Muppets Most Wanted: Sophomore slump

Muppets Most Wanted (2014) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rating: suitable for all ages, despite a truly meaningless PG rating
By Derrick Bang

At 112 minutes, this return visit with the Muppets is too long.

Director/co-scripter James Bobin starts well, with a droll song-and-dance opener that cleverly cites the various mistakes and shortcomings that plague most sequels ... and then, as this film progresses, he succumbs to almost all of them.

Kermit isn't at all sure about the wisdom of signing a contract with the smarmy Dominic
Badguy (Ricky Gervais), but the rest of the Muppets cast aside any doubts after
hearing about a planned European stage tour. What could possibly go wrong?

For the most part, Bret McKenzie’s songs are lyrically witty and staged in a manner that plays to the well-known character quirks of the large Muppet cast. Wry, Muppet-ized send-ups of classic tunes also prompt a giggle, whether Allen Toussaint’s “Working in the Coal Mine,” the Doobie Brothers’ “Long Train Running” or the iconic theme from Titanic, “My Heart Will Go On.”

The problem, eventually, is sheer music overload ... particularly when we factor in nods to Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Wagner, “The Rainbow Connection” and an entire production number lifted whole cloth from A Chorus Line.

Too much music. Way too much music.

Although Muppets Most Wanted is (more or less) propelled by a core plotline, the script — Bobin shares credit with Nicholas Stoller — too frequently feels random and unfocused, as if bits were being concocted on the fly.

It would appear that star Jason Segel had much to do with the success of 2011’s The Muppets, since he also co-wrote that screenplay with Stoller. That predecessor had two solid storylines: The re-assembling of the Muppet troops supplied a great first act, after their long big-screen absence, but the film’s heart came from the unlikely relationship between Segel’s Gary and his Muppet “brother,” Walter.

Muppets Most Wanted lacks that softer side. It’s little more than a series of songs, sight gags and comedy sketches: a format that worked quite well during the half-hour installments of television’s The Muppet Show, back in the late 1970s and early ’80s, but wears thin here and — dare I say it? — grows a bit tedious. Even dull.

And, judging by the increasingly restless behavior of the children present at last weekend’s preview screening, even they got bored. Not a good sign.

The Invention of Lying: The truth hurts

The Invention of Lying  (2009) • View trailer for The Invention of Lying
Three stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for profanity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.8.09
Buy DVD: The Invention of Lying• Buy Blu-Ray: The Invention of Lying [Blu-ray]


This one's a 15-minute stand-up monologue with delusions of grandeur.

Although the premise of The Invention of Lying — written and directed collaboratively by Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson, and starring Gervais — is intriguing, and no doubt would make a fascinating topic for theological discussion, this 100-minute film runs out of gas long before the halfway point.

Despite his newfound wealth and prestige, Mark (Ricky Gervais, right) still
can't prevent Anna (Jennifer Garner) from preferring the superficial physical
attributes of the pompous and insufferably vain Brad (Rob Lowe).

Much of the blame falls to the direction and many of the performances, which are oddly flat and uninvolving. Gervais is his usual amusingly understated self, and co-stars Jennifer Garner and Rob Lowe bring much-needed sparkle to these proceedings. But everybody else seems to amble about in a perpetual Valium haze, their line-readings delivered with a neither interest nor conviction.

The Invention of Lying takes place in a parallel world precisely like ours, except that people are wired in such a way that they're incapable of anything but the absolute truth. Thus, a standard greeting — "How are you today?" — invites a wealth of excruciating detail, and spontaneous encounters are likely to be quite deflating. ("My, what an ugly baby!")

Somehow, all this raw honesty never leads to violence, as if this world also has been flensed of anger and wounded pride. The moment this penny drops — roughly, oh, five minutes in — the seams of this script begin to spring other leaks, as well. A full-length film, particularly one this languidly paced, gives us far too much time to ponder its many logical flaws.

Gervais plays Mark Bellison, a screenwriter for the Lecture Films Motion Picture Studios, known by its motto: "We film someone telling you about things that happened." Fiction also doesn't exist in this realm, because fiction is untruth: thus, no novels or dramas of any kind. Movies and TV are nonstop documentaries, and Mark is having serious trouble finding anything "fun" to write about in his given assignment of the 13th century.

A blind date with Anna McDoogles (Garner) doesn't go terribly well, because she candidly admits that she probably won't want to see him again. Things get worse when Mark loses his job and is one day away from being evicted from his apartment. In desperation, he heads to the bank to empty his account; the computers are down temporarily, but of course the teller is willing to take his word for how much remains.

And he lies.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian — Exhibits charm

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009) • View trailer for Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for harmless comedy violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.21.09
Buy DVD: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian • Buy Blu-Ray: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (Three-Disc Edition + Digital Copy + DVD) [Blu-ray]


Blend a museum of natural history, an uptight night watchman and a magical tablet that brings all the exhibits to life between dusk and dawn each day, and the result was $574 million in worldwide ticket sales.

One does not ignore numbers like that.

Although guard Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) has his hands full, when all sorts
of chaos erupts in the Smithsonian's many galleries, he has the advantage
of resourceful assistance from the plucky Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams).

Happily, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is every bit as clever, charming and harmlessly exciting as its 2006 predecessor. Indeed, this sequel is even a bit better; the new setting — the many buildings housing the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. — allows much freer rein for the already amusing premise.

And for once, all concerned have been content to more or less repeat their winning formula. This sophomore outing for Ben Stiller's high-strung Larry Daley doesn't sacrifice its heart on the altar of more mindless and destructive slapstick, a creatively bankrupt decision that plagues far too many comedy sequels.

No, this romp in the Smithsonian is just as sweet and heartfelt as its predecessor, which means it should make just as much money.

True, the gimmick is just as silly, as well; one cannot apply logic to either of these films. (I never cease to be amazed, for starters, by how many historical figures from various parts of the world return to life spouting flawless English.) You gotta just kick back and go with the flow, and Stiller and returning director Shawn Levy — along with returning scripters Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon — make that pretty easy.

Larry, having survived and even profited from the events in the first film, has forsaken his unusual friends at New York's Museum of Natural History for a new career as an infomercial titan (a calling perceptively skewered in a short prologue). With a client list that's soon to include Wal-Mart, Larry hasn't found the time for those late-night visits to play fetch with the dinosaur skeleton, or observe the evolving friendship between the miniature cowboy, Jedediah (Owen Wilson), and the equally diminutive Roman centurion, Octavius (Steve Coogan).

Ghost Town: Dead funny!

Ghost Town (2008) • View trailer for Ghost Town
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, and too harshly, for sexual candor, brief profanity and fleeting drug references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.19.08
Buy DVD: Ghost Town • Buy Blu-Ray: Ghost Town [Blu-ray]

Director/co-scripter David Koepp's clever and witty screenplay has much to do with the success of Ghost Town, but the film belongs to Ricky Gervais.

The popular British actor/comic, well known for the TV shows The Office and Extras, makes a smashing leap to big-screen stardom in a role perfectly suited to his talents. As dentist Bertram Pincus, Gervais displays a hilariously misanthropic streak that's softened just enough by the woebegone face of a lonely dog abandoned by its beloved master.

After a hospital "incident" leaves dentist Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais) with
the ability to see and communicate with the deceased, he's besieged by
phantoms who beg him to help complete final tasks that will allow them to
escape their Earthly purgatory.

Pincus has no use for people, not even his clinic partner or the many patients who settle nervously into his chair. They're all talkers, and he derives far too much satisfaction from silencing the chatter with cotton plugs, gunk-laden impression trays or enthusiastic applications of Novocain.

If requested to hold the elevator where he resides in a tony Manhattan flat, he'll pretend to do so while stealthily stabbing the "close" button, then displaying a faux apologetic expression as the doors close on an exasperated neighbor.

In short, Pincus is an unredeemable cad, but in a fussy, Felix Unger manner that makes him somehow endearing.

Because we know the truth, and that's the beauty of Gervais' performance: Despite his snarky behavior, Pincus is a man in desperate pain, and one who needs to see the light.

Instead, he sees ghosts.

A routine colonoscopy is punctuated by an "incident" with the general anesthesia that leaves Pincus clinically dead for seven minutes; his subsequent discovery of this catastrophe emerges during a conversation with his surgeon and the hospital's legal watchdog. The start-stop hiccups of this "chat" are to die for: perfectly timed by all three actors, and marvelously choreographed by Koepp.

And certain to be appreciated by any viewer who ever tried to extract candor from a doctor conditioned by lawyers to say nothing.

The upshot, before Pincus can mutter "I see dead people," is precisely that: He's left with the ability to interact with the multitude of ghosts crowding the streets of New York. This isn't the slightest bit scary, merely annoying ... because all these shades, by definition, are stuck in their Earth-bound purgatory until they're able to complete some unfinished business.

Suddenly this dentist, who wants nothing to do with anybody, is the only hope for a legion of frustrated and dispirited spirits.

Sheer genius.