LUCY

Lucy
Grade: B

Starring: Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman
Premise: A woman tricked into a deadly smuggling scheme is infected by a powerful chemical drug that enables her to use nearly all of her brain’s capacity.

Rated R for strong violence, blood and gory images, language and disturbing content

Lucy is decent enough for what it is, but what it is, is a misguided mismash of balls-to-the-wall action flick and preachy psychological enlightenment. It’s not a good combination anyway, but Lucy is short enough to be an insanely-entertaining action flick, but not nearly long enough to get us thinking any huge, serious, deep truths about humanity’s existence or life’s purpose. This isn’t exactly Inception, though it rather wants to be. What it is, is a frustrating amount of hooey getting in the way of what is, at times, a truly gripping, can’t-look-away suspense thriller. It’s the last third of the movie that decides to get really preachy, crashing down to an ending that prompted giggles in my theater, an embarrassingly-lame attempt to challenge the audience to walk out feeling changed after watching Scarlett Johansson mutate into a gooey computer.

Which is all a shame, because the movie opens with 10 or 15 of the most gripping, terrifyingly suspenseful minutes I’ve seen in ages—Quentin Tarantino could scarcely have done better. It’s proof that with a little more vision (or a little less), Lucy could have been something really special.

Plot

Right away, hard-partying nobody Lucy (Johansson) knows something isn’t right. Her fling, Richard (Pilou Asbaek) has been offered $1,000 to bring a metal brief case into an office building to a Korean gangster, but he seems reluctant to do it. It’s fairly playful back-and-forth, until he handcuffs the case to Lucy’s wrist and tells her the only way to get it off is deliver it to the gangster inside—a Mr. Jang—who should have the key. Within minutes, Lucy has seen Richard get killed, has been grabbed and dragged upstairs by hulking Korean gangsters, seen Mr. Jang (Min-sik Choi) emerge from a side-room containing a stack of bloody bodies, and seen a man get his head blown off right in front of her. Then Mr. Jang asks her if she wants a job.

Just hours later, Lucy realizes she’s on the front lines of the gangsters’ quest to distribute a powerful new drug to the world. It’s been implanted inside her while she was unconscious. It’s when the drug starts to seep into her system, infecting each cell, that things start getting out of control. Suddenly she feels enlightened, opened, able to detect minute details, hear things no human should hear, capable of astonishing feats she’s certainly never been capable of. She begins to understand even before she gets in contact with a brilliant neurologist (Morgan Freeman)—the drug is allowing her access to more of her brain’s capacity than the 10% humans normally use. More and more. Soon she’s capable of mind-reading, incredible memory, telekinesis, and even superhuman strength. The gangsters have gotten wind of it and are rushing to try and stop her, while the professor desperately seeks a one-on-one with her, trying to get her use her now extraordinary brain power to teach him the secrets of the universe.

What Works?

Like I said, the first fifteen minutes are extraordinary. I’ve seen the previews for Lucy at least a dozen times, so I knew where it was all going—a bag of drugs in her stomach gives her unseemly brainpower—but even so, those opening scenes are so thoroughly disconcerting and creepy (a mix of crime flick and horror movie) that they’re completely riveting. In fact, even more than that—cut out a few inter-cut scenes of Morgan Freeman lecturing an anonymous audience on the human brain, and you’d have probably thirty consecutive minutes of can’t-look-away stuff. It’d be even better if the trailers hadn’t revealed so much and made it obvious what was going on—the beginning is still riveting, but imagine if you hadn’t the faintest idea where it was going.

The second third of the movie isn’t bad, either. As Lucy accesses more and more brain power and is able to do more and more, the film becomes wildly entertaining—watch her flip cars with her mind, surf the web at hyper-speed with a different computer in each hand, change her own hair color at will to hide from the pursuing gangsters, and change Freeman’s professor from a skeptic to a believer in seconds with incredible hacking skills. The part where she throws an attacking gunman through a wall with a casual flick of the hand in his direction isn’t bad, either. Compounded by some fantastic visuals, Lucy builds up one crazy head of steam.

What Doesn’t Work?

Even before it starts to get really preachy, Lucy has a few alarm bells early, with random clips of footage intercut with the movie’s main action that are completely unnecessary (like—we know Lucy is walking into a trap in the office building with the case cuffed to her wrist without seeing random clips of cheetahs stalking grazing gazelles; it’s not rocket science). This doesn’t heighten the suspense but is merely distracting, especially when those early scenes are fine on their own.

And then the movie peters out. After an early scene where Lucy easily evades groups of pursuing policemen and gangsters and then uses her brainpower to navigate an impossible high-speed route against traffic, the movie seems to promise a really epic action throw-down only to have large groups of Korean gangsters and French policemen fight each other in a hallway while Lucy is sheltered in an office connected to a computer. Seriously? Wouldn’t it have been way more fun to get Lucy out there to dodge bullets Matrix-style, and throw all the guys through walls? This could have been a kind of stupid-fun R-rated superhero flick! Instead we watch her pretend she’s in the age of the dinosaurs? Really?

And don’t even get me started on that closing line.

Content

There are a few shots of a barely-clad Johansson, and a brief clip montage of different kinds of animals engaging in the act of reproduction (Humans included), but Lucy derives its hardness from the violence and related details. There are a few scenes of impromptu surgeries (two of which Lucy does with nothing more than her hand) that will give squeamish viewers the willies, and we do see a lot of people get shot. It’s not exactly Scorcese, but it’s rated R for a reason.

Bottom Line:

Lucy has a killer premise, a brilliant first fifteen minutes and some terrific ideas up its sleeve—it’s a shame it almost all goes to waste. The last ten minutes are so hokey and convoluted they don’t deserve to be connected to that opening. Johansson and Freeman are good, obviously, but, by the end of the movie, you end up feeling had. But at least it gives a reasonable explanation as to why Johansson supplied the disembodied voice of a computer in January’s Oscar-nominated drama Her.

Lucy (2014)

Written and Directed by Luc Besson
Rated R
Length: 89 minutes

GET ON UP

Get On Up

Grade: C+

Starring: Chadwick Boseman, Nelsan Ellis, Dan Akroyd, Viola Davis, Craig Robinson, Lennie James and Octavia Spencer, with Jamarian Scott and Jordan Scott as young James Brown

Premise: Born into extreme poverty, Augusta, Georgia native James Brown makes the leap from a life of petty crime to worldwide fame as the Godfather of Soul.

Rated PG-13 for language (including racial slurs), sexual content, brief drug use, violent/disturbing images and some emotional content

There’s only one type of person who needs to see Get On Up: die-hard fans of the late James Brown. If you were a huge fan of Brown, who died on Christmas Day 2006, and phrases like Godfather of Soul and Get Up Offa That Thing automatically make you want to smile and dance and sing, you need to hurry to theaters to see this new biopic of your hero.

If the previous sentence does not describe you, you don’t need to see this movie. In fact, I’d recommend you stay away from it. Despite an impressive pedigree (directed by The Help’s Tate Taylor, and featuring an award-worthy performance by Chadwick Boseman), Get On Up is a long, slow, slightly-miserable time at the movies. There’s some great music and moments of high energy, but a vague, muddled narrative, a lack of important characters and a warts-and-all approach that makes its subject seem like an egotistical prick quickly squander excitement and interest. Even compared to similar lengthy epics about famous musical names (2004’s Ray, 2005’s Walk the Line), Get On Up is a disappointment.

Plot

The film basically recounts some of the highs and lows in the life of the late Godfather of Soul. We get glimpses of his dirt-poor childhood, growing up in a shack in the Georgia woods with an uncaring mother (Viola Davis) who one day decides to run off, leaving James alone with a stern, abusive father (Lennie James). After a while, Brown’s father decided to join the army, leaving young James with Aunt Honey (Octavia Spencer), who runs a whorehouse in town. Still largely without any parental influence, James (played as a teen and adult by Chadwick Boseman) winds up in jail for petty theft before he’s even eighteen, but he’s largely saved by a chance meeting with Bobby Byrd (Nelsan Ellis), a budding musician who sees real talent in James’ gospel church-inspired energy, and convinces his grandfather to pay his bail. Byrd and Brown team up in a group that begins rocking night clubs, but they hit the big time after a trip from Little Richard (Brandon Smith) leads to a chance meeting with an agent from King Records.

With some assistance from manager Ben Bart (Dan Akroyd), Byrd and Brown’s group, “The Famous Flames”, takes off, but there’s no denying the real draw is the man at the front. With almost inhumane vocal range and smoothly eye-popping dance moves, James can soon command any audience, any venue, anything he wants. Life’s not perfect, though. With great fame comes adultery, alcohol and drug abuse, estrangement from his children, paranoia that his friends and musical collaborators are aspiring against him, and a gargantuan ego. When his personal and professional lives take a tumble in the late ‘80s, James looks, seems, and almost feels washed up, but an early ‘90s attempt to make amends with Byrd (whom he fell out with years earlier) gives him hope of a real comeback.

What Works?

If you’re not a James Brown enthusiast but you’re demanding a reason to see this movie, I can only give you one, but it’s a big one: the leading performance by Chadwick Boseman. Essentially an unknown when he scored the coveted role of baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson in last year’s surprise hit 42, Boseman also had a small appearance in this spring’s Kevin Costner drama Draft Day, but still isn’t anybody’s idea of a household name. He may still not be after his portrayal of Brown here, but that’s only because that portrayal is so utterly convincing. Research about the movie and Boseman’s preparation reveals the actor did not sing (unlike Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line), but, hearing the songs, it’s not hard to fathom that studio execs figured they couldn’t possibly teach an actor to sing and screech like that. So he lip-synched. However, I read that Boseman spent two months learning Brown’s dance moves, working with trainers and choreographers five to eight hours a day to master the groove (which he attempts to define for a flock of very white news reporters at one point in the movie); he’s also reported to have done more than 90 of Brown’s famous splits. With this absolutely convincing physicality, Boseman makes easily apparent the Godfather of Soul’s fiery passion, explosive energy, and undeniable sex appeal. He also speaks in an often unintelligible Southern accent that, I am told, is a dead ringer for the late Brown’s. But for all the flash and glamour of the performance with this physicality and vocal quirks, Boseman also makes clear Brown’s bitterness, his ego, his self-obsession, and—though he’d be loathe to ever admit it—his loneliness. A childhood without parents and without anything taught him to rely on only himself.

As Brown’s long-time collaborator Bobby Byrd, Nelsan Ellis has the only other significant, recurring role in the movie; he’s wonderful. It’s not a showy part, but Ellis is affecting in those key moments where he has to defend Brown the mad genius from nay-saying band members, reports, and execs.

Basically, if anyone is thinking or talking about Get On Up more than a few weeks from now, it’ll be due to Boseman’s tremendous portrayal. Were this movie released in October or November instead of August, he’d likely be a near shoo-in for an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Since this movie was released at the beginning of August, I won’t guarantee anything, but even without any year-end award honors, this work would be a huge highlight on anybody’s resume.

What Doesn’t Work?

It was someone’s idea to tell Brown’s story in very non-linear fashion—almost on the level of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s slapdash dramas 21 Grams and Babel. This was a terrible idea. While Ray and Walk the Line similarly used framing devices to avoid a history-book-style chronological trek through their subjects’ lives, Get On Up starts with a scene that cuts to an earlier scene that cuts to an earlier scene that cuts to an earlier scene, and then finally, we have a two-minute scene of young James Brown at his ramshackle home in the woods, before it bumps back out to another random concert. It’s almost half an hour before any sort of chronological sense is established. For one, this fairly random approach makes it hard for an audience to develop roots of interest and emotional connection. For another, it makes an already-long movie (138 minutes) feel even longer and more tedious because it’s so unorganized. And this random approach also pretty much eliminates our connection to any of the other important people in Brown’s life. Other than Byrd, no one else is established in detail. Dan Akroyd has a few scenes as a studio exec for whom Brown is a meal ticket, Craig Robinson plays a disapproving band member, Viola Davis flits in and out of a few scenes as Brown’s no-good mom, and Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer has maybe two short scenes. Only one of Brown’s rumored multiple spouses/mistresses has any significant screen time, but my disinterest was so considerable by the time she had three scenes in a row, I didn’t even care to catch her name.

I know nobody’s perfect, and warts-and-all movies about famous people, especially, are often praised for their grit and realism and for pulling back the curtain so we can see the ugly stuff, but Get On Up should prove a real test of any James Brown fan’s mettle. I’m not knocking Boseman’s performance, but with his selfish preening and raging ego, Brown comes across as the most unlikeable real person portrayed at the forefront of a movie since Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. Were Brown alive today, this movie would certainly not make me a fan of his. It’s curious that a movie produced by one of his good friends (The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger) would make him seem like a person with so few redeeming qualities.

Content

There’s some cussing (including at least one word that starts with F), a bit of child and spousal abuse, a scene where a young Brown pulls the shoes off the victim of a lynching, a few scenes that hint heavily at what The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper would call “coitus”, and one scene where Brown smokes a joint laced with something else. I’m sure it’s nothing to what it could’ve been.

The Bottom Line

Despite a tremendous, award-worthy performance from leading man Chadwick Boseman, who lip-synched but did all his own dancing and even the splits, Get On Up is a drag, a long, disorganized, movie that makes its main character seem like a colossal prick. Unless you’re a huge James Brown fan, I’d avoid this one.

Get On Up (2014)

Directed by Tate Taylor

Written by Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth

Rated PG-13

Length: 138 minutes

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

Guardians of the Galaxy

Grade: B+

Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Benicio Del Toro and Glenn Close, with Bradley Cooper as the voice of Rocket and Vin Diesel as the voice of Groot

Premise: A diverse group of outcasts, loners, and thieves become allies when a powerful device hunted by an evil warlord falls into their hands.

Rated PG-13 for violence and intense action, scenes of peril and destruction, language and crude humor, and some emotional content

The Marvel Comics movie craze has by this point touched on nearly all the best-known Marvel comics heroes (Spiderman, the X-Men, the Avengers, etc…), but with cash continuing to flow in for superhero movies, Stan Lee and his friends have reached a little deeper into the vault for a new project. Lacking the angst of Spiderman or the smugness of Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy is based on a comic of the same name by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, who, judging from the adaptation of their work, clearly used their comic to live out their epic space geek fantasies and to have more than a little fun. Thus, the movie is part hilarious, rollicking entertainment and part confusingly generic sci-fi hooey. To audiences who aren’t expecting more than that, it’s sure to be a hit. To me—well, I did laugh an awful lot.

Plot

Once a confused, lonely orphan on earth, alien abductee Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) has grown up to become a thrill-seeking, star-hopping, womanizing wise-cracker (codename: Star Lord) who likes to make a big statement, but really just wants to line his pockets. Early in the movie, he lands on a deserted planet and grabs a mysterious orb. Figuring it’s obviously pretty important/powerful since he had to escape a band of lethal-looking space junkies to get it, he figures he’ll head to the nearest civilized planet and sell it to the highest bidder. Turns out the orb is an object coveted by Ronan (Lee Pace), a blue-skinned, nearly invincible space baddie feared across the galaxies for his lack of mercy. When Peter brings the orb to Nova—an Earth-like planet populated mostly by humans—Ronan dispatches his right-hand woman, trained assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana), to retrieve the orb. She first attempts a seduction, but she’s thwarted in her attempts to grab the orb by a pair of bounty hunters, Rocket, a walking, talking Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and his friend/attendee Groot, a nearly mute but incredibly strong humanoid made entirely of ever-growing leaves and vines (and voiced, when he does speak, by Vin Diesel). When the four make a big public scene trying to grab the orb from each other, they’re tossed into a high-tech space prison.

In prison, it doesn’t take long for the inmates to recognize a minion of the infamous Ronan, but Gamora is saved from a bloodthirsty gang by the unlikely person of Drax (Dave Bautista), a hulking, tattooed humanoid who lost his wife and daughter to Ronan and who is persuaded by Peter that Gamora is his ticket to revenge. Since Peter has a buyer for the orb lined up, they all agree to break out of prison together, hand the orb over, and split the money, at which point Gamora can return to Ronan and Drax, stowing away on her ship, can kill Ronan and get his revenge. But the buyer turns out to be the unsavory person known as The Collector (Benicio Del Toro), who reveals that the orb has incredible destructive power. This persuades Peter to change his mind about selling it off, but the orb is snatched by Ronan’s minions in a surprise attack. Now Ronan, who’s under the thumb of an even more fearsome warlord named Thanos, sets a course to use the orb to destroy all the planets that oppose him, starting with Nova. Whether seeking to do good or to get revenge or just try to somehow wrangle money out of possession of the orb, Peter, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot decide to stop Ronan, and either hide the orb or find a way to destroy it.

What Doesn’t Work?

As ever, I’m being deliberate in my plot synopsis not to give anything too crucial away, but I could hardly give a better description even if I wanted to. Guardians of the Galaxy may be the least-relatable Marvel movie made yet. Only a brief prologue is actually set on earth, and all the galaxy-hopping and humanoid supporting characters mean the audience is showered with a barrage of names of people, places and things that often are either difficult to remember or hard to tell apart. Some people will undoubtedly try to refute this, but the movie gets a little confusing. At the same time, the central dynamic of the story is one that, though talked up, has been done more than once before (there’s a reason I called this movie “confusingly-generic”). It felt, to me, almost identical to the central premise of last November’s Thor: The Dark World—a baddie set on world/universe domination tries to get hold of a powerful MacGuffin that will either kill him or make him all-powerful, and the good guys try to stop him even though they (supposedly) can’t control the power of said MacGuffin, so their efforts are in vain unless some solution happens to exist that can stop the baddie in his would-be dominating tracks.

What Works?

I’m not trying to be a Grinch. I didn’t fully understand the plot, but what I could make of it seemed awfully familiar. Feel free to call me/message me and let me know how it actually is if you’re reading this and believing I’ve misunderstood it.

I’m not trying to knock Guardians too much, though, because I really enjoyed it overall. It’s hilarious, for one—I laughed out loud many times.  The CGI is spectacular, matter-of-factly creating war ships, cities, alien creatures, epic battles, and even entire galaxies that are stunning to behold. And despite that obviously-huge spectacle, we don’t lose sight of the characters, one of the most likably-entertaining groups yet in a superhero movie. Chris Pratt has the makings of a huge star, what with his leading-man looks and comedy sidekick’s sense of humor. He’s terrific as the devil-may-care hero, and his self-professed codename is funny just because it sounds like the online usernames of geeky fanboys who will adore this movie. Pratt's primary ally/foil is Zoe Saldana, who’s quickly becoming the go-to gal for anything big that doesn’t require a generic blonde, and for good reason. She’s gorgeous whether she’s allowed her normal looks (i.e. as Uhura in Star Trek), given a green and scarred visage (as she is here), or made over as a blue cat/alien humanoid (as Neytiri in James Camero’s Avatar), and even though she’s typically tough, she always shows just enough vulnerability for us to fall for her. Her presence is always welcome. As Drax, Dave Bautista is mad, blue, and covered in tattoos, but he provides some of the movie’s biggest laughs with his character’s utter lack of humor or irony (when told a joke has “gone over his head”, Drax curtly replies “nothing goes over my head. Nothing can go over my head. My reflexes are excellent. I would catch it.”). Vin Diesel’s voice is barely heard coming out of Groot, and he famously only says a couple words, but the woody creature presents plenty of laughs by virtue of his animalistic curiosity and naïveté. You’ll be surprised how much you come to adore Groot. And a gun-toting, curse-spouting, fully-CGI raccoon turns out to be the perfect role for Bradley Cooper; often aggressively over-the-top in his onscreen acting (American Hustle, Wedding Crashers, The Hangover), his sharp, caustic arrogance perfectly suits this pint-sized mercenary. This group is worth watching; tough, hilarious and heart-warming, they make you want a sequel.

*Speaking of sequel, there is a short scene at the very end of the credits, but I doubt it’s a real harbinger of things to come, unless someone really is thinking of bringing back Howard the Duck.

Content

There’s a tough scene right away, where a young Peter gets some last anecdotes at his mother’s deathbed, and a good bit of the movie’s action is a bit heavier than the more cartoonish stuff in most comic book movies. There are also plenty of cusswords, many of them spoken by the raccoon. Guardians is wild and full of wall-to-wall action, often with very high stakes, but there’s nothing here anyone used to PG-13 movies will be shocked by.

Bottom Line:

Guardians of the Galaxy feels like a scrappy little brother to the likes of Spider-Man, X-Men and Captain America—it might not have quite the prestige, nobility, or emotional depth, but it’s twice as hip and three times as funny. With a central cast you’ll welcome back to the big screen, constant pell-mell action and dazzling, flawless special effects, Guardians is as much fun as superhero origin stories get, and it’ll keep you entertained for sure.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Directed by James Gunn

Screenplay by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman

Based on the comics by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning

Rated PG-13

Length: 121 minutes

THE BOONDOCK SAINTS/22 JUMP STREET/TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION - A Triple Review

A B (plus), a C, and a D

Three Movies I’ve Seen Recently That I Need to Acknowledge

The Boondock Saints (released in 1999)

Grade: B+

Written and Directed by Troy Duffy

Starring: Willem Dafoe, Sean Patrick Flannery, Norman Reedus, David Della Rocco and Billy Connolly

Rated R for strong, bloody violence and gore, language, some sexual content, and brief nudity

One film I had never gotten around to seeing even though many regard it as the epitome of cool, Boondock Saints begins slowly but starts picking up the pace quick, soon fascinating and enveloping the viewer in its electric world, the way great thrillers always do. Featuring some tremendous acting, dark, dark humor and some terrific action set pieces, Boondock’s premise is fairly simple. Forced to kill a pair of Russian mobsters in self-defense in the aftermath of a bar fight, a pair of tough, sophisticated brothers from South Boston decide to take to heart the sharp teachings of their priest, who insists that the world’s greatest evil is the “indifference of good men”. Well-played by the low-key but superb Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus, the brothers soon become something of cult heroes as they start bumping off infamous mobsters in the city—they’re praised by the locals even though their specific brand of vigilante justice would make Batman queasy. The brothers’ exploits understandably put them in the cross-hairs of both organized crime syndicates and low law enforcement, but it also earns them a special place in the heart and imagination of FBI Agent Smecker (Willem Dafoe), who’s supposed to focus on stopping them. Instead, he (like the audience) begins to look forward to the next bloody crime scene, where he can begin to piece together what these badass vigilantes did this time.

It’s all very well done, with deliriously great action punctuated by moments of outrageous humor, such as a brothers’ slugfest collapsing an air vent—causing them to fall through the ceiling of a room full of Russian mobsters they were out to whack—and one of the best Unexpected Movie Deaths I’ve ever seen. The flashback-heavy plot keeps the viewer on their toes, and the acting is solid across the board. While Flannery and Reedus are the most recognized for their tough/cool portrayals, they’re ably supported by the normally-genial Billy Connolly as a tough-as-nails fellow hit man and David Della Rocco as a wisecracking would-be hit-man. And the film is anchored by the ever-slippery Dafoe, whose sarcastic, homophobic, crime-loving, eccentric FBI agent is a near-perfect amalgam of bits from all his best performances (Platoon, Shadow of the Vampire, Spiderman and Out of the Furnace among them).

22 Jump Street

Grade: C

Starring: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Wyatt Russell, Ice Cube, Peter Stormare, Amber Stevens, and Jilian Bell

Premise: Budding detectives Jenko and Schmidt go undercover again, this time as college students, to try to find the dealer of a new dangerous drug called WhyPhy.

Rated R for constant profanity and graphic sex-related dialogue, crude and sexual humor, and violence

It’s becoming less and less of a surprise to find such movies these days, but 22 Jump Street was made only because its 2012 predecessor did better at the box office than most people expected. Not that anyone really cared about sending up the TV show that made Johnny Depp famous—the odd-couple pairing of dorky goofball Jonah Hill and studly jock Channing Tatum turned out to be magic. So, after going undercover as high school students and stopping Rob Riggle from supplying grade-schoolers with a drug called HFS in 21, police partners Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are sent to MC State college to try and find the distributors and supply of a new drug that’s caused a few deaths—this one called WhyPhy.

Unsurprisingly, the best thing about 22 is the amusing sight of the strapping Tatum and the round-ish, tottering Hill together, let alone the fact that they actually have pretty good chemistry. Unfortunately, however, upon seeing 22, I can tell it would probably be every bit as fun to simply watch the two actors talk, rather than watch them try to wring laughs from an over-blown, over-stuffed, clichéd, annoying comedy like this one. There are a few good laughs, courtesy of the torrent of expletives spouted by Jenko and Schmidt’s precinct captain, played by Ice Cube, or a few amusing plays on words (“I just found out you can get it anywhere on campus, 24/7”, Jenko tells Schmidt about WhyPhy, not realizing what he heard about is actually WiFi). But endless tides of sex jokes, private parts jokes and beer and drinking jokes plus increasingly corny faux-break-ups and couples-counseling sessions make the movie start to feel tired, not to mention the new tide of co-stars (Wyatt Russell, Amber Stevens, Jilian Bell and Peter Stormare) don’t have the natural heart or humor of the first movie’s supporting cast—Riggle, Dave Franco, Brie Larson and Ellie Kemper, among others.

I won’t deny 22 has some funny parts, but it’s telling when the best part of your nearly two-hour movie is a credits montage of sequels they could make (putting Jenko and Schmidt undercover in Medical School, Military School, Culinary School, Mariachi School, etc…).

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Grade: D

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, and John Reynor, and featuring the voices of Peter Cullen (as Optimus Prime), John Goodman (as Hound), Ken Watanabe (as Drift), John DiMaggio (as Crosshairs), Mark Ryan (as Lockdown) and Frank Welker (as Galvatron)

Premise: A dirt-poor car mechanic buys a beat-up old truck, which turns out to be a transformer, a fact that brings squads of government special ops troopers and less-friendly transformers onto his tail.

Rated PG-13 for intense action and violent content, constant sequences of peril and destruction, and language

The fourth movie in a lucrative but brain-dead franchise, Transformers: Age of Extinction proves once and for all that Michael Bay won’t change. The director of everything from Armageddon and Pearl Harbor to Bad Boys loves to blow things up, cause mass destruction, kill off some bad dudes, and let his camera linger on barely-dressed women. Throw in scores of completely computer-generated robots that like to smash and bash each other in rough-and-tumble fights, plus a bloated running time, and you’ve got a ridiculously busy but also relentlessly-stupid movie, a movie that’s more irritating than entertaining.

There’s no point in talking much about the plot, in which a couple of cliché, one-dimensional human characters occupy some time in the foreground just to provide a sort-of-meaningful set-up for giant robots to start punching each other’s faces in. The new “reboot” cast fares no better than the old, with Wahlberg a better actor than former Transformers star Shia LaBeouf but saddled with an even more meaningless character, Stanley Tucci a tiny bit less annoying than John Turturro, and spray-tanned newcomer Nicola Peltz actually (dare I say it) making one pine for Megan Fox. It really is the laziness put into the setting-up of the human characters that kills all joy and excitement for Transformers—if we as viewers can’t care about the actual flesh-and-blood humans, why should we care about the giant robots, most of whom get blown up anyway? And it’s probably a bad sign when I privately cheered the early offing of the main character’s best friend, because the dude was so freakin’ annoying, only around to try and generate laughs from his hyper, dumb-ass white persona.

While I can appreciate the work put into making some admittedly impressive CGI characters and fights, I had zero appreciation for the characters or the plotting of this new movie. Maybe that’s to be expected, that the movies are only made to pit giant alien robots against each other. Well, if they assume we want to see giant robots fight giant robots that bad, can’t we just have a couple of hour/hour-and-a-half long movies just about the robots heading toward an imminent clash with each other? We might actually care more.

The Boondock Saints (1999)

Written and Directed by Troy Duffy

Rated R

Length: 108 minutes

22 Jump Street (2014)

Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Written by Michael Bacall, Oren Uziel and Rodney Rothman

Based on the television series '21 Jump Street' created by Patrick Hasburg and Stephen J. Cannell
Rated R

Length: 112 minutes

Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

Directed by Michael Bay

Written by Ehren Kruger

Based on the "Transformers" toys by Hasbro

Rated PG-13

Length: 165 minutes

A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST

A Million Ways to Die in the West

Grade: B

Starring: Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Neil Patrick Harris, Liam Neeson, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman and Amanda Seyfried

Premise: A laid-back farmer challenges his ex’s new boyfriend to a duel, and ends up receiving gunfighting lessons from a strange new woman in town.

Rated R for constant profanity and graphic sexual dialogue, crude and sexual humor, sensuality, and some violence

A Million Ways to Die in the West—Family Guy funnyman creator Seth MacFarlane’s new goofy parody of the western genre—is incredibly crude but essentially harmless. There are jokes here about slavery, whoring, drinking, nudity and sex, sex, sex, but it’s really got a heart of gold. All this movie really wants to make people do is laugh and walk out feeling good, and in that regard, it succeeds. It’s not necessarily hard-hitting, politically-savvy humor, but at least A Million Ways backs up its comedy with an actual story that could make up an actual movie—there are real elements here, not just the bare bones thrown together to provide for a gag marathon, as was the case in last month’s Neighbors. And I guess I’m a sucker for a little movie that makes me laugh and lets me feel good. If it weren’t an outrageous comedy, it would be a B, maybe C, movie, but as a diverting little treat amidst lots of hard-hitting moody action dramas, I enjoyed it. And I daresay I’ll probably watch it again.

Plot

Recently dumped by his adorable but self-centered girlfriend Louise (Amanda Seyfried), hapless sheep farmer Albert Stark (MacFarlane) is blue and hating everything about the rough, tough west. After all, as Albert notes, on the frontier, people die daily from disease, gunfights, bar fights, wild animal attacks and even “fast-moving tumbleweeds”. In the wake of his split, he’s so blue even his conservative, sunny best friend Edward (Giovanni Ribisi) and Edward’s spry hooker girlfriend Ruth (Sarah Silverman) can’t cheer him up. He’s in a bar drinking his depression away when a fight breaks out, and he happens to spot a woman in danger of being crushed by brawlers falling from the second-floor balcony. He saves the woman by pushing her out of the way of the falling bodies, and then realizes he doesn’t know her. Anna (Charlize Theron) turns out to be gorgeous, smart, and funny, and she can work a pistol like no one’s business. She and Albert form an instant connection—she consoles him about his breakup and laughs with him about Louise’s stuck-up new boyfriend Foy (Neil Patrick Harris), and she encourages him when, in a moment of high temper, Albert actually challenges Foy to a gunfight in town.

In over his head, Albert gets shooting lessons from Anna, and then they fall for each other. But Anna’s mysterious past catches up to the happy couple when her husband, notorious, deadly outlaw Clinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson) rides into town with his gang, and almost immediately hears that someone’s been kissing on his wife. And Albert, who just survived one gunfight, is soon gasping at the prospect of a gunfight with a famous killer.

What Works?

A Million Ways to Die is funny, generating laughs from Albert’s shoddy skills as a sheep farmer, Ribisi’s awkward continued courtship of a woman who has sex with dozens of men a day, a few brilliant celebrity cameos, and its many, many jokes and puns. Some of them are stupid, but if you’re looking for laughs, you’ll find them. One source of amusement is merely the fact that MacFarlane, famous for providing the clever but over-the-top caricatured voices on Family Guy and the movie Ted, is a regular-looking and sounding white guy at the end of the day. He’s not an incredibly-charismatic person on his own, all jokes and F-bombs aside, but he and Theron do generate endearing chemistry, so that we can at least root for the couple. By turns tough, hilarious and charming, Theron is the gal pal any guy would die for. Some of the other actors, such as Liam Neeson and Neil Patrick Harris, elicit laughs mainly by parodying their own work (Neeson plays a badder but stupider version of his moody tough guy, and Patrick Harris is the same obnoxious tool he is on TV’s How I Met Your Mother, but this time with a moustache).

Outrageous as this movie is, I can also note that it goes down easier than other recent comedies like Neighbors and Anchorman, because its actors are more likeable than the former’s and it’s IQ is way higher than the latter’s.

What Doesn’t Work?

Okay, if you’re looking for a shred of real seriousness, you’ve got the wrong movie. None of the main actors even attempt western accents, so if you were expecting period details and not Neeson’s Irish brogue, Ribisi’s nasally sniff and Patrick Harris’ city-boy brouhaha, well, sorry. Of course, some of the gags are dragged out way longer than they need to be, too. And even though this is a silly comedy, it’s one thing to have physical slapstick and sorta-kinda commentaries about the time (like a ‘Runaway Slave’ carnival game and a doctor whose remedies usually include dismembering barely-sick patients), and another to have dragged out potty humor routines or needless peeks at sheep privates. Unlike the harder-hitting Neighbors, there’s a nice little PG-13 movie in A Million Ways to Die.

Content

But, of course, a nice little cheap-looking PG-13 western that’s light on violence wouldn’t make a splash—even a ripple—on the summer movie scene, right? So MacFarlane and company crank up the profanity, the sexual references, and the sight gags. A Million Ways earns its R rating for sure, though, again, it’s all meant to be in good fun.

Bottom Line

It’s odd to call an R-rated comedy “innocent”, but A Million Ways to Die in the West isn’t out to really challenge anybody or shake up the comedy scene—it’s just meant to make people laugh. In that way, it succeeds. With a likeable cast and some hilarious gags, it’s a diverting-enough feel good comedy.

A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)

Directed by Seth MacFarlane

Written by Seth MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild

Rated R

Length: 116 minutes

EDGE OF TOMORROW

Edge of Tomorrow

Grade: A-

Starring: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson and Noah Taylor

Premise: A military officer re-living the day of a massive battle again and again struggles to learn how to save his doomed comrades from an advanced alien race.

Rated PG-13 for intense action and violence, language, blood, and some disturbing images

For what is believed to have been as much as 30-plus years, Bill Murray’s weatherman Phil Connors awoke in a hotel room to the chipper sounds of Sonny & Cher on the radio, singing “I Got You Babe”. It always let him know that, sure enough, it was once again Groundhog Day. In the new sci-fi action epic Edge of Tomorrow, Tom Cruise’s William Cage can only wish he woke up in a hotel room. Each day he wakes on an airport runway, almost immediately snatched up and chewed out by a blustering master sergeant who mistakes him for a low-ranking enlisted man and plugs him into one of the squads leading the way for a massive invasion of mainland France. Within 24 hours, he’s in a troop-carrying aircraft, which explodes in mid-air before even making it to the beach where the troops are set to deploy, to try and fight the advanced alien race that has conquered large portions of the world. The attack, which was supposed to be a surprise, almost instantly fails. Along with the others, Cage dies a horrible death. But Cage knows he will wake again on that runway, but no matter how much advance knowledge he gives anyone, he can’t stop the attack, can’t stop the slaughter, and can’t stop himself from finding his way back to that runway again, so he can wake up and do it again.

It hits theaters with less than half the advance buzz of recent titles like X-Men, Godzilla and The Amazing Spiderman, but Edge of Tomorrow borders on outright brilliant. With a killer central premise, this movie—part Groundhog Day, part Starship Troopers, part something all its own—is can’t-look-away type-stuff. It’s got terrific visuals, balls-to-the-wall action, an intriguing coming-into-his-own arc for the main character, and perfectly-suited existentialist is-it-all-even-worth-it undertones. Sorry, that’s a lot of hyphens; I was exhausted when I watched Edge of Tomorrow late last night (I might have nodded off during a lesser movie), so I’m rather struggling to really describe it, but needless to say, this was my favorite movie of the summer so far, a dazzling blockbuster that made me go “hell yeah—this is freakin’ awesome!”

Plot

It’s believed the Mimics came to Earth via meteors, but that’s about all any human can almost be sure of. The fast-moving, clawed and tentacled monsters have quickly overrun nearly half the planet, proving nearly invincible against even heavy weapons. But when humanity wins a surprise victory at Verdun and the heads of the United Defense Force see an opportunity to raise morale—put a few likeable heroes at the head of the big invasion of mainland France, which is sure to be another great victory—it puts Major William Cage (Cruise) in the crosshairs. A winking, smiling PR man who looks confident but is terrified at the very idea of actual warfare, Cage refuses UDF commander General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson) on the spot at the idea of being the face of the new invasion, with a camera crew following his every move as his lands with the first wave. Orders are orders, but Cage doesn’t like them—he tries to run, but is caught and sedated and then, it appears, thrown under the bus. He wakes on Heathrow Airport’s runway in handcuffs with no identification, and no one believing he’s a high-ranking officer. Forget a camera crew—what he has now is Master Sergeant Farell (Bill Paxton) brandishing a note that says he’s a deserter and a lowly enlisted man. Next thing “Private Cage” knows, he’s been stuck with a squad of unfriendly, unhelpful grunts, packed into the high-tech, gun-toting futuristic suits the troops wear, and marched onto a carrier craft headed for the coast of France.

*Is it a coincidence a movie that centers on a massive invasion of conquered mainland France came out on the 70^th anniversary of D-Day? I doubt it.*

The Mimics, it seemed, knew this “surprise attack” was coming. Many of the troop-carrying craft don’t even make it to the beach, and those troops that manage to stagger out of the wreckage-filled waves (Cage among them) are greeted by mayhem, explosions, and the whirling dervish aliens that make short work of them. Not even able to work his armored suit’s guns at first, Cage actually manages to kill a mimic with an explosive, but it detonates too close, mangling his body. But he doesn’t even die (or does he?) before he wakes on the runway again, gets chewed out again, and gets thrown into rotation again. The craft explodes again, he makes the beach again, he dies again. The one advantage of the recurring time warp is that he learns when and where the Mimics will attack, allowing him to progress further each time. His progression soon leads him to cross paths with Rita (Emily Blunt), the Special Ops dynamo who spearheaded the victory at Verdun. She, apparently, had the same thing happen to her as has happened to Cage—she could relive the day, allowing her to strategize and counter the Mimics. Pairing her top-notch skills with his improving ones, they’re able to progress through the beach, and, with a tip from a disgraced military scientist (Noah Taylor), they begin to figure out how they could save the invasion force, and maybe kill off the Mimics for good. But the Mimics are deadly and fast, and Cage is all too-human, and the slightest miscalculation means dying—and starting all over from that runway.

What Works?

Despite their previous merits, each of last month’s big blockbusters had at least a minor stumble. X-Men: Days of Future Past was a little too talky. Godzilla was way too talky and almost forgot to show Godzilla do anything cool. The Amazing Spiderman 2 had too many plot threads and too much drama, and spent so much time building its story that it stuck both of its major villains in the same rushed climactic action scene. Edge of Tomorrow is almost perfectly-balanced: it never forgets it’s a sci-fi action extravaganza, of course, but it’s got a little mystery, a little humor, and a little heart. Directed by Doug Liman, who directed the first and deepest of the Bourne movies, and co-written by Christopher McQuarrie, who won an Oscar for penning the still-legendary original screenplay for The Usual Suspects, Tomorrow manages to make you feel the weariness of Cage’s plight. Each day, he wakes, he’s chewed out, he’s by turns neglected and pushed around, he trains, he lands on the beach, and he fights. No matter how admirable he becomes in battle, if he’s cornered or badly injured, there’s nothing for it but to die again. As was the case in Groundhog Day, the montage of Cage dying in many different ways provokes a sort of perverse laughter, but you do begin to feel the weight and the misery of the ordeal. That said, this isn’t Shakespeare—there’s some terrific, pedal-to-the-metal action, and it goes right up to the finish.

This is Cruise’s best role in years, mainly because it’s not really a Movie Star part. Cruise brought the charisma and heroism in last year’s Oblivion, but what with the Cruise clones, it just screamed Movie Star Flick. His two big 2012 roles didn’t help either—people don’t want to see this over-exposed movie star play a near-mythic, crime-fighting lady-killer (Jack Reacher) or a preening sex-god rock star (Rock of Ages). Here, he could just be another guy: the fact that he’s thrust into a situation where no one gives him any respect and he has to work from the ground up helps—we can root for an underdog (remember Jerry Maguire?). Blunt is solid, too, as the tough-talking, pistol-packing Rita, and Bill Paxton elicits hoots as the blustering, cliché-spouting master sergeant who’s this movie’s answer to Ned Ryierson, the dorky insurance agent Phil Connors kept re-encountering in Groundhog Day.

What Doesn’t Work?

Tomorrow does a lot of things right, as I’ve mentioned. The battle scenes on the beach get a little hard-to-follow, whether it’s because the Mimics move so quickly or because the scenes are suffused with so much CGI, but that’s really my only complaint other than wanting to see what happened next, after the ending scene.

Content

This is PG-13, so most of the violence isn’t super bloody, but a lot of people get killed off in a lot of different ways in this one, and there are explosions and crashes and collapses aplenty. The rather light, reversible way death is treated in this movie might rub some people the wrong way as well. And, typically, because this movie takes place entirely around soldiers, there are plenty of cuss words.

Bottom Line

A thrilling, balanced action flick with a cool premise and a "have-you-seen-this-before" energy, Edge of Tomorrow is a great movie and one I definitely want to see again.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Directed by Doug Liman

Screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth

Based on the novel “All You Need Is Kill” by Hiroshi Sakurazaka

Rated PG-13

Length: 113 minutes

MALEFICENT

Maleficent

Grade: B

Starring: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley and Sam Riley, with Imelda Staunton, Lesley Manville and Juno Temple as the pixies and Brenton Thwaites as Prince Phillip

Premise: A fairy who once coexisted peacefully with humans swears vengeance on them after she’s wronged by a treacherous young man.

Rated PG (contains scary moments and some intense action)

“Now you shall deal with me, oh Prince, and ALL THE POWERS OF HELL!!” With that memorable oath—and her subsequent transformation into a dragon—Maleficent, the witch antagonist of Disney’s 1959 classic Sleeping Beauty, immediately entered the ranks of all-time great movie villains, where she remains today. As sinisterly-exciting as that character was, though, I doubt anyone’s been crying out for her to get her own live-action spinoff movie fifty-five years later. But with big-budget fairy-tale re-tellings all the rage the past few years (we’ve already gotten two new Snow White movies, plus Alice in Wonderland, Oz the Great and Powerful and Jack the Giant Slayer), we now have Maleficent, a glossy new flick starring Angelina Jolie as the Mistress of All Evil.

Rated PG and filled with giggles, gasps and cutesy CGI versions of critters like fairies and trolls, Maleficent was probably made for people less than half my age, but dang it, I liked it. Anyone devoted to the 1959 Beauty will have fit after fit due to copious changes in the main story and character details, but Jolie’s in fine form as the titular character, Elle Fanning makes an utterly charming Aurora, and, after consistently moodier fare like Godzilla, X-Men and The Amazing Spiderman, it’s nice to see a movie where everything turns out okay.

Plot

Without parents from a young age, Maleficent (played as girl by Isobelle Molloy) still had a happy childhood. With a bright smile, magic powers and a set of large, beautiful wings, she was one of the most luminous and powerful fairies. Alongside other magical creatures like pixies, trolls and goblins, she lived in the Moors, a gorgeous oasis in the middle of a large rural kingdom. Within sight of the Moors’ borders is a city filled with regular, non-magical humans, who, it has been said, hate all magic creatures. So Maleficent is at first alarmed and suspicious when a human boy stumbles out of the bushes one day. The boy, Stefan (Michael Higgins), is a kind but lonely sort, and they immediately strike up a friendship. In fact, they fall in love as the years pass.

But, like most glory-seeking men, Stefan (played as an adult by Sharlto Copley) has always been seduced by the sight of the huge nearby castle, and the lure of luxury and wealth has tugged at his heart and mind. First serving merely as an aide to the old, sitting king, he’s offered the throne after he brings the son-less king an amazing gift of tribute. Once he’s crowned, he turns his back on Maleficent (Jolie) for good. Hurt and lonely once again, Maleficent, now aided by a shape-shifting ally (Sam Riley), learns of the birth of the king’s daughter, Aurora, and, along with all the kingdom’s nobles, visits her, and then decides to bestow upon her a certain “gift”. Hurt and shocked, Stefan sends his daughter away, to be raised in safety and seclusion by three pixies (Leslie Manville, Imelda Staunton and Juno Temple), until after her sixteenth birthday, when a certain curse is said to take effect. As Stefan hides out in his castle and swears vengeance, Maleficent spends her days watching the growing Aurora (played at fifteen by Elle Fanning), and waiting for the day when she can strike back, hard, against Stefan’s heart.

What Works?

It’s sometimes hard to remember because she’s always on the red carpet and in the tabloids, but Angelina Jolie hasn’t actually made that many notable movies. By my count, she’s only made three truly notable ones (1999’s Girl, Interrupted won her a Supporting Actress Oscar, 2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider made her a bonafide sex symbol, and 2005’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith brought her into the life of one Brad Pitt). Yet everyone still is seemingly attuned to her every movement and action because of the fame her personal life has brought her. Maleficent doesn’t require a huge, heavily-dramatic performance from her, but she makes palpable her pain at Stefan’s abandonment and betrayal, and she provides teasing hints of humor amidst her character’s darkness and sadness. She also brings impressive, honest feeling to a key moment where she admits her care for Aurora, even though it is Aurora she swore to target with her curse.

It’s impossible not to care for Aurora, though, when she’s played by Elle Fanning. Actress Dakota Fanning’s little sister, Elle is absolutely adorable—I’m pretty sure the phrase ‘pretty little ray of sunshine’ was made up for her. She’s not required to act much, but I have to believe audiences would watch her do anything. Her Prince Phillip—actor Brenton Thwaites—looks like a stand-in for One Direction and doesn’t get to join her in a rendition of “I Walked With You Once Upon A Dream” (lame), but he’s endearing enough that you wish the two of them had more time together in this movie. And as Stefan, Sharlto Copley (best known as the hit man who got his face blown off and then fused back together in last summer’s Elysium) is well-cast: he’s way too much of a wild-man to play a regular old, noble king, but he’s perfect for the antagonistic slant the character’s given.

Again, not much acting is required, but Maleficent delivers the goods where it really needs to. The scenery and all the magical creatures look glorious, and there are enough awesome moments as the winged Maleficent soars above the clouds, and swoops under waterfalls and past cliffs, to make you wonder how good this movie is in 3-D.

What Doesn’t Work?

Maleficent is one of those rare movies that would actually benefit from being longer, as the movie in its current tidy 97-minute state has a few plot holes that could have been filled in with a few small details. The characters of Aurora’s protective pixies are also completely worthless here; clumsy, blithering idiots, they do less to sensibly raise our Sleeping Beauty than Maleficent does (it’s a little sad to see the likes of Imelda Staunton and Juno Temple wasted in these roles).

Content

This is actually a pretty intense PG, with one large-scale battle scene between men with swords and spears and goblins and tree monsters, plus a late battle royale at the castle as Maleficent tries to get her revenge. There’s not much blood, of course, but parents might find their youngest kids a little unnerved.

Bottom Line

It butchers the story as we all know it as kids—from the 1959 Sleeping Beauty—but Maleficent, made with the right dashes of action, whimsy and heart, is actually pretty endearing. I’d have to say this might be the best of the recent fairy tale reboots.

Maleficent (2014)

Directed by Robert Stromberg

Based on the 1959 film Sleeping Beauty, and the original “Sleeping Beauty” stories by Charles Perrault and Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

Rated PG

Length: 97 minutes