I guess you don’t need me to tell you this movie is a big hit. It had the second largest Memorial Day weekend opening ever, but was it because it stars Jim Carrey and it rained all over the East Coast last weekend?
Well, I’m glad to report it opened big because it’s a very funny movie. Jim plays a TV reporter for a Buffalo station. In the opening sequence, he’s covering a bakery’s attempt to bake the worlds largest chocolate chip cookie. The place is run by an immigrant Polish family and the laughs come early as Carrey makes his faces and one of the bakers standing behind him starts picking his nose on camera.
The basic story is that Carrey’s character would rather be a news anchor than a field reporter doing light entertainment pieces. He lives with his girlfriend, played by Jennifer Aniston, but dreams of bigger things. I’m normally not big on “behind the scenes” movies about people in the TV business, but the inside stuff is largely avoided here as the pure frantic comedy of Carrey comes through. Did you ever wonder what a guy who has to do the cookie story is really thinking?
His character is a smiling, happy guy on camera, but off camera he’s jaded, cynical and resentful. That’s actually very true of plenty of TV reporter people. There are two very funny scenes in this movie and one of them is when Carrey finds out he’s lost out on the anchor job just as he’s about to go live with a story from Niagara Falls. His on camera rant about the dopey story and his backstabbing, incompetent co-workers is a major hoot.
After this, he meets up with “God”, played by Morgan Freeman. Hey, maybe God is a black man – Freeman certainly has the right voice. Anyway, God gives Carrey his powers while he takes a vacation. Of course, Carrey uses them first to try and get that anchor job, which brings us to the other major funny scene. Carrey decides to mess with the guy that did get the anchor opening by sending the guy into a “Tourettes” fit on the air. What’s truly remarkable about this bit is that not only is the guy playing the anchor great as he does the face contortions and shouts out the profanities and non-sequiters, but at the same time we see Carrey off camera feeding the nonsense and that is almost equally funny.
They added just the right touches to this movie, from Carrey singing the “What if God Was One of Us” song to his attempts to housebreak the dog by giving the animal the ability to use the toilet. I can’t tell you how I still laugh when I think of the scene where Aniston walks in on the puppy while he’s on the bowl reading the paper. He looks up at her and , I swear, seems to be barking at her to get out of here.
Jim Carrey is probably the only living comic actor who can overact and get away with it. His dramatic body movements and facial contortions put you in just the right mood instead of turning you off. There’s simply nobody who goes “over-the-top” better. I often walk into see his movies expecting to roll my eyes and that almost never happens- somehow he wins me over. The only downside to this movie is near the end when the more serious “message” is conveyed about what really matters in life and getting Carrey and Aniston back together and blah-blah-blah. But I forgive that easily, because from start to nearly the finish this is about the funniest movie I’ve seen this year. I give “Bruce Almighty” a “9.0” on the scale.
Friday, May 23rd, 2003
Some things you just know. When I saw trailers for this movie a few weeks back, it took a few minutes to realize it was a remake. It took me less than that to realize it’s going to be a bomb.
I picture looking up the box office numbers next week and seeing this clunker with about a 3 or 4 million dollar take. And judging by the audience I saw at the theatre, that money is mostly coming from a lot of retirement accounts. Can you say “blue hair”?
Of course, that may have plenty to do with the fact that the two main stars are about sixty years old. Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks play a pair of Dads whose kids are about to get married. Brooks is a uptight, anal-retentive podiatrist, Douglas is a free wheeling, easy going undercover CIA guy. Yes, it is one of those odd couple, mismatched buddy movies.
Time is overly spent on the silly CIA business, which is something about selling a super stealth submarine on the black market. Shortly after Douglas and Brooks meet, Douglas’ cover is blown, and so he naturally has to dupe Brooks into his zany undercover work. This is where all sort of mayhem ensues.
Yes, I say that tongue in cheek because unless you don’t get out much, it will all feel like a waste of ninety minutes. Last week I told you I can no longer put up with martial arts fighting that is coupled with ballet (“The Matrix Reloaded”). Now, I’m here to tell you that I can’t handle “casual” spy movies. That is, our super cool guy (Douglas) can get himself in and out of trouble with such ease, he can carry on a side conversation about something completely unrelated. Death defying car chases and airplane maneuvers are carried out smoothly and every hair remains in place.
To add to the difficulty with this movie, little that is said is very funny. A puffy faced Albert Brooks carries on with his Woody Allen act where every whiney line ends with a question mark or a sigh. Here’s one – as Brooks is served snake at a meal, he states he would rather eat Barbara Walters. Huh?
If that’s not bad enough, the side plot here involves making Douglas a better Dad and making Brooks more of a risk taker. Yawn! Well, at least the old folks who spent their 401K and Social Security money on this can get a nap. I give “The In-Laws” a “3.0” on the scale.
Friday, May 16th, 2003
Why are we wasting our time and money chasing Al Qaeda guys around the globe when the two biggest summer movie releases are telling us the real enemy is going to be machine, not man?
Both “The Matrix Reloaded” and “Terminator 3” have the same basic story at heart – humans versus those pesky, out of control machines. In “The Matrix” movie, the machines have enslaved humans by putting them in a computer game world. Right now, you may not know it, but your world might be nothing more than a sophisticated computer program. The machines use humans as an energy source and I guess that’s why they just don’t completely obliterate us.
In this sequel to the surprisingly successful original, three main characters return in order to fight the machines and save the world – Neo, Trinity and Morpheus (The Father, Son and Holy Spirit?)
Keanu Reeves plays Neo, or “The One”. Morpheus, played by Lawrence Fishburne, is the spiritual leader of the rebelling humans and he believes Neo is the guy to save everybody. Trinity is Neo’s chick and she’s played by Carrie-Anne Moss.
It sure is a dull, slow start for this sequel. We begin in a place called “Zion”. It’s the hiding place for what’s left of the free humans. It’s a dreary place – there are some strange scenes here reminiscent of a “Road Warrior” movie. I kept expecting Tina Turner to show up in a buckskin outfit. After Morpheus gives a pep talk to the crowd, dance music is played and there’s an overly long weirdo disco club dancing scene that had me rolling my eyes and wondering why I put up with the hype and the nonsense and went to see this movie on the first day of it’s release.
Things pick up once our fearless trio enters the matrix. Neo must find the answers there and that entails finding some guy known as “The Keymaker”. He turns out be an odd old Asian man and the action sequences it takes to get him to a safe place are terrific. You might remember “Agent Smith” from the original movie. He’s played by Hugo Weaving and he’s Neo’s prime nemesis. Another simulation, Agent Smith has been upgraded and can pull off all sorts of tricks now to try and knock off Neo. One of those tricks is replicating himself ,and in one scene that is both fascinating and bizarre, Neo fights hundreds of Agent Smiths.
It would be easy to feel awed by this movie, which is largely about special effects and setting us up for the third installment due out in November. But how many martial arts fight scenes can a guy take? A kick here, a kick there, a back flip here, a back flip there. I heard people in the theatre gasping and cheering and I was left clueless. Ever since “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, these choreographed, ballet martial arts fight scenes have left me cold. Get real already! I like to see a bullet ripping through a guy’s skull.
Despite that, the car, truck and motorcycle chase scenes are wild and there aren’t many boring moments in this movie. There is even some humor at the expense of the French, so it can’t be all bad. I give “The Matrix Reloaded” a “7.0” on the scale
Friday, May 9th, 2003
They say you can’t live in the past, and for Eddie Murphy that means you can’t be “Axel Foley” forever. That, by the way, was his “Beverly Hills Cop” character. The wise crackin’, cursing Eddie has turned into Cosby. With this movie and his two turns as “Doctor Doolittle”, Eddie has moved from shaking up uptight white people to playing with the kids and the animals.
This movie is exactly what you think it is – no more and no less. Yes, it’s a nice family film – Eddie plays a recently laid off business professional who opens up a day care center. He is joined by two other guys, one is a fat guy played by Jeff Garlin and the other is a nerdy science-fiction obsessed guy played by Steve Zahn.
The fat guy gets to do the physical comedy bits – that is, kids get to hit him in the crotch. Pretty funny if you are about five years old. I decided he looks a lot like “Norm” from Cheers but instead of beers in his hand (this is a family friendly film) he has ice cream and candy and doughnuts. He eventually does get to deliver a few genuinely funny lines just as Norm would.
If you are an adult, the only reason you would go to see “Daddy Day Care” is because it’s one film that both you and your children can watch together. If you expect nothing as I did, you actually do find a few gems. For example, Eddie’s kid is a real find. Great smile, and for a four year old, he can actually act.
Oh, and check out Angelica Huston as the competing day care center head mistress. Decked out in a suit and tie, I defy you to tell me she doesn’t look just like a drag queen. Yeah, I know, a drag queen would wear a dress, but you can’t take your eyes off of her anyway. I was half expecting her to belt out a Streisand song or something.
Lastly, the guy who is cast as the state child services inspector was an unexpected find. He ends up doing a puppet show for the kids with a Spock doll and an Uhura doll ( Star Trek stuff) and puts on a passion play mocking himself as a fifty-five year old guy still living at home with his mother. Hey, I laughed.
But I’d be lying if I said I laughed very much at “Daddy Day Care”. You probably do have to be five years old to be absorbed, but that’s all I think they set out to do. And I can’t fault ‘em for that. I give the movie a “5.0” on the scale. Yes, I miss the old foul mouthed Eddie Murphy too, but we all need to do a reality check here. Only the first “Beverly Hills Cop” and “48 Hours” movies were really any good. We often glorify the past without examining it. Eddie needed to move on and I guess this Cosby thing is it.
Friday, May 2nd, 2003
Just as “reality” TV has taken over your “boob tube”, superhero movies have now taken over your local theatre. When I saw the original “X-Men” a few summers ago, it was obvious a sequel was coming, and here it is.
It’s not disappointing – from opening sequence to grand finale, this movie is action packed, and, surprise! – actually has a pretty detailed story to tell.
I’m not big on movies that feature the Oval office and a guy called “The President”, but I was very tuned in when a guy that looks a lot like President George W. is under siege in the very first scene.
In case you don’t know or remember, the “X-Men” are genetic mutants, humans with a quirk. There’s one with the ability to burn through you with laser eyes, another who can change the weather and yet another with switchblades that come right out of his knuckles. Anyway, just like us boring humans, they have their leaders and they fall into two distinct camps – those who want to co-exist with humans and those who think humans can’t be trusted and must be destroyed. It’s the age old lesson of tolerance and discrimination.
In the opening sequence, one of the mutants is out to prove just how weak we humans are by barging his way right into the Presidents’ lap. Alan Cumming plays this new mutant, a weird looking guy named “Nightcrawler” with a German accent (hey, who said all the mutants have to be Americans?). He can instantly teleport himself just about anywhere. He bounces off walls, dodges dozens of Secret Service guys and gets where he wants to go. If you like this scene, you’ll like this movie.
The mutants leaders of the two warring camps are back – Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier ( he favors co-existance) and Ian McKellan as Magneto (he figures to kill us all) and they add the respect and power from the top a movie like this needs to succeed. Below them is the next tier of mutants, the thirty something year-olds who are the action and romantic scene stars. This would be Hugh Jackman as “Wolverine” ( the guy with the nasty knuckles), Halle Berry as “Storm” and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as “Mystique”, the lady who can transform herself into anybody else at a moments notice.
The last tier of mutants are the young ones, teens and kids who presumably are in this movie just because they may figure in future sequels.
It would be easy to question some of the logic of the mutants power and wonder why it is one didn’t do this or that during a critical scene, but actually, I didn’t do that at all. Instead, I got wrapped up in the plot, which pits the “X-Men”, both factions on the same side this time, against an evil human military general named Stryker, played by Brian Cox. This guy has plenty of inside knowledge of the X guys, which evens up the odds and makes for some fantastic action sequences. And I just love it when a guy like Magneto seems like a good guy for a while, but eventually shows his true colors.
Movies like “X-2” are powered by special effects, but don’t underestimate the acting. Because these comic book movies can get so corny and so over-the-top, you have to be careful not to get carried away. That’s where solid acting often comes into play. And that’s what makes “X-2: X-Men United” a top pick out of this summers action flicks. I’ll say that even though they do obviously set us up for yet another sequel at the end. I’ll be back because this one is even better than the first “X-Men” movie. I give it an “8.0” on the scale.
