WRECK-IT RALPH

Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

Grade: B+

Featuring the Voices Of: John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch and Alan Tudyk

Premise: The villain of an old-fashioned video game decides to try his hand at being a good guy, with disastrous results.

Rated PG for stylized action and some crude humor

            I’m pretty everyone has played some sort of video game. Thus, it should intrigue most everyone that the central premise of Wreck-It Ralph is along the lines of the central premise of Toy Story—when the humans are away (in this case, when a certain arcade closes), the video game characters come to life. They have lives, personalities, relationships and even goals. Our titular character is the villain of a simple game called Fix-It Felix, a game in which the Felix of the title is a handyman who uses his magic hammer to repair the damage done to an apartment building by a marauding misanthrope, Ralph (whose in-game slogan is “I’m gonna wreck it!”). Somehow, this simple game has conquered the years and remained popular in arcades despite its aged graphics and basic function, but as it reaches its 30 year anniversary, there’s discontentment brewing. Ogre-sized, big-fisted Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly) is tired of being laughed at and hated by people playing the game, tired of living in either a mud patch or a pile of bricks and tired of being ignored and left out by the snooty apartment tenants. His attempts to join Felix (Jack McBrayer) and the others at a 30^th anniversary party come to naught, as Felix politely rebuffs him under pressure from the others. As he leaves the apartment, Ralph sees the handsome collection of medals Felix has obtained by winning the game so many times over the years, and he gets it in his head that if he had a medal, the others might like him better.

One night at a next door game’s tavern, Ralph meets a drunken soldier from Hero’s Duty, a Halo-style us-versus-them alien apocalypse. When the soldier hints that winning the first level wins one a medal, Ralph hides the man in a closet, steals his armor and weapon, and joins the game. Luckily, he sneaks in undetected by the tough-cookie commanding officer (Jane Lynch), and though the going is tough, Ralph gets his medal. But when he tries to escape one attacking alien, he falls into an auto-piloted shuttle craft that shoots him back out in the arcade games’ central hub and sends him spiraling into Sugar Rush, a cutesy go-cart-racing game that resembles what Mario Kart might look like if its characters were designed by Strawberry Shortcake and its scenery by Willy Wonka. Despite the game’s gentle nature, Ralph finds his medal almost immediately stolen by a fellow outcast, a glitchy character named Vanellope (Sarah Silverman). Vanellope is too awkward and clumsy to compete with the other girls, and she isn’t allowed to participate in the headlining races because of the game ruler’s (Alan Tudyk) fear that increased popularity in her character might cause her glitch to spread and ruin the game. But the girl won’t give Ralph his medal unless he helps her win a race, and he’s determined to not go through another day as the unwanted numbskull villain.

           

 Like most animated movies these days, Wreck-It Ralph is a visual wonder, though it’s not trying for realistic scenery in the vein of Brave or The Croods. But almost anyone who has ever played video games (from kids who barely ever put now their Nintendo DS systems to college students who OD on Xbox360s to adults who remember old-fashioned arcade games like Pac Man) will recognize different game features, character designs, and visual gags. The pixilated movement style of the apartment patrons in Fix-It is deeply amusing, the all-colors-and-sounds senses onslaught of Hero’s Duty should be easily recognizable for those who play Halo and Call of Duty, and Sugar Rush’s many small visual gags are hilarious. In fact, you’d have to work really hard to not enjoy Wreck-It Ralph, even if it didn’t have an involving story (one of the winning aspects is an odd couple chemistry developed by Fix-It Felix and the tough female commando as they join the search for the missing Ralph). And while that story does have familiar themes about being true to yourself, accepting others, and being okay with being different, it doesn’t overdose on themes, or become preachy like some animated movies do. And it keeps throwing curveballs en route to a satisfying ending.

          

  Bottom Line: With the cleverness and brilliance of its character and background design, plus an engaging story that tickles the funny bone and touches the heart, Wreck-It Ralph is a Toy Story-esque entertainment that will delight the family.

Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

Directed by Rich Moore

Written for the screen by Phil Johnston and Jennifer Lee, based on an idea by John C. Reilly, Sam Levine and Jared Stern

Rated PG

Length: 108 minutes

THE CROODS

The Croods (2013)

Grade: B

Featuring the Voices of: Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Gloris Leachman, Catherine Keener and Clark Duke

Premise: A family of traditional cave people trusts a mysterious outsider to lead them to safety through their rapidly-changing world.

Rated PG for fantasy action, scenes of peril and some intense emotional content

It’s no longer safe, box-office wise, to make a kid’s movie that’s only for kids. These days, to gain any street cred (or notable monetary returns), even a PG-rated animated adventure meant for kids must grab adults, too, either with tongue-in-cheek political jokes or pop culture jabs, accomplished celebrities providing the voices, catchy radio-ready showtunes, or more mature themes. Like last year’s Brave, Dreamworks Animation’s The Croods makes its living in the latter category, enchanting kiddies with a visual spectacle but aiming for the heart with a storyline regarding one of the oldest and most relatable relationships—that of parent and child. Brave was about an adventurous girl who felt like her old-fashioned, stuffy mother was cramping her style and ruining her life, but then she got a taste of life without her. The Croods, too, features an adventurous girl in a traditional family home who yearns for excitement, but who, ultimately, realizes home is where the heart is.

Plot

The Croods are practically your typical family. There’s an old-fashioned worrywart father (Grug, voiced by Nicolas Cage), a gentle, compassionate mother (Ugga, voiced by Catherine Keener), a feisty old grandma (Gloris Leachman), a klutzy teen boy (Thunk; Clark Duke), a fierce little toddler who doesn’t speak but can sure as heck bite, and that rebellious teenage girl, Eep (Emma Stone). The Croods are cavemen with thick limbs, otherworldly strength, sloping foreheads, and the tendency to hunt and kill for food with all the savagery of the animals they’re hunting. They’re also prone to huddling in their cave for days at a time when something startles them. It’s this barren, no-frills, do-nothing lifestyle that’s bothering Eep. She’s tired of the dark, tired of the cave, tired of her father’s cautionary stories (a little girl had some curiosity…and DIED). She wants something more.

One night, she awakens to a strange, moving light in the distance. It’s fire, something she’s never seen. The maker of this particular fire turns out to be a man, a more modern homo sapien with a head full of creative ideas named Guy (Ryan Reynolds). Eep is not only fascinated by Guy and the fire he’s created, but she’s startled by his claims that their world is ending, and that he’s going north to a distinct distant mountain to be safe from volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. When Eep introduces Guy to the family, Grug is the only one who doesn’t take kindly to him (he’s wary of trying new things and doesn’t trust this newcomer with his family). But when Guy’s words prove prophetic and his new means of collecting food, wearing foot protection and using horn-like shells to keep in touch make the family’s life easier, Grug feels old and out-of-touch, and his bitterness starts to show. But as the catastrophes close in, it’s clear the family can’t survive if they’re fighting amongst themselves.

What Works?

Obviously, computer animation has gotten pretty darn good, but sometimes you have to see a movie like The Croods to be reminded just how good. This movie is unbelievable. The landscapes are gorgeous (and the explosions frighteningly realistic), the creatures impressively detailed and the main characters as impressive as any computer-generated humans yet. In fact, it’s amazing how, for instance, Eep can be a tanned, broad-shouldered, gap-toothed cavewoman and yet also suggest the cute but gawky Emma Stone, with bright green eyes and freckles on her nose. This isn’t motion-capture, they’re-supposed-to-be-real-technology a la Avatar and Beowulf, but the people are unmistakably human and all convincingly alive. Speaking of which, there’s some terrific voice work. Stone is reliably good and Reynolds is a hoot with an animated part that might not, in live action, support his leading-man persona, but the real star is Cage. While Cage’s live action career has gone off the rails in recent years thanks to the star’s penchants for schmaltzy melodrama and hammy overacting, those qualities prove perfect for bringing the grouchy, roaring, fearful and determined Grug to life. It’s downright fun picturing Cage going wild in a studio making the noises Grug makes when he pounds the ground with his fists and when he chases Guy in a jealous/angry rage. He also makes the character a real man, whom we feel for (when Ugga whispers in his ear, late in the proceedings, "You did good", it's impossible not to think of how much real fathers and husbands only want to hear those words.).

What Doesn’t Work?

I was fighting back tears for the last 30 minutes of The Croods, so it’s hard to take shots at the movie, but there’s never any mistaking its aimed at children. While the movie begins and ends with exciting, meaningful sequences, much of the middle is devoted to repetitive slapstick and over-the-top action (that Grug is the butt of jokes because he refuses to yield to Guy’s ‘new age’ thinking is beaten into the ground). That tearjerker ending, also, is very much on the schmaltzy side. The flaws aren’t enough to keep me from watching it again and enjoying it, but even though my eyes were stinging, my movie critic senses were tingling. But these irritants--typical for kids movies trying to hold young attention spans--are not fatal.

Bottom Line (I Promise): Spectacular animation, some great voice work from well-known celebs, and a entertaining shtick crossed with relevant emotion make The Croods an engaging and well-rounded movie for the family.

The Croods (2013)

Directed by Kirk De Micco and Chris Sanders

Written by Kirk De Micco, Chris Sanders, and John Cleese

Rated PG

Length: 98 minutes

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN

Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

Grade: B

Starring: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Angela Bassett, Morgan Freeman, Rick Yune, Melissa Leo, Finley Jacobsen, Robert Forster and Dylan McDermott

Premise: A disgraced Secret Service agent becomes America’s only hope when foreign terrorists attack the White House and take the president hostage.

RATED R for strong, brutal, bloody violence, strong language, and disturbing thematic material including gore, a scene of torture, and a beating

I’m finding Olympus Has Fallen a difficult movie to review, mainly because it reminded me strongly of two better films I would rather be watching. In short, Training Day director Antoine Fuqua’s new movie is the latest in a long line of films that couldn’t more obviously be taking their cue from the 1988 John McTiernan classic, Die Hard. Speed was Die Hard On A Bus, Under Siege was Die Hard On A Boat, the recent A Good Day to Die Hard was Die Hard Over the Hill—Olympus Has Fallen is Die Hard In The White House. Foreign terrorists nab some hostages, kill innocent security people, make ridiculous demands and threaten to kill everybody, while a fly-in-the-ointment wise guy sneaks onto the premises and slowly undoes their well-laid plan. Olympus also owes a debt to Wolfgang Petersen’s Air Force One, another president-in-jeopardy movie featuring an international baddie with love-of-home-country issues who likes to shoot important cabinet people through the head while other high-ranking government officials convene in a top-secret, tech-savvy room and talk repeatedly about how bad the situation is.

Both Die Hard and Air Force One are favorites of mine, and Olympus was almost painfully obviously a carbon copy of the former and made me want to re-watch the latter, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy Fuqua’s film. It’s a ball-busting, bone-cracking, unsophisticated shoot-first film that is enjoyable without resorting to the camp (or plastic surgery) of The Expendables and other recent 80s-action-star encore movies.

Plot

As the head of the Secret Service, Mike Banning (Scotsman Gerard Butler, gamely waging war with his native accent) had it all: an admirable position, a highly-trained team of good friends, and, of course, the trust and first-name friendship of the President of the United States, Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart), and his family (Ashley Judd and Finley Jacobsen). But when the presidential convoy hits the skids one night on an icy road, Mike is forced to make a terrible, unpopular choice. Fired from his position, he struggles slowly through a year and a half flying a desk at the Department of the Treasury while wracked with boredom and regret. He can see the White House through his window, can see the president escorted around by his old friends (Cole Hauser and Dylan McDermott, among others).

But, one ordinary day, the White House is assaulted by a marauding C130, garbage trucks equipped with .50 caliber machine guns, and a crowd of foreigners toting automatic weapons (all this immediately after the president welcomes a North Korean dignitary into the West Wing). Worse comes to worst, Secret Service members and other public service agents drop like flies under clouds of gunfire, and the president, VP and others end up in the president’s airtight, bombproof underground security bunker at the mercy of a seething Korean heavy (Rick Yune). The president and VP’s sticky situation puts Speaker of the House Alan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) into the Oval Office chair—figuratively speaking—and on the receiving end of the baddie’s demands (withdraw troops from the Korean DMZ, provide a helicopter for the transport of hostages, etc…). With time running out before the bad guy makes a lot of big things go boom, Mike sneaks into the desolated, damaged White House, arms himself, and makes use of his inside knowledge to sneak around, pick off unwary foreign sentries, and attempt to penetrate the bunker.

Rapid Reaction

Olympus is almost embarrassingly similar to Die Hard at points, from the fly-in-the-ointment scenario and a bad-guy-playing-good-guy to the bad guy and the hero finding ways to hurl insults at each other via intercom, walkie talkie, and video prompter. Oh, and the rendering of the Secret Service, Washington DC police force, and other uniformed Americans into bullet magnets harkens back to Air Force One. At one point, I silently did a head count: Butler is Bruce Willis/Harrison Ford, Rick Yune is Alan Rickman/Gary Oldman/Alexander Gudonov, Angela Basset and Morgan Freeman combine to be Reginald VelJohnson/Glenn Close, Robert Forster is Paul Gleason…am I forgetting anyone? \

But, it’s still not bad. Olympus is never boring, there’s a couple funny insults intended for American ears only (my personal favorite was one line from Butler to Yune: “I’m gonna kill you, take pictures of your corpse, and then sell it to the press, ‘cause I know you’re into that stuff”), and the violence is so heavy early on it’s sobering, and you want to see justice done. And it ends happily.  Oh, oops. Spoiler.

Acting

It’s a tiny bit funny that we have Scotsman Butler—once woefully miscast as the phantom of the opera—playing a true blue American hero, but the actor is believable enough in the straight scenes and he certainly has the build for a rugged, rock ‘em-sock ‘em action hero. Having graduated from playing Gotham City’s District Attorney to playing America’s President, Eckhart does what he can with an underwritten role as a guy who smiles and gives speeches for one third of the movie and is forced to sit around and sweat, handcuffed and at gunpoint, for the other two-thirds. Freeman could play the agitated politician in his sleep. Yune, who played headlining villains in the blockbusters The Fast and the Furious and Die Another Day ten years ago, is an intriguing bad-dude (naturally, he’s most interesting wielding knives and kung fu know-how in a mano-a-mano breakdown with Butler). Oscar-winner Melissa Leo has a few good moments as the tough old broad Secretary of Defense. Ultimately, it’s a star-studded group who manage interesting portrayals even with rather cookie-cutter types.

Directing

Well, as long as things blow up the right way and people look like they’re really dead when they’re supposed to be, how much “directing” is involved in a movie like this? The opening assault on the White House is--outside of an almost unbelievably lame sequence involving a collapsing Washington Monument--shocking and sobering in its intricate details. The movie does struggle with originality—anyone who’s seen Die Hard a couple times will find it impossible not to realize Olympus is very closely following the earlier film’s classic blueprint. However, Fuqua and his team do well with creating an air of menace, and even maybe making you wonder if something like this is really possible.

Content

Among movies I’ve reviewed, Olympus is automatically up there with Django Unchained, Lawless and The Expendables 2 for staggering body counts and maximum amounts of splattering blood. Some of these are in long shot, but there’s an uncomfortably vivid beating of a woman by Yune’s baddie, as well as multiple close up head shots (and I hope you understand what I mean by‘head shot’). The movie is stocked with plenty of four-letter words as well, but, of course, that’s not how it really earns its R rating.

Bottom Line (I Promise): This has been kind of a downer of a review, but Olympus Has Fallen is a great edge-of-your-seat popcorn movie for the action cravers and the strong-of-stomach. It’s pretty much wall-to-wall action, with an appealing cast and some eye-popping sequences. The audience seemed to enjoy it; I certainly did.

Olympus Has Fallen (2013)

Directed by Antoine Fuqua

Written by Creighton Rothenberger and Katrin Benedikt

Rated R

Length: 120 minutes

JACK THE GIANT-SLAYER

Jack the Giant-Slayer (2013)
Grade: B-
Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Eleanor Tomlinson, Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane, Ewan Bremner, Eddie Marsan and Bill Nighy
Premise: When a down-on-his-luck farmboy opens a portal between his world and the mythical elevated world of the Giants, and a princess is suddenly taken captive, the young man journeys into dangerous territory to rescue her from the monsters.

Rated PG-13 for action violence and some gory images

I'm feeling a little let down by Jack the Giant-Slayer. Like 2010's Alice in Wonderland and last year's Mirror Mirror and Snow White & the Huntsman, it's supposed to be a broader-scale, more epic version of a beloved fairy tale, but it falls far short of the edginess suggested by that rather badass title. Squeaky-clean leading man Nicholas Hoult won't be mistaken by anybody as a hard-edged vigilante (this isn't Jack The Giant Punisher), and the familiar "Jack and the Beanstalk" fairy tale is here adapted in a tidier manner more akin to Mirror Mirror, or even 2010's Tangled, than the dark, gothic-horror-embellished pizzazz of The Huntsman. Mostly pretty conventional plot-wise, Jack does manage to gain some credibility with a third act crammed with eye-popping action. Ultimately, it's a mildly-diverting popcorn flick that will give girls plenty of time to oogle Flavor-of-the-Month hearthrob Hoult.

The basic story's pretty simple, and almost everyone knows its most basic plot points. Jack (Hoult, hyper-popular right now after the success of his zombie flick Warm Bodies) is a poor farmhand who eventually comes to the realization that he must sell his beloved horse to get by. On a trip into the kingdom of Cloister, he is able to sell the horse, though admittedly only to a monk who pays him with a handful of beans, which are supposedly "magical". By chance he encounters Cloister's lovely princess, Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson), a motherless, adventure-seeking girl dreading her impending marriage to the stuffy, power-mad nobleman Roderick (Stanley Tucci). While Jack and the princess discover they might actually have some things in common despite their different places in life, their lives are put on hold when the beans Jack was paid with erupt into an enormous beanstalk, which carries the princess high into the sky, beyond the clouds, to a kingdom of giants believed to exist only in myth. Immediately, Isabelle's father (Ian McShane) assembles a team to rescue his daughter, led by stalwart knight Elmont (Ewan McGregor). Taking Jack along, the team scales the beanstalk, encounters the giants, and finds the princess, but they soon discover that Roderick holds an ancient key to controlling the giants, and he has his sights set on Isabelle's father's throne. Soon Jack and Isabelle are trying to descend the beanstalk quickly enough to warn Cloister of Roderick's plot to pit the whole giant populace against it.

Jack hits the ground running, sending Jack into Cloister to sell his horse within the first ten minutes, after a brief prologue in which the young Jack and Isabelle are separately read the story of the giants' war with humans (they thought it was just a story). And it wastes little time from there, probably a result of Singer assuming people attending a movie called Jack the Giant-Slayer want to see some giant-slaying. Thus, the characterizations are basic, the sentiments few, and the budding romance between Jack and Isabelle has a cute moment or two but is actually rather shrugged off. This comes as no great detriment, though, as this movie, at 114 minutes, is a little too long as is, without any expansion.

If they wanted to cut something, though, they could always cut most of the Roderick subplot, which embarrasses the always-game Stanley Tucci with one of those frothing-at-the-mouth cartoonish villain roles. Even more embarrassed is Ewan Bremner as his goofy, jester-like sidekick. The rest of the cast (Hoult, Tomlinson, McGregor, McShane) thankfully get less ridiculous parts but are still a long way from three-dimensionality. Each of these characters is a cookie cutter type (the brave young hero, the damsel in distress, the noble knight, the grave king) who's fallen straight out of the pages of a children's book.

But the movie succeeds where it needs to. The scene where the beanstalk erupts out of the ground and through the floor of Jack's cottage is kind of awesome, and the last act--in which the computer-generated giants reach the ground and begin an assault on Cloister--hits a few notes that are flat-out spectacular. And while the obviously CGI giants are a little distracting, they're nonetheless acceptable as dangerous antagonists (and it's always worth hearing Bill Nighy's Irish brogue, even if it's from the maw of a grotesque, two-headed giant).

Largely family friendly but for a few intense action scenes, Jack the Giant-Slayer has the feel of one of those movies that entertains in the moment but will be quickly forgotten (I'm really interested to see the business it does at the box office this weekend). **I saw it in 3-D, which enhances a scene or two, but (as per the extra dimension's usual) is unnecessary.**  It's an uber-safe vehicle for Hoult (now that he's reached bonafide leading man status), and McShane, McGregor and Tucci are all deserving of better, but something tells me it could be a popular rental.

Bottom Line (I Promise): Jack the Giant-Slayer isn't quite the epic spectacle its tough title indicates, but some impressive visuals, engaging action, and a brisk plot make this a servicable popcorn flick.

Jack the Giant-Slayer (2013)
Directed by Bryan Singer
Written by Darren Lemke, Christopher McQuarrie, and Dan Studney; based on the story by Darren Lemke and David Dobkin
Rated PG-13
Length: 114 minutes

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
Grade: B
Premise: A young girl in a poor community questions her identity, her home, and the mystery of her long-lost mother after her father falls ill of a terminal disease.
Starring Quveznhane Wallis as Hushpuppy and Dwight Henry as Wink

Rated PG-13 for thematic material include alcohol abuse, some blood and gory images, and a few sequences of a child in danger.

Beasts of the Southern Wild, the eighth Academy Award nominee for Best Picture I've seen this year, is one of those movies that sneaks up on you. In a nonchalant, no-hurry manner, it plants you in a world of squalor mixed with strange beauty, gives you a mostly-silent protagonist, goes long stretches without dialogue, and, for long periods, seems to be about nothing. However, the force of performance from one of its key actors and the strong presence of the other keeps the film afloat, giving you strained family melodrama and crackerjack whimsy. The movie doesn't always make sense, and you might find yourself wondering why you're watching it, but the emotion surges at all the right moments. It's not a Friday night party movie, but if you're up for something different, it might just surprise you.

Plot: Six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quveznhane Wallis) lives with her daddy (Dwight Henry) in the Bathtub, a mud-and-sticks marsh in a walled-off area of the Louisiana bayou. Along with a few beer-swilling, seafood-binging poor neighbors, they live illegally because they believe they're better off in decaying trailors, leaky cabins and lean-tos than they are in a poor shelter. Precocious Hushpuppy wanders around on her own, playing with chickens and listening to the heartbeats of small animals, always answering the bell her father rings whenever it's "feeding time". She wonders about her mom, some of who's possessions she still has (She may have died; it isn't clear). Though her father is a cantankerous, hard-drinking man who sometimes disappears for a few days at a time, throws angsty fits and shuns affection and emotion, Hushpuppy has a strong connection to him. When he disappears for a few days and then resurfaces in a white hospital gown and bracelet, she doesn't understand.

After a storm floods the Bathtub, Hushpuppy, her father, and their neighbors are relocated to a shelter by local authorities. There, against his will, Hushpuppy's father is taken into surgery and then given proper care and a serious diagnosis. But the comforts of clean clothes, white walls, and square meals mean little to either of them. At first chance, Hushpuppy's dad sneaks the Bathtub citizens out of the hospital and back to their small community, where they'll live the way they want, but his illness is serious. Facing a life without the only constant presence in her life, Hushpuppy wonders if she should remain in the Bathtub or try to find a life elsewhere.

What Works?
You've probably heard by now that 9-year-old Quveznhane Wallis has become the youngest-ever Best Actress Oscar nominee for her performance as Hushpuppy. I don't know if it's a riveting piece of acting (even for a then-six-year-old), but, like the film, Wallis truly engages and moves when she needs to. Her gruff, stubborn, whimsical and wild child is a really interesting characterization. As is that of her father, Dwight Henry's Wink. It's obvious Wink should not be a parent (he's only held her once, right after she was born, he drinks all the time, he throws things at his daughter, and he makes no visible effort to give his child a better life), but Henry and the screenplay nonetheless show a man who teaches his daughter enough to survive, enough to be proud, enough to not live off handouts. He cheers her up during a thunderstorm by firing into the sky with a shotgun, he gets her to crack open and eat crabs on her own by leading their neighbors in a noisy chant, and he gives her pride in herself by challenging her to an arm-wrestling match and letting her win. For most of the film, Wink is not a likeable character, but, again, as his destiny becomes clear (especially as seen through his daughter's eyes), it's hard not to cry for him. Seeing this, I'm actually extremely disappointed Henry was passed over for an Oscar nomination when Wallis was nominated. It's true his performance lacks subtlety and "artistry" and all that stuff serious Oscar voters rave about, but, nearly as much as Wallis, he is the engine that drives the film.

Beasts is made up of a lot of faded camera shots and shaky handheld clips, but it's effective in capturing both the grime of the Bathtub world but also the beauty Hushpuppy sees in it. Between the images and soft but effective score, Beasts conjures up some memorable moments.

What Doesn't Work?
Beasts takes a while to get off the ground, to really establish any characterization beyond the fact that Hushpuppy is a little backwoods girl who lives in squalor. It also takes a while to establish a plot, and nothing about that plot until the last act is very clean cut. There's a lot that is unexplained. It also appears to have a fantasy angle that only manifests itself in a few brief moments, which is confusing--rather like this summer's Moonrise Kingdom, I, personally, think that, if you're going to make a weird movie, make it; if you're going to make a serious, realistic movie, make it. Don't make it look like you suddenly decided to throw in a curveball just for kicks. The movie's inherent curiousness and its slow burn pace also take a toll, as this 93-minute movie feels considerably longer.

Content
There's no sexuality or nudity, no violence, and I'm not even sure there is any real profanity, but Beasts can be a somber movie. It's depictions of poverty, of flood-wrought devastation, and a number of visual reminders of the inevitability of death make this is a sobering picture. It's also just plain out-there enough that I wouldn't recommend it to many people.

Bottom Line (I Promise): If you're up for something different, go ahead and check out Beasts of the Southern Wild. It's a quiet, unassuming movie about life (which is nominated for four of the most important Oscars given out this weekend), featuring two strong performances and a look at what seems like a whole different world.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
Directed by Behn Zeitlin
Rated PG-13
Length: 93 minutes

THE IMPOSSIBLE

The Impossible (2012)
Grade: B

Starring: Naomi Watts, Tom Holland, Ewan McGregor, Samuel Joslin and Oaklee Pendergast

Premise: A well-to-do British family on vacation in Thailand is separated and thrown into chaos and grief when a tsunami destroys the countryside the day after Christmas.

Rated PG-13 for disturbing disaster sequences and related elements (terror, bloody wounds and gore, very intense emotional content) and brief nudity

            On December 26, 2004, an earthquake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale rocked the Indian Ocean floor and, according to reports, generated vibrations that could be felt across the entire planet. Within hours, 30 foot waves created by the tremors plowed across the beaches and shoreline of over a dozen countries in Southeast Asia, leaving a reported 230,000 dead and leveling miles of buildings, power lines, trees and roads. Included in the dead and missing were more than 9,000 tourists, who were enjoying the balmy climate for the winter, having celebrated Christmas just the day before.

            Tiny amongst the carnage and devastation was such a family, which was incredibly wealthy by the locals’ standards—a Spanish doctor, Maria Belon, her husband, Enrique, and their three sons, Lucas, Tomas and Simon. On vacation from their home in Japan, they were ill-prepared for the horror that awaited them. The family, who have become full-time activists in memory of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami and the countless numbers who lost their lives and their innocence, worked with Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona to have their story told as a memorial to those who suffered. The result is an imperfect but emotionally-scorching film that is (ahem) impossible to forget once you’ve seen it.

Plot

Looking forward to celebrating Christmas in exotic beach-side luxury in Thailand, the Bennet family survives some minor turbulence in their inbound flight before checking into a lush resort right on the water. Maria (Naomi Watts) is a doctor who put off her practice in order to spend time with her sons, prickly young teen Lucas (Tom Hollander), bright-eyed seven-year-old Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and five-year-old Simon (Oaklee Pendergast). Unfortunately, her colorful Christmas is dampened slightly by the assertion of her husband Henry (Ewan McGregor) that she may have to go back to work, because there’s a chance he may be on the verge of losing his high-paying corporate job in Japan. However, even that potentially life-altering news becomes little more than a footnote on Boxing Day, when the wind suddenly picks up, the ground shakes, and a terrifying wall of water plows over the hotel and swipes away the family and everyone else around them.

            Finding consciousness amidst a swirling torrent of water strong enough to level buildings, uproot trees and sweep away cars and power lines, Maria is gravely injured but able to locate Lucas, who is, miraculously, almost unhurt. After taking shelter in a tree, they’re located by a rescue crew and taken to a hospital, where Maria’s state quickly deteriorates. Trying to find something to do other than sit by his weak and shivering mom’s bedside, Lucas tries to help some other patients in the overcrowded hospital locate their missing relatives. Meanwhile, Henry, who was with the two young boys when the wave hit, agonizes over whether to send his sons to a shelter in the mountains where conditions will be more sanitary and orderly, or to keep them with him, while he tries desperately to locate his wife and oldest son amongst throngs of sick, injured, terrified and homeless people.

What Works?

I’ve heard some complaints about The Impossible (actually Lo Impossible due to its Spanish origination) centered around the idea that it’s calculated and cheap to make a film about five rich white people who survive a terrible disaster while hundreds of thousands of other poorer, local people did not. And I guess I understand that, but you could make that complaint about almost any war movie ever made (why did the hero live when all these other people died—if indeed the movie in question is one in which the hero lives). But while The Impossible does have the feel of a film that comes to a very tidy resolution, I can tell you now it’s much more gratifying and uplifting to learn the story of a family that survived as opposed to many people who did not. Based on the Belon family’s accounts, the film certainly jumps through hoops to make sure the horror and devastation of the incident is brought home.

Speaking of which, The Impossible is the most viscerally-emotional film I’ve seen in a long time. Holding back the tears will be nearly impossible for most viewers, whether they’re tears of terror, grief, or joy. Oscar Faura’s cinematography is tremendous, capturing the pitched terror of being carried away by a wall of water in an indecipherable cacophony of noise and colors, then seeing the pain and suffering and widespread devastation left by the disaster. Some of the immediate post-tsunami sequences are incredibly difficult to watch. It certainly is nightmarish. Aiding hugely in the film’s credibility and emotional impact are the actors, who give brave performances in the face of such a demanding story. Naomi Watts has gotten the film’s lone Oscar nomination (for Best Actress—by now, after 21 Grams, King Kong and this, it’s clear that Watts can turn on the hysterics like few others), but once she’s immobilized by pain and sickness, it’s revealed that young Tom Holland is the film’s real star. Horribly attuned to the pain and grief around him even while trying to tune it out and remain strong, Holland gives a fierce performance that has been recognized with a great deal of praise and awards. As the husband/father, Ewan McGregor’s performance isn’t nearly as showy, but the normally cool-and-collected actor goes straight for the heart and the throat with one searing moment of emotional distress. The actors playing the two younger sons are serviceable, and Sonke Mohring has a few wonderful moments as a fellow tourist stunned by pain and loss.

What Doesn’t Work?

In an age of huge, epic films that try hard to utterly unforgettable, The Impossible might seem a little short—like it resolves a little too neatly. I got that feel (“wow, already?”) once I saw the resolution being achieved, but it’s really a small complaint. After all, how many times have I complained on this blog of movies being too long? This movie is about the disaster and the immediate aftermath—also why there’s fairly little character-building time before the tsunami. The point still gets across. You still want the family to be reunited.

Content:

Conveying as it does a terrible and unforeseen disaster that really did affect millions of people, The Impossible can be very, very unsettling. While the viewer is spared most looks at dead bodies, the camera glimpses gory details like gaping wounds and people throwing up blood and debris in the hospital. There’s no cursing I can remember, and, while there’s a bit of nudity (though it’s in an unglamorous, nonsexual context), the main thing that makes The Impossible questions for kids or even many adults is the nightmarish content that it strives to make real.

Bottom Line (I Promise): At times terrifying, crushingly sad and exhilarating, The Impossible may not be the Next Great Epic but it’s a vivid and moving film about the disaster that also makes you celebrate the survival and recovery of the Belons.

The Impossible (2012)

Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona

Written by Sergio G. Sanchez; based on the story by Maria Belon

Rated PG-13

Length: 114 minutes

WARM BODIES

Warm Bodies (2013)

Grade: B+

Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Rob Cordrry, Analeigh Tipton, Dave Franco and John Malkovich

Premise: A potential cure for a worldwide zombie virus outbreak is discovered after one of the living dead develops genuine affection for a living, breathing human girl.

RATED PG-13 for thematic material including blood, gore, action violence, disturbing images, and some language

If you’ve gotten this far, I’m assuming you’ve read the title of the movie on which this review is centered, and you’ve read the premise (you’ve probably even seen the trailer). Are you thinking I’ve lost my mind yet? After all, I fancy myself a big, tough movie critic who thumbs his nose at Harry Potter and Hunger Games and Marvel Comics adaptations that make billions of dollars worldwide, and yet I’ve gone and given a favorable grade to a zombie/human romance that couldn’t more obviously be just the newest entrant in the ridiculous ‘Paranormal Romance’ sensation that’s sweeping the teen/young-adult world? It started with the vampire/human Twilight books and movies, but more big budget adaptations—such as the witch/human romance Beautiful Creatures due in March—are on the way. I admit I’m on a high because I just saw Warm Bodies and my emotions are in gear, and the first time I hear someone sensible diss the movie I’ll probably scramble to make excuses for such a good rating…

But, dag gone it, I enjoyed the heck out of myself watching Director Jonathan Levine’s adaptation of Isaac Marion’s novel. I watch a lot of movies (some for entertainment, some so I’m in the know for the upcoming Oscar race, some because I get invited to a time out with friends, and some because I just need some background noise in my apartment), and, lately, I’d been finding it a rather joyless process. After all, I watch movies regularly, and I was finding myself increasingly and frustratingly unimpressed by one hoity-toity Movie-of-the-Week title after another (Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained). I’ve been getting a little jaded…probably because lately I’ve been watching a lot of really long, really dark movies full of pain and death (The aforementioned three, plus Skyfall and Les Miserables). Thus, the cute, quick little Warm Bodies worked on me like a magic trick, making me laugh, gasp, swoon, move to the edge of my seat, and, basically, really enjoy going to the movies again. That’s right: a teen girls' zombie/human rom-com became a treat.

Plot: In the not-too-distant future, humanity has nearly been wiped out by a zombie virus (the origins of which are unexplained). In one large American city, a population of survivors lives surrounded by a massive wall, which they had to speedily erect to keep out disease-ridden zombies, some of which are essentially walking skeletons. One such zombie (Nicholas Hoult) can’t remember his own name but is a little more self-aware than others. He wishes to feel, wishes to communicate, wishes to have something to do other than just walk around with other people who can’t feel or communicate. However, it turns out, pretty much the only way this zombie can feel is by eating a person’s brains, wherein he’s able to see and experience their memories. When a small group of living humans ventures beyond the wall to try to recover medical supplies from a lab, zombies attack, our “hero” gets a hold of a guy’s brains, and boom—suddenly he’s neck-deep in lovey-dovey land with a gorgeous, soulful blonde (Teresa Palmer). The girl, Julie, the daughter of the local militia maven (John Malkovich) happens to be in the same company as the man who was just devoured, and the zombie, gob-smacked by emotion and desire, can’t find it in himself to kill and eat her. Instead, finding himself really motivated for the first time in ages, he hides her inside his sanctuary, an airplane he has slowly but steadily stocked with things he finds valuable, like records and sports trophies and magazines. Though at first understandably terrified and repulsed, Julie slowly begins to realize that R (as she comes to refer to him), as well as some of the other zombies, aren’t quite the unrelenting killing machines expected. R even saves Julie when she tries to run for it and ends up cornered by a pack of the more mindless beings. Though she’s still biased and a little sickened, Julie sees enough as R escorts her back to safety that she begins to believe the infected remnants of the human race may not be beyond all hope. The trouble will be getting her fellow human survivors to see it, too.

What Doesn’t Work?

Okay, okay, okay, so, some sense here: you have to leave disbelief at the door when you go to see Warm Bodies. Why didn’t the zombies’ eating of other people’s brains trigger in them feelings of love for the individuals those people loved and, thus, stop the outbreak as it was happening? Why can R form the occasional word when most of his fellows can’t manage even that? What are the chances-really?-that the surviving humans would ever let any of the walking undead stand long enough to try and observe that they’re not the mindless killing machines they expected? Why are cutesy teenage girls like Julie and Nora (Analeigh Tipton) among those sent into the dead zone/kill zone beyond the wall? There’s plenty that set my movie critic sense tingling as I watched Warm Bodies, and is tempting me to give the movie a lower grade, no matter how many warm-fuzzies I'm experiencing.

What Works?

I guess I’m just choosing to ignore those questions. Why can’t I do that with all movies I watch? Probably because I had such a good time watching this movie. I mean, despite the fact that I saw right through this formulaic undead/human romance aimed at teen girls, I found Warm Bodies about a hundred times funnier than any of the Twilight movies (and not because I was laughing at it). Despite the fact that Nicholas Hoult essentially wears one pale, bug-eyed, crusty-lipped expression for the entire film, he’s somehow almost immediately a more interesting and engaging undead protagonist than Robert Pattison ever managed to be. Likewise, Teresa Palmer--who actually does suggest a blond poor man's Kristen Stewart--proves more engaging than the ever-sullen actress who played Bella Swan because she’s not trying nearly as hard to seem like a klutzy, nothing-special, unattractive girl (she’s not unattractive, by the way). The real kicker that makes Warm Bodies better than Twilight and such is that the supernatural/paranormal/undead being with all the powers and quirks is the Main Character, rather than a supporter to a regular old human protagonist.

And, of course, though it has a lot of moments that need to work for the movie to function (the development of believable chemistry between its leads, for instance, and having genuinely harrowing shootouts and zombie/human altercations), Warm Bodies doesn’t take itself anywhere near as seriously as Twilight did. The biggest problem with the Twilight films is that they wouldn’t know humor if it bit them upside the leg—those films revolved around their ridiculously-stuffy and uninvolving attempts to develop to-die-for romantic chemistry. Warm Bodies is bookended with wall-to-wall action and rife with humor (there’s even a full-on LOL teenage girl scene that manages to come across as less ridiculous than it could). Again, Warm Bodies just engaged me. Even though I objectively knew it was a silly teenage girl’s movie, I wanted the protagonists to survive and be together, I wanted humanity to find peace, I felt the suspense of not knowing how terrifying fights and chases were going to turn out, and I felt good when I walked out of the theater. You might forget Warm Bodies a couple days after you see it, and the ending might be a little treacly; you might also feel a little miffed that you spent $10 on an hour-and-a-half girly fairy tale, but, I gotta tell ya, as an entertainment, it beats the hell out of two-and-a-half hour movies that bore you for two-thirds of their running time and make you miserable for the other third.

Content

Children and some squeamish adults will certainly find things to cringe at, given that our “hero” and his mates enjoy killing people and eating brains--at least they don't usually do it right in front of the camera, right? Warm Bodies is not unnecessarily gory, and though the movie’s tense, really sinister, terrifying moments are few. There's also the odd four-letter word to spice up the low-key dialogue (some of these curses are actually croaked by zombies). And, for the record, other than one brief shot of Teresa Palmer stripping down to her undergarments (seen from behind), there is nothing particularly suggestive or edgy in a sensual way. The last two Twilight: Breaking Dawn films were far more rambunctious.

Bottom Line (I Promise): It’s no Oscar-winner, and I’ll probably feel appalled some time in the future that I gave this movie such a good rating, but I was legitimately entertained by Warm Bodies, a short, cute movie lacking grandiose ambition but perfect for an engaging time at the movies.

Warm Bodies (2013)

Directed by Jonathan Levine

Based on the novel by Isaac Marion

Rated PG-13

Length: 97 minutes