Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire — Give 'em a call!

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for supernatural action/violence, mild profanity and suggestive references

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.22.24

Sometimes dreams do come true.

 

When 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife proved successful, with its (mostly) new cast of younger characters, those of us who’ve adored this franchise since 1984 thought, Boy, wouldn’t it be nice if the new gang and the entire old gang got together in the next entry?

 

The inquisitive Ghostbusters — from left, Phoebe (Mckenna Grace), Podcast (Logan Kim)
and Ray (Dan Aykroyd) — are horrified by what Hubert Wartzki (Patton Oswalt) reveals
about the mysterious brass orb in their possession.

Well, it appears that the notoriously fickle Bill Murray decided that he couldn’t miss out on the fun this time. He, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and Annie Potts have key roles in this Earth-shattering adventure.

But the planetary threat comes later. As was the case with Afterlife, director Gil Kenan and co-scripter Jason Reitman take their time with smaller matters that allow solid character development. The focus this time is on Phoebe Spengler (Mckenna Grace), who — following her family’s destructive Eccto-1 chase through New York City streets, in pursuit of a shimmering Sewer Dragon ghost — gets benched by the infuriated Mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton), because, well, at 15 she’s a minor. 

 

It gets worse. The contemptuous Peck — Atherton, at his snarling best — warns Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), Trevor Spengler (Finn Wolfhard) and Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd) that he’s waiting for just one more excuse to shut down the Ghostbusters. 

 

He also wants to raze their beloved firehouse headquarters.

 

(You’d think the former team’s past accomplishments would have counted for something. But People In Authority never learn.)

 

Elsewhere, Podcast (Logan Kim) continues to help Ray Stantz (Aykroyd) become a YouTube influencer, with his weekly online explorations of everyday household objects that either are haunted ... or merely old. Ray is surprised, one day, when an opportunistic slacker, Nadeem Razmaadi (Kumail Nanjiani), turns up hoping to trade a box of his grandmother’s old possessions for fast cash. The contents include a mysterious, softball-size brass orb covered with ancient glyphs.

 

Still elsewhere, at the Paranormal Research Center run by Winston Zeddemore (Hudson), he and Lucky (Celeste O’Connor) — assisted by brainy newcomer Lars Pinfield (James Acaster) — have perfected next-gen equipment to extract and contain ectoplasmic essence.

 

As for Peter Venkman (Murray) ... well, rumor has it that if you want to get in touch with him, you leave a message on an answering machine somewhere (which, believe it or not, is the only way people can try to get Murray to accept a role, in the real world).

Pixels: Game over!

Pixels (2015) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, for occasional vulgarity
By Derrick Bang

Movies emerge from all sorts of sources.

Back in the Golden Age, adaptations came exclusively from popular novels and the theater stage. As we moved into the television age, iconic network characters leaped to the big screen, and then the dam truly burst, with high-concept projects concocted from songs, comic books, board games, computer games and even theme park attractions.

With Earth under attack by rather strange invaders, our heroes — from left, Violet
(Michelle Monaghan), Brenner (Adam Sandler) and Ludlow (Josh Gad) — confront one
crazy opponent after another. And yes, that's Q*bert on the far right: apparently on the
side of the angels.

 Most of those latter efforts, it must be mentioned, didn’t amount to much. No surprise there: Novels and plays contain rich narrative material constructed by writers who devoted a great deal of care to nit-picky details like plot logic and character development. Computer games offer little more than pop-culture images. (Anybody remember enduring Super Mario Bros.? Or either of the two Mortal Kombat bombs?)

Pixels derives from a 2010 short film of the same title by French writer/director Patrick Jean. It’s readily available via YouTube, Vimeo and various other Internet sources, and I heartily recommend the experience. It’s far more satisfying, at slightly more than 2 minutes (!), than this 98-minute, big-screen exercise in brain-dead chaos.

Scripters Tim Herlihy and Timothy Dowling clearly borrowed heavily from the original Ghostbusters template, while acknowledging the current resurgence of interest in early-gen computer games such as Asteroids and Pac-Man. But the Ghostbusters riffs are strongest, down to our heroes’ similar uniforms and even stance, while using similar high-tech weapons to battle this story’s unlikely celestial invaders.

The presence of Dan Aykroyd, in an early scene, suggests his approval of this acknowledgment of past glories.

Trouble is, Ghostbusters was a vastly superior film, with a much better-developed storyline. Pixels is random and clumsy, its under-developed characters graceless and often left to stand about, as if wondering what to do next. The overall narrative is so poorly executed that it frequently feels as if different sets of writers contributed various scenes, leaving director Chris Columbus to stitch things together.

A task at which he failed.

I had to remind myself that Columbus helmed iconic films such as Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire, the first two Harry Potter entries and the big-screen version of Rent. Then again, Columbus also brought us lesser efforts such as Bicentennial Man and I Love You, Beth Cooper, so he’s not immune to errors in judgment. Or skill.

But Pixels, without question, is the nadir of his (thus far) 30-year career.

Which is a shame, because this film’s first act shows promise. A 1982 prologue introduces us to young gamers Brenner (Anthony Ippolito) and Cooper (Jared Riley), who marvel at the delights to be found within their town’s first video game emporium. Their tag-along younger friend, Ludlow (Jacob Shinder), is content to fall in love/lust with a pixilated ninja babe dubbed Lady Lisa.

Brenner proves to be a natural, working his way up to a championship match against an arrogant young visitor named Eddie (Andrew Bambridge), who has dubbed himself “The Fire-Blaster.” The match is filmed, with the footage inserted by NASA into a deep-space probes: one of many examples, to entities Out There, of what Earth is like at that moment in time.

Flash-forward to the modern day. Cooper (now Kevin James) has, rather unexpectedly, become President of the United States. (One wonders who was inept enough to have lost that election.) He’s a meatball best known for embarrassing photo ops, but James nonetheless makes him somewhat endearing, in an oafish way.

Ludlow (Josh Gad) has become a conspiracy theory whacko (“Kennedy fired first!”) who still carries a torch for the imaginary Lady Lisa. Brenner (Adam Sandler) has blossomed into the ultimate under-achiever, as a roving tech nerd who installs home entertainment systems.

In that capacity, Brenner encounters Violet (Michelle Monaghan), a recently jilted wife, and her young son, Matty (Matt Lintz). The subsequent meet-cute connection is mutual all around, and also endearing: further proof that Sandler, when held in check, can be goofily charming while still delivering one-line zingers.

But there’s no time to explore romantic possibilities, thanks to a crisis that erupts halfway around the world, as a U.S. military base is attacked by free-flying whatzits that emit laser-like bursts which transform everything — buildings, people, the landscape — into small, multi-colored cubes of various sizes.

The assault is accompanied by a weird musical fanfare that Cooper immediately recognizes, when he views footage of the event. He summons Brenner to be sure, and they agree: Earth has just been attacked by the fictitious entities of the early 1980s computer game Galaga.

Ludlow supplies the next essential bit of information, rather mysteriously inserted into an old VHS tape he’d been watching. (No cable or satellite channels in his house; that’s how the government monitors people!) Apparently, that 1982 NASA tape was intercepted by an alien race that viewed the gaming footage as an act of war, and has created warriors based on those games, and sent them to Earth. The “rules” are spelled out by re-created video manifestations of characters from early 1980s TV shows.

It’s a duel to potential planetary destruction, with Earth granted three “lives,” as in classic arcade games. We’ve already lost the first life, and of course we lose the second after an assault in India, nobody having believed our heroes.

Then, finally acknowledging the inevitable, the first fair-fight clash takes place in England’s Hyde Park, with our newly jump-suited “Arcaders” taking on the rapidly descending Centipede. And, oh yes, it proves a fair fight thanks to weapons hastily devised by the tech wizards at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where — imagine the coincidence! — Violet happens to be a lieutenant colonel.

The old “gang” is fully assembled with the arrival of the smarmy and larcenous Eddie (Peter Dinklage), rescued from a long prison stretch and promised various things if he’ll help.

Which is right about the point that Columbus loses any semblance of control over this whacked-out storyline. The second act is bonkers, but at least visually impressive; effects supervisor Matthew Butler enthusiastically embraced the challenge of bringing all these 1980s video games into our real world. He and production designer Peter Wenham definitely hold our attention, even as things become progressively sillier.

The third act, however, defies description.

By this point, Herlihy and Dowling have abandoned any effort at coherence; they just toss stuff into the mix, like spaghetti hurled against a wall, to see if anything will stick.

Brian Cox and Sean Bean wander aimlessly through a few scenes, as a belligerent American admiral and an equally confrontational British SAS officer. The DARPA tech team includes a glass-brained android (Tom McCarthy) who’s just sorta taken for granted, as if such a breakthrough were commonplace.

Ludlow naturally comes face to face with an evil electronic personification of his beloved Lady Lisa (Ashley Benson), but what happens next is eye-rolling even by this numb-nuts film’s standards. An inappropriately chatty Q*bert, presented to our heroes as a “trophy,” seems oddly benevolent, given that he (it?) is a typical (?) denizen of this marauding alien race.

And if you expect any answers, after the final climactic battle, forget it; Herlihy and Dowling don’t even try to wrap things up. The final half hour is simply a mess.

Sandler holds things together as well as possible, and his calm, decent-guy charisma is a welcome counterpoint to — as the most obvious example — Gad’s overly shrill, shrieking handling of Ludlow. Eddie’s vulgar tendencies are wholly out of place in this dumb but mostly good-natured fantasy, with Dinklage’s earthy dialogue solely responsible for the otherwise harmless script’s PG-13 elements. The character simply doesn’t work, nor can Dinklage save him.

Lintz, also refreshingly serene, shares several engaging scenes with Sandler. Jack Fulton gets a hearty laugh as a young British lad who uncorks a choice one-liner. Jane Krakowski is completely wasted as Cooper’s wife, and thus the U.S. First Lady; Lainie Kazan has an equally useless role as Ludlow’s grandmother. Serena Williams and Martha Stewart appears as themselves. (Don’t ask.)

And — could it really be? — yes, Matt Frewer gets another shot at his own bit of 1980s pop-culture glory.

I’m intrigued by this film’s proximity to 2012’s Wreck-It Ralph, which also gave fresh life to characters from long-dormant games such as BurgerTime, Paperboy, Dig Dug and, yes, Q*bert. Indeed, little Q*bert is more easily recognized today, than he was three decades ago. Nostalgia sure takes us in strange directions.

A condensed and more intelligently scripted version of these events would have made a great 45-minute episode of the recent TV series Warehouse 13. But at more than twice that length, Columbus’ film loses its way — and its audience — long before its looney-tunes denouement. This is brain-dead, flashy Hollywood trash at its worst: every bit as mindless as the phosphor-dot spaceships that marched down the screen during a round of Space Invaders.

And not nearly as much fun.

Get On Up: An artistic downer

Get On Up (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, sexual candor, drug use, violence and profanity
By Derrick Bang 

Rarely has a strong starring performance been sabotaged so thoroughly by a film’s core structure.

During what begins as a casual chat following a successful concert performance, Bobby
(Nelsan Ellis, right) makes the mistake of sharing some of his own musical dreams with
longtime friend and colleague James Brown (Chadwick Boseman). Big mistake: Of all
people, Bobby should have known that in Brown's world, there's only room for one ego.

Chadwick Boseman impressed us last year with his dignified, finely shaded portrayal of baseball great Jackie Robinson, in 42. Boseman is simply amazing here, as “godfather of soul” James Brown: the voice; the earthy charisma; the electrifying, bone-defying dance moves; and most particularly the soul-shattered instability. It’s a performance for the ages.

Too bad it’s buried in such a clumsy and maladroit package.

One generally blames the director for the totally of a film; he is, after all, the guy who signs off on every take, oversees the editing and assembly of words, images and music. I’m reluctant to do so in this case, because Tate Taylor certainly deserves credit for coaxing such a galvanic performance from Boseman ... and, to only a slightly lesser degree, from the equally talented Nelsan Ellis, just a memorable in a supporting role as Brown’s longtime friend and musical colleague, Bobby Byrd.

Taylor, after all, guided Octavia Spencer to an Academy Award for her fine work in The Help, a thoroughly absorbing adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s book, which also garnered a Best Picture nod and acting nominations for Viola Davis and Jessica Chastain. The man clearly knows how to elicit the best from his actors.

On the other hand, Taylor obviously didn’t recognize the serious deficiencies in this biographical portrait. Censure more deservedly goes to scripters Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth and Steven Baigelman, for the bewildering and off-putting manner in which they’ve chosen to tell Brown’s story.

The film begins very poorly, and you’ll likely want to bolt during the distasteful and downright weird prologue: an incident from late in Brown’s career, when mental demons have transformed him into an unstable, potentially dangerous lunatic. This sequence is “expanded” from a real-life meltdown that led to his arrest in September 1988, and six-year jail term (of which he served three years).

But absent any context, it’s impossible to view this scene as anything but disrespectful: a thoroughly unpalatable introduction to a man who meant so much to the music world. It’s also not one of Boseman’s better moments; he’s not able to sell Brown’s volatility in a way that enhances the drama. Even much later, when the narrative has come full circle to better explain this sequence — and its aftermath — we remain unsatisfied.

Of all the places to begin this drama, Taylor went with that one?

Tammy: Rude, crude and booed

Tammy (2014) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for profanity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang

Melissa McCarthy’s vulgar fat slob shtick is wearing very thin.

Believing that she needs some quick cash in order to help with her grandmother's impending
medical bills, Tammy (Melissa McCarthy, right) dons a minimal "disguise" and holds up a
fast-food joint ... with a "weapon" that's no more than her pointing fingers in a papr bag.
Yep, that's the level of humor in this bomb.

Tammy isn’t even a rough approximation of a film; it’s merely a series of disconnected scenes and encounters, clumsily stitched together in a limp effort at storytelling. McCarthy charges through the resulting mess like a bull in a china shop, as if daring us not to find her so-called antics funny.

I’ll take that dare, Melissa. You’re not funny.

Neither is your film.

Well, wait ... in fairness, I did laugh once, at a quick shot involving a raccoon and a doughnut. McCarthy had nothing to do with it.

I find it completely bewildering that an actress of McCarthy’s talent and timing, having established her comic chops with TV’s Mike & Molly (winning an Emmy) and the big screen’s Bridesmaids (Oscar nomination), would debase herself with material this puerile, sloppy and slapdash. I’m inclined to believe that even the Three Stooges would have rejected this script as beneath them.

Hollywood actresses have long struggled to achieve a level of equality, credibility and respect akin to their male co-stars ... and this is the path to success? Is demonstrating an ability to out-gross Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow and Farrelly brothers comedies really a sign of progress?

If so, that’s pretty sad.

McCarthy has nobody to blame but herself, since she shares scripting credit — if such a term even applies — with off-camera husband Ben Falcone, who also makes his directorial debut with this train wreck.

Note to Ben: Don’t lose your day job.

Falcone makes every rookie mistake in the book, starting with his tendency to frame his wife in tight close-ups, so that we can count every sweaty pore. And he clearly didn’t “direct” McCarthy in any sense of the word; he simply points the camera and waits while she stumbles and bumbles through whatever she concocts from thin air. Which ain’t much.