Pacific Rim: Monster Mash

Pacific Rim (2013) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for intense sci-fi violence and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.12.13

Guillermo del Toro must have loved Godzilla movies as a kid.

His newest action fantasy, Pacific Rim, is a valentine to the dozen or so romp ’em, stomp ’em features that starred “the big G” during del Toro’s formative years. (Quite a few more have been made since then.) This tip of the hat clearly is deliberate, since the director and fellow scripter Travis Beacham refer to their ginormous critters as kaiju, the Japanese term — literally “strange beast,” but more commonly “giant monster” — coined, back in the day, to describe Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan and their ilk.

Strapped into the high-tech body suits that make them "one" with the giant robot
warriors into which they've been placed, Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) and Mako (Rinko
Kikuchi) prepare for a battle they already know is unwinnable, against a monstrous
beast with adaptive "enhancements" that have made it far stronger than their
mechanical avatar.

Throw in plenty of 21st century whiz-bang special effects, and the result is a high-tech thrill ride that blends big monsters, equally massive robot-like avatars, and the stubborn pluck of a puny human race unwilling to go quietly into that good night.

During a summer laden with end-of-the-world scenarios — zombie apocalypse and Kryptonian apocalypse, not to mention the biblical Book of Revelations — this one takes the prize for cheeky absurdity. At the same time, del Toro and Beacham pay careful attention to the human element, giving us would-be saviors who are inspiring for their fortitude, and endearing for their flaws.

Not to mention, it’s always nice when a screenplay takes the optimistic view, and shows world powers uniting in an effort to save the planet. Such all-for-one selflessness goes all the way back to H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, and the reminder is refreshing in this divisively cynical age.

Audacious fantasy has been del Toro’s stock-in-trade ever since 1997’s under-appreciated and genuinely creepy Mimic. He also was the perfect choice to adapt graphic novelist Mike Mignola’s lunatic Hellboy series, and — as an executive producer — del Toro has chaperoned riveting projects such as 2007’s wonderfully atmospheric The Orphanage.

And let us not forget his masterpiece: 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth, the Oscar-winning horror film that brought adult sensibilities to a genre too frequently willing to settle for much less, and which demonstrated that human monsters can be much, much worse than anything cooked up by our vivid imaginations.

Pacific Rim doesn’t wade through such high-falutin' waters, though; this is simply del Toro’s first stab at a crowd-pleasing, mega-budget summer blockbuster, and he has done a commendable job.

The film, set in the not-too-distant future, opens with an extended flashback: An unseen narrator recalls the unexpected arrival of the first kaiju, an enormous — and quite savage — amphibious creature bent on death and destruction. It rises from the ocean depths and wreaks considerable havoc before being brought down by conventional military hardware.

Apparently passing this off as an isolated incident — perhaps a lone, Bradbury-esque behemoth, driven by curiosity to the surface world — mankind is similarly unprepared months later, when the next one arrives. And then another. And another, at noticeably shorter intervals. Scientists realize that they’re coming from some sort of dimensional portal deep in the Pacific Ocean.

The Lone Ranger: The mild, mild West

The Lone Ranger (2013) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rating: PG-13, for intense action violence and suggested gore
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.5.13

The best that can be said for this fiasco, is that it’s marginally superior to director William A. Fraker’s leaden, charmless 1981 film, The Legend of the Lone Ranger.

But that’s damning with very faint praise.

Having failed to persuade a Comanche tribe that war with the neighboring white-man
settlement is a bad idea, Tonto (Johnny Depp, left) and the Lone Ranger (Armie
Hammer) are left in a painfully vulnerable position. And it's about to get worse, when
scorpions come calling...

Chief among that earlier film’s many flaws was the block-of-wood “performance” from no-name star Klinton Spilsbury, in (thank God) his only big-screen appearance. Michael Horse, as Tonto, acted circles around him.

But pretty much everything else was wrong, as well; even the usually dependable John Barry turned in a listless score that was marred further by a pokey, half-speed rendition of “The William Tell Overture” — the Lone Ranger’s iconic theme — that brought the already sluggish drama to a dead stop.

So I give composer Hans Zimmer credit for his spirited, cheer-inducing handling of “The William Tell Overture” during this new film’s climax, and I credit director Gore Verbinski for knowing how best to use it. Kudos, as well, to Verbinski and special-effects supervisors Tim Alexander and Gary Brozenich, for two audacious train chases: a good one to open the film, and a dog-nuts-sensational one to close it.

But pretty much everything else is wrong.

For openers, this clumsy, overcooked mess runs a butt-numbing 149 minutes: a “privilege” Verbinski apparently earned because his similarly bloated Pirates of the Caribbean entries have made a gazillion bucks for Disney. Mind you, length is fine if the script demands it, but that’s far from the case here; as my watch’s illuminated dial ticked off the minutes — depressingly slowly — toward the two-hour mark, I desperately hoped we were about to wrap things up ... but no, the slog continued, mercilessly, for another half-hour.

The major problem is that Verbinski and his scripters — Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio and Justin Haythe — can’t decide what sort of movie to make. On the one hand, they more-or-less attempt to honor the existing Lone Ranger mythos, as established by the popular radio series (1933-54) and TV series (1949-57). I appreciate the effort, half-hearted though it may be.

On the other hand, they blend this often grim drama with the sort of jokey, slapstick tone that marked the Pirates series ... no surprise there, since Elliott and Rossio wrote all four entries in that franchise. No surprise, as well, that Johnny Depp’s Tonto is the same sort of mincing, scowling, alternate-reality caricature that the actor made of Capt. Jack Sparrow. The only difference is that Tonto isn’t ever drunk ... although the film’s scripters flirt with that notion, as well.

Despicable Me 2: Villainy lite

Despicable Me 2 (2013) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: PG, and quite needlessly, for mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang

Thank goodness for the minions.

2010’s Despicable Me got much of its hilarious edge from the personality transformation experienced by Gru, the vaguely Slavic super-villain who mellows out — but only somewhat — after encountering a trio of trusting little girls.

Sent undercover as the owner of a mega-mall's boutique cupcake emporium, Gru is
annoyed to discover that he has been saddled with an assisant: Lucy Wilde, an
aggressively eager agent of the Anti-Villian League. Their goal: to figure out which
neighboring shopkeeper actually is a dastardly criminal mastermind.

Gru’s introductory strut in that first film — to a deliciously snarky title song written and performed by Pharrell Williams — was the stuff of greatness. Here was a gleeful scoundrel who’d embrace badness big and small, whether stealing the Earth’s Moon, or stealing candy from a baby. And he wouldn’t merely snatch the sweet from the crestfallen tyke; he’d replace it with a cod liver oil sucker.

Watching this fellow struggle against the arrival of a hitherto buried good side — trying to stay wicked in the face of unconditional love from Agnes, the youngest of his new wards — was the stuff of classic character comedy.

This sequel’s Gru, alas, has completed this makeover, and has fully embraced his light side. As a result, he’s both less interesting and less funny. His inventive genius now reduced to concocting playful gadgets for Agnes’ birthday party, the low point arrives when — a paid actress having failed to show up — Gru dresses himself as the world’s most unlikely fairy princess.

Which, yes, results in a genuinely poignant moment between Agnes and her de facto daddy.

I don’t intend to suggest that Despicable Me 2 is either disappointing or unsatisfying: far from it. Returning directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud maintain their engaging blend of character comedy, goofy slapstick and oddball peril, and returning scripters Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul certainly know the territory.

But the latter are on their own this time, whereas the first film derived from a story by Sergio Pablos ... and he may be the essential missing ingredient. Despicable Me 2 is a more conventional animated comedy, in terms of its standard-issue narrative and predictable plot hiccups. We never knew what would happen in the first film, which was much of its charm; this sequel, in contrast, lacks that element of uncertainty.

Fortunately, Daurio and Paul have the good sense to grant more screen time to the first film’s breakout stars: the mischievous, hapless and hilariously speech-challenged minions.

We can’t get enough of them, and this new film takes ample advantage of that fact.

(To be more precise, we certainly haven’t yet gotten enough of them. Let’s see what happens next year, when they get their own movie.)

White House Down: Slick summer heroics

White House Down (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for fleeting profanity and relentless action violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.28.13

You gotta give ’em credit: Despite an invasion premise that confines the primary characters to the labyrinthine White House interior, this crowd-pleasing action epic manages to work in a car chase.

And a reasonably plausible car chase, at that.

Having worked their way through secret tunnels that lead beneath the White House,
Cale (Channing Tatum, right) and President Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) are dismayed to
discover that the bad guys have blocked the way with a complicated bomb. Worse
yet, irritated thugs with guns are right behind them...

Director Roland Emmerich and writer James Vanderbilt actually deserve credit for far more than that. Despite arriving late to this high-profile copycat party, White House Down is superior to spring’s Olympus Has Fallen: a much smarter script, vastly better characters and a superior blend of action and hell-for-leather humor.

THIS is the way I expect our heads of state to behave: defiant and resourceful in the face of death, rather than the cowardly, impotent weenies who populated Olympus Has Fallen.

Granted, both films offer the same sort of quasi-political hokum, but White House Down delivers the (mostly) one-man derring-do with far more style. Despite a self-indulgent running time of 131 minutes, Emmerich and editor Adam Wolfe keep the pace crisp, the tension coiled and the heroics more or less reasonable.

Vanderbilt’s narrative is a series of clever teases, with every small triumph offset by a newly discovered setback; we therefore cheer each cathartic victory while remaining invested in the primary goal that, vexingly, remains out of reach.

Best of all, we have a solid quartet of villains to boo and hiss: a turncoat mastermind and three delectably unscrupulous associates, each playing his part with gleefully malevolent brio. After all, heroes are measured by their adversaries.

John Cale (Channing Tatum), a capable D.C. policeman, is less successful on the home front, having let down his young daughter, Emily (Joey King), once too often. This comes as no surprise to ex-wife Melanie (Rachelle Lefevre), who, while sympathetic, doesn’t put much stock in Cale’s insistence that he’s trying to atone for past mistakes. Emily, also not impressed, prefers to call her estranged father by his first name.

Hoping to recover some ground, Cale scores a second White House pass so that Emily can tag along when he applies for his dream job, as a member of the Secret Service staff assigned to protect President Sawyer (Jamie Foxx). Alas, Special Agent Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal) also knows too much about Cale’s various character flaws, in part thanks to a long-ago affair with him. She thus denies him the shot.

Much Ado About Nothing: A droll something

Much Ado About Nothing (2012) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for sensuality, subtle sexual candor and fleeting drug use
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.21.13

Fred and Wesley finally got back together, which is pretty cool.

And while the circumstances are rather unusual, they’re no less delightful.

An eavesdropping Beatrice (Amy Acker, foreground) is astonished to overhear details
about how Benedick — elsewhere in the estate — has long adored her ... astonished
because it seems that she and Benedick do nothing but snipe at each other. Ah, but
Beatrice doesn't realize that Hero (Jillian Morgese, center) and the maid are fully aware
that they're being overheard, and are discussing "details" that have been exaggerated
for Beatrice's benefit.

Most filmmakers, after completing principal photography on a massive, gazillion-dollar project, unwind prior to the next step — assembling the director’s cut — by taking calm vacations ...  anything but film-related.

Joss Whedon isn’t most people. Prior to putting the finishing touches on The Avengers — last year’s wildly successful superhero summit meeting — he filled the in-between time by staging an intimate, micro-budget movie at his own Los Angeles home. And, as genre geeks know, when Whedon mounts such a project, he always engages the close friends who’ve become one of Hollywood’s most loyal repertoire companies.

In this case, a 12-day shoot (!) yielded one of the most unusual interpretations of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing ever to hit cinema screens. Lensed in glorious, mood-enhancing black-and-white by cinematographer Jay Hunter, this modern-dress staging nonetheless employs the Bard’s original dialogue — condensed and occasionally tweaked by Whedon — and features faces well-recognized from his various television projects.

Yes, kids; that means Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse.

Thus, my somewhat cryptic opening sentence can be explained by the casting of Alexis Denisof and Amy Acker — Wesley Wyndam-Price and Winifred “Fred” Burke, respectively, on Angel — as Benedick and Beatrice.

Lest you roll eyebrows over the reflexive accusation that Whedon has unleashed a self-indulgent vanity production, well, yes, that’s certainly true. But who can complain, when the results are this entertaining?

To be sure, the initial disconnect is jarring. The setting, clothing and technology clearly are 21st century, which is at odds with the flowery Shakespearean dialogue. The acting style throughout is a bit ostentatious and overly mannered, the performers occasionally mugging for the camera the way a stage actor would pause for a laugh from the audience.

But that “settling in” period can be true of any Shakespeare production, even those that are rigorously authentic. Fifteen or 20 minutes into this film, everything starts to look and sound natural, at which point you’ll simply enjoy the richly contrived romantic entanglements present in one of Shakespeare’s most appealing comedies.

Monsters University: Endearing school daze

Monsters University (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: G, and suitable for all ages
By Derrick Bang

Delving into the origins of popular characters can be quite a lark — consider the fun that’s been had with younger versions of Sherlock Holmes, James Bond and the Star Trek crew — and Pixar has uncorked a collegiate charmer with Monsters University.

When an extra-curricular field trip goes awry, the members of Oozma Kappa — from
left, Art, Don, Squishy, Terri/Terry, Mike and Sulley — find themselves being pursued
by Folks In Charge. With few options for escape, our misfits are about to learn an
important lesson: Salvation comes when friends work together.

Spending more time in the imaginatively conceived “monster universe” is delectable enough, and director/co-scripter Dan Scanlon has sweetened the pot by supplying the inside scoop on how monocular-eyed Mike Wazowski (once again voiced by Billy Crystal) first met bodaciously blue-furred James P. “Sulley” Sullivan (John Goodman).

Naturally, it’s competitive loathing at first sight. Isn’t that the way all grand friendships are born?

Although this prequel lacks freshness and originality — try as they might, Scanlon and co-scripters Daniel Gerson and Robert L. Baird can’t replicate the giggly, first-time awe generated by 2001’s Monsters, Inc. — it compensates with a warm-hearted story that extols both the virtues of friendship and integrity, and the all-important notion that diversity is valuable for its own sake.

Yep, even a world littered with crazy-quilt critters isn’t immune to social pecking orders that ostracize misfits and timid outcasts. Scanlon & Co. pull off an impressive trick here: Even though we know the future of this realm’s scare industry — thanks to the first film — this sparkling new adventure of Mike and Sulley sets up innovative adversaries and challenges, while keeping a steady (single) eye on the core message of camaraderie and integrity.

Resourceful as we might be on our own, we’re always stronger when good buddies have our back ... and we have theirs.

We first meet Mike during childhood (voiced with high-pitched, little-kid sincerity, in these early scenes, by Noah Johnston), as a teacher’s pet and correspondingly shunned know-it-all, who nonetheless blossoms during a school field trip to the Monsters Inc. “Scream Floor.” Little Mike is spellbound, as he watches veteran Scarers travel through the magical doors that lead into the bedrooms of unsuspecting Earth children, there to elicit the youthful shrieks and screams that supply the essential power to the Monster Universe.

This, young Mike decides, is what he wants to do in life.

The Kings of Summer: This film rules!

The Kings of Summer (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: R, and rather harshly, for occasional profanity and teen drinking
By Derrick Bang

This is why I love my job.

The Kings of Summer marks an impressive feature debut for director Joran Vogt-Roberts and writer Chris Galletta, the latter with nothing more to his credit than a brief 2005 stint as a production staff member for The Late Show with David Letterman. Vogt-Roberts’ résumé includes several shorts and a lot of TV series work, the latter suggesting the hilariously snarky mind set on ample display in this film.

Having more or less completed their new home away from home, our three young
renegades — from left, Joe (Nick Robinson), Patrick (Gabriel Basso) and Biaggio (Moises
Arias) — contemplate the next challenge: putting food on the table. That'll prove far
more difficult than anticipated, since they've no experience with traps, lures, bare-handed
fishing or any other woodsian skills.

Actually, calling this picture “impressive” isn’t nearly strong enough. It’s a sure-fire audience pleaser: one of those so-called “little films” — like Little Miss Sunshine or Juno — guaranteed to take off like a rocket, once word gets out. This year’s enthusiastic Sundance Festival audience certainly thought so, granting a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize (not won, alas).

As a collaborative team, Vogt-Roberts and Galletta demonstrate a striking degree of creative synch; the latter’s dialogue sounds just right coming from the naturalistic ensemble cast, granting a level of verisimilitude that makes these characters feel like the folks next door.

Allowing, that is, for a left-of-center gaggle of eccentrics commonly found in films by Wes Anderson or the Coen Brothers. But I mean that in the gentlest way: However funny the lines, however warped some of the emotional behavior by sidebar adults, this is — first and foremost — an intimate coming-of-age saga.

In the truest sense of the old cliché, we laugh with our young protagonists, not at them.

The contemporary setting is a smallish town in Northeast Ohio, the sort of all-American community that typifies such narratives. Best friends Joe (Nick Robinson) and Patrick (Gabriel Basso) are strongly bonded, in part, by their inability to cope with utterly impossible parents.

Joe’s father, Frank (Nick Offerman), hasn’t yet recovered from his wife’s untimely death, years earlier. He has become bitter, condescending and imperious: a combination that doesn’t blend well with a teenage son’s instinctive rebelliousness. Joe’s favorite method of revenge, when sufficiently annoyed, is to summon the local law — personified by the competent Capt. Davis (Mary Lynn Rajskub) and her absolutely useless rookie companion (Thomas Middleditch) — on some trumped-up accusation.

Frank responds to such hijinks the way he deals with everybody: angry sarcasm delivered by Offerman with a relentlessly straight face ... which, of course, makes every bile-fueled line that much funnier. (And they’re pretty funny to begin with.)

Joe’s older sister, Heather (Alison Brie), fled the tension-laced home awhile back, although she still visits. That speaks well of the young woman; her choice of male companions, however, does not. Colin (Eugene Cordero) is a misfit who’s as oblivious to social cues, as he is to the fact that Frank constantly winds him up.

In this case, we can hardly blame Frank; Colin’s much too easy a target. Which Heather is aware of, and Brie’s face is an amusing study in conflict: clearly annoyed by her loutish father, but equally embarrassed by her clueless boyfriend.