yet to pay for this?
In fact, I’d like to go through every last unfunny thing that happens in this movie because I’d definitely like to save you a few bucks. But then that would be the whole movie so here’s some more- Josh works in a dot com office in San Francisco, and since they have nothing to do these days, they start an online betting pool as to when Josh will give in. So this results in many of them having some dopey scheme to get Josh to “liberate his fluids”. That would , of course, include Viagra. It’s not funny, trust me.
I actually believe I just made it all funnier than it is. This movie is brought to you by the makers of “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and “Notting Hill”. Those movies are comedy classics compared to this bomb. And that is an old trick by the way. They try to sucker you in by naming a couple of movies you may fondly remember before word of mouth does in the piece of junk they’re foisting on you. You’ve been warned. The protesting Catholics are right – don’t see this movie. Oh, and the brother who is on his way to becoming a priest but drops out after he gives into his need for sex? -not funny either.
There are plenty of ways you can make a movie about someone giving up sex for “40 Days And 40 Nights” and make it mildly entertaining. But this isn’t one of them. They tried to make the guys laugh with the sex stuff and the girls enjoy the romance part, but both are terrible. I give it a “2.0” on the scale – an early nominee for one of the year’s worst.
Friday, March 1st, 2002
Can you deal with yet another war movie? Well, I did, but I mostly came away battle fatigued.
The setting is Vietnam, 1965. We’re getting set for the first major battle between American forces and those of the North Vietnamese. Our guys are led by Lt. Colonel Hal Moore, played by Mel Gibson. He’s assisted by Sargeant Major Basil Plumley, played by Sam Elliott. Do you know the difference between Sam Elliott, Sam Waterston and Sam Shephard? Just a quick quiz. Anyway, you’ll know Mel and Sam on the battlefield because they’ll be the guys who are always standing up. Yep, they never seem to take cover. Other guys are ducking and diving , but Mel and Sam stand tall. No bullet scares them. And Sam plays the crusty, tough guy vet. Always have to have one of those in a war movie, don’t we?
That’s one of the problems I have with this movie. It’s too much, at times, larger than life. From the opening scenes when Mel gets his new assignment and spouts the usual cliches with the tough guy look, to the first assembling of the soldiers wives where there is moment when American racism is decried, I felt a pile of B. S. overcoming me. Cornball, hokey stuff. They call it emotional manipulation and I felt it big time. Things started off on a sour note.
It gets better when we head onto the battlefield, but don’t get too attached to anyone. There’s lots of death. Our strategy is to helicopter in, fight quickly and fiercely, and then copter out just as fast. Their strategy is to simply overwhelm us with numbers. At some point, about an hour into this, I did get battle worn. The fighting takes place in one basic area, but there are several fronts to it, including a creek bed, a ridge and a knoll. I got lost trying to follow each of the guys I was introduced to earlier, so I couldn’t tell who was getting killed. Of course, that is the hell of war. It’s just that it’s so constant, the movie starts to become one big blur. But at least the cornball stuff was done with for a while.
And I guess that was the point. Since this was our first major incursion into Vietnam, our guys entered battle upbeat and patriotic strong. The reality soon slaps them in the face when they find out how prepared the other side is for all of this. All except Mel that is- he puts up a brave front in front of the troops, but keeps looking over pictures depicting the rout of the French in Vietnam ten years earlier, and if you can believe it, he even obssesses over Custer’s Last Stand. They laid it on too thick there.
In the end, the cornball scenes and the battle overkill keep me from recommending this movie. If it had been released before the others that have flooded the theatres, I might have felt differently. They even tried to put a face on the enemy, showing us the strategies of the Viet Cong commander, but it was too little, too late. There is one scene where one of the enemy is shown looking at his girl’s picture. A bit later, he dies in battle trying to take out Mel. I sat there wondering if they put glasses on him so we’d be able to pick him out from the rest. Gosh, am I cynical or what? Sorry Mel, I can only slap a “5.0” on “We Were Soldiers”.
