Minions: The Rise of Gru — A total delight

Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022) • View trailer

4.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for cartoon violence and mild rude humor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.1.22

This is the most entertaining, fun-filled 87 minutes we’re likely to experience this summer.

 

Although so many other franchises show their age over time, we always can depend upon the irrepressibly impish Minions. They’re a force of comedic nature, wrapped up in a banana-yellow, pill-shaped package.

 

Gru's determination to shorten the line at the local ice cream parlor is anticipated with
glee by, from left, Stuart, Bob and Kevin.

Directors Kyle Balda, Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val — assisted by a hilarity-laced script from Matthew Fogel and Brian Lynch — have crafted a clever origin story that takes us back to the 1970s, prior to the events that introduced the adult Gru and his language-torturing little buddies, back in 2010’s Despicable Me.

But that comes a bit later, in this pell-mell, fast-paced fantasy romp (kudos, as well, to editor Claire Dodgson).

 

A lengthy prologue introduces bad-ass martial arts fighter Wild Knuckles (voiced by Alan Arkin), leader of an infamous supervillain group, the Vicious 6. Their current goal: to snatch an ancient, glowing green medallion that’ll grant its bearers the awesome mystical powers of Chinese zodiac creatures.

 

With lithe moves and acrobatic prowess that Indiana Jones could only dream about, Wild Knuckles obtains the prize. He’s then cut loose — literally, from a high altitude — when the other gang members unite behind the far cooler (and younger) Belle Bottom (Taraji P. Henson), whose chain belt doubles as a lethal disco-ball mace.

 

Time to make way for the new generation, she waspishly chortles.

 

Cut to a suburban grade school, where 12-year-old Gru (Steve Carell) dreams of becoming a super-villain. His mischievous pranks already border on extreme bad behavior, aided and abetted by favorite Minion companions Kevin (the tall planner), Stuart (the naughty cut-up) and Bob (the youngster, rarely without a tiny teddy bear).

 

All are voiced, with distinctly different language-mangling, by Pierre Coffin.

 

(It should be mentioned that this is the scheming, proto-malevolent Gru, as depicted in the first Despicable Me, rather than the reluctantly heroic do-gooder into which he morphed, as the series progressed.)

 

Gru already is on his way to cackling master-villainy, thanks to a way-cool basement lair constructed by the entire Minion gang, much to the dismay of his New Age-y mother (Julie Andrews). And if his weapon of choice dispenses Cheez Whiz rather than a death ray, well, a kid’s gotta start somewhere … right?

 

Given that their group name demands a replacement for the recently departed Wild Knuckles, Belle and the other hold open auditions; learning of this, Gru couldn’t be more delighted. Alas, the baddies are unimpressed upon discovering that this particular wannabe is just a child.

 

“Come back when you do something that impresses us,” Belle snarls, derisively.

Hidden Figures: The female frontier

Hidden Figures (2016) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.6.17

A film that moves its audience to cheers and applause, as the screen fades to black, is an exhilarating experience for the patrons involved.

But a film that also prompts such a response several times during the course of its story?

When John Glenn (Glen Powell) arrives at the Langley Research Center, he makes a
point of greeting members of the West Area Computing team: from left, Dorothy Vaughan
(Octavia Spencer), Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) and Mary Jackson (Janelle
Monáe, partially obscured).

That’s a rare gift.

Director Theodore Melfi’s Hidden Figures isn’t merely a crowd-pleasing slice of actual history; it’s also a sly social statement, and a rich showcase for its three starring actresses. Melfi and co-scripter Allison Schroeder have turned Margot Lee Shetterly’s absorbing nonfiction book into an engaging drama that charms and fascinates in equal measure.

More than anything else, though, I remain stunned by the fact that half a century has passed, before this jaw-droppingly amazing story has been brought to our attention. What the heck took so long?

The setting alone is an eyebrow-raiser that somehow missed being discussed in any of my history texts. Much of NASA’s initial efforts during the early days of the space race, playing catch-up after the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik 1 and several subsequent spacecraft, took place at Virginia’s Langley Research Center, then very much a part of the Jim Crow South.

The campus included a remote, fully segregated arm known as West Area Computing, staffed entirely by African American women — all mathematicians — somewhat dismissively dubbed “computers.” When a group in the larger, posher east end of the center needed numerical verification (basically arithmetic scut-work), a lead engineer — all of said engineers being white and male — would send for “a computer,” much the way a temp secretary would be requested.

Shetterly’s book profiles four such women: Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson and Christine Darden. The latter has been omitted from this film; the other three have been brought to glorious life, respectively, by Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe.

(A quick bit of back-story not included in the script: The World War II-era recruitment of women allowed Vaughan, originally a mathematics teacher, to be hired in 1943 by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, the precursor to NASA. Jackson and Johnson, also mathematicians, were hired in 1951 and ’53, respectively.)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Clasped hearts

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) • View trailer for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for war violence, sensuality and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.2.09
Buy DVD: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button • Buy Blu-Ray: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button: The Criterion Collection [Blu-ray]


Death and sorrow hang over this film like a shroud.

But not despair — never despair — and that's an important distinction.

Having faithfully brought her foster child to revival-style church meetings
every Sunday, Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) is amazed and gratified when
Benjamin takes his first few halting steps, apparently having had his "demons"
exorcised by the nearby minister. As it happens, the truth is much more
complicated than that...

I wonder, though, whether that subtlety will be perceived by mainstream viewers more inclined to chafe at this film's deliberate, leisurely tone and close to three-hour length. The rewards are many for those with a maturity to appreciate this story's primary message — that life is measured, not in minutes, but in moments — but director David Fincher's approach is relentlessly melancholy.

Despite its unusual story and unexpected bursts of whimsy, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button likely will be perceived as a major downer.

In this respect — and in many others, come to think of it — this film bears a striking similarity to 1998's Meet Joe Black, an equally long and unhurried effort by star Brad Pitt to sell himself as a peculiar protagonist (and, as a result, bizarre romantic lead) in a decidedly adult fairy tale.

Fortunately, Benjamin Button is a more polished and intriguing story: one whose weight justifies this film's length (definitely not the case with Meet Joe Black). Fincher also has a better handle on the all-essential approach required to keep this concept afloat: one wrong move, and the entire project would sink like the drowned WWII sailors Benjamin (Pitt) encounters during one of his many adventures.

Although ostensibly based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Eric Roth and Robin Swicord's screenplay borrows little more than the title and freakish central concept of a man born old, who subsequently ages backwards. Aside from the additional grace note of a female lead named Daisy — a nod to Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby — this is a wholly original tale, and a striking one, at that.

It has the episodic, Everyman-experiences-life structure of Forrest Gump, blended with the anticipatory heartbreak of 1968's Charly, itself based on "Flowers for Algernon," a Daniel Keyes fantasy story (later novel) that explored the consequences of knowing one's fate in advance.

Using a dual flashback/ voice-over narrative style — Benjamin gently relates his saga, his voice taking over from Caroline (Julia Ormond), as she reads his diary aloud to her elderly and rapidly failing mother, Daisy (Cate Blanchett) — our hero introduces himself as he says, with unintended irony, "I was born under unusual circumstances."

The year is 1918, the setting New Orleans, where a distraught father — whose wife has died in childbirth — abandons his infant son on the steps of Nolan House, a retirement home filled with kindly elderly tenants and their equally benevolent caregivers. The baby, unattractive to the point of appearing deformed, is embraced by Queenie (Taraji P. Henson, truly radiant), a church-going woman who believes that all children possess God's grace.