Mufasa, The Lion King: Roars with energy

Mufasa: The Lion King (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, and rather generously, despite considerable violence, peril and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.22.24 

This film’s look is nothing short of spectacular; the blend of animation, photo-real CGI and cinematographer James Laxton’s live-action contribution is amazing. All the animals, as well, look and move with impressive authenticity.

 

You’ll wonder, repeatedly, where actual African vistas surrender to CGI make-believe.

Ideally, though; you shouldn’t spend much time wondering, thanks to Jeff Nathanson’s riveting screenplay. He includes everything: family bonding, friendship, love, betrayal and often brutal Shakespearean drama. Indeed, this film’s PG rating seems generous, given the level of violence and nature’s harshness.

 

The often varied African landscape can be unforgiving.

 

Mufasa opens as Simba and his mate, Nala (Donald Glover and Beyoncé, returning to their roles from 2019’s The Lion King), temporarily leave their young daughter, Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter), in the care of the wise mandrill shaman, Rafiki (John Kani). The cub is frightened by a ferocious thunderstorm, so Rafiki calms her with the saga of her grandfather, Mufasa, who rose from humble origins to become the beloved king of the savannah.

 

This story frequently is interrupted by the antics of wisecracking meerkat Timon (Billy Eichner) and gassy warthog Pumba (Seth Rogen), who attempt to interject their trademark slapstick ... along with repeated attempts to sing “Hakuna Matata.”

 

(Children will find their antics hilarious. In point of fact, they quickly become distracting, even annoying.)

 

The core tale thus unfolds via a lengthy flashback. It opens under grim conditions, as young Mufasa and his parents, Masego (Keith David) and Afia (Anika Noni Rose), join other desperate animals in a search for water during a lengthy drought. Masego celebrates his son’s speed and adventurous spirit; Afia regales him with stories of Milele (“forever”), a cherished savannah “beyond the last cloud in the sky.”

 

A sudden monsoon rainstorm initially seems like salvation, but the resulting flash flood separates Mufasa from his parents; the helpless cub is washed many, many miles downstream.

 

Exhausted when the current finally recedes, barely able to keep his head above water, Mufasa escapes becoming an alligator’s dinner thanks to the timely intervention of Taka (Theo Somolu), a kind-hearted cub from a nearby pride. Alas, this generous act violates the pride’s rule that forbids outsiders, strictly enforced by Taka’s father, Obasi (Lennie James). His more forgiving mate, Eshe (Thandiwe Newton), perceives Mufasa as a lion capable of enhanced senses. Mufasa is allowed to remain.

Dumb Money: Smart movie

Dumb Money (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for drug use, vulgar sexual references and relentless profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.29.23

I haven’t had this much fun with economics and Wall Street misbehavior since The Big Short, which this film resembles on several levels: mostly because both fact-based sagas concern Wall Street corporate heads with more money than humanity, who don’t give a damn how their actions affect “reg’lar folks” like me and thee.

 

When Keith (Paul Dano) worries that his precarious investment choices might obliterate
their hard-earned savings, his wife Caroline (Shailene Woodley) — trusting him
implicitly — insists that he should go for it.

And while director Craig Gillespie’s rollicking ensemble piece isn’t quite as sheer-genius captivating as its 2015 companion-in-outrage, it takes an equally audacious swipe at the dark side of capitalism.

More crucially, this is a David vs. Goliath story where the little guys actually come out on top. To a degree. (Some of them.)

 

The villains here are the hedge-fund bastards notorious for swooping in to buy an ailing company — or franchise — for the express purpose of gutting its remaining assets and then departing, leaving bankruptcy and thousands of lost jobs and pensions. They’re also infamous for “shorting” a company’s stock: a skeevy purchasing maneuver that bets said company will do worse in the future than it’s doing currently.

 

(I can think of no better reason to revive public stockades.)

 

Gillespie’s film is adapted from Ben Mezrich’s best-selling The Antisocial Network, his thoroughly researched account of the now-infamous GameStop stock debacle. The sharp, sassy script is by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, both former financial reporters for the Wall Street Journal.

 

(Mezrich has a flair for this sort of ripped-from-financial-headlines material; his previous books include Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, which hit movie screens as 2008’s 21; and The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal, which became 2010’s The Social Network. His next book, due in November, is Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History. Can’t wait.)

 

The GameStop chronicle — yes, the mall-based retail stores that sold new and used computer games and equipment — represented one of life’s occasionally wild perfect storms. It likely never would have happened without the convergence of Covid lockdowns, savvy social media users, and a still-festering, street-level desire to somehow get back at those responsible for the 2008 financial meltdown.

 

The unlikely underdog is geeky, mild-mannered Keith Gill — marvelously played, with aw-shucks sincerity, by Paul Dano — an amateur stock analyst and dedicated social media user introduced here in January 2021, as he posts details of his investment activities from the basement of his home in Brockton, Mass. The basement may be a humble setting, but his multiple cameras, computers and screens produce impressively professional visuals.

 

Keith’s YouTube and Twitter handle: Roaring Kitty. (His Reddit username, DFV, is abbreviated from a nom-de-Internetthat cannot be printed in a family-friendly blog.)

The Fabelmans: Spielberg bares his soul

The Fabelmans (2022) • View trailer

4.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, occasional mild profanity, brief violence and fleeting drug use

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Most films never attempt the breathtaking impact of a truly transformative moment; a lucky few manage one, perhaps two.

 

This film has many.

 

The magic, transformational moment: As his parents (Paul Dano and Michelle Williams)
watch, young Sammy (Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord) is blown away by his first
big-screen movie experience.

Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical ode to the relentless drive of artistic passion is gorgeously lensed throughout by cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, who won Academy Awards while working with Spielberg on Schindler’s Listand Saving Private Ryan. This affectionate big-screen love letter isn’t merely laden with a sense of wonder; it’s about that sense of wonder, which can render those so afflicted helpless in its grip.

Along the way, this quietly compelling story — co-written by Spielberg and Tony Kushner (Angels in America) — is a moving coming-of-age saga: poignant, whimsical, occasionally laugh-out-loud hilarious, and (aren’t they always?) heartbreaking. It’s also a classic American narrative about heading west to find new fortune and freedom.

 

As for Spielberg’s insistence that it’s merely semi-autobiographical … well, it’s actually far more accurate than most big-screen films claiming to be wholly biographical.

 

Events begin in snowy, stormy New Jersey in 1952. Young Sammy Fabelman (Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord) is about to be taken to his first movie by parents Burt (Paul Dano) and Mitzi (Michelle Williams). The boy is frightened by the notion of confronting “giant people” — a concern no doubt influenced by anticipatory descriptions from his excessively technical father (about whom, more in a moment) — but his mother assures him the experience will be magical.

 

The film in question is The Greatest Show on Earth, and we eavesdrop as the boy’s eyes go wide during the climactic train wreck (which is a stunning sequence even today, and must’ve blown the minds of patrons at the time).

 

It’s Christmastime, and Burt makes a weak joke about having trouble finding their house, as they return home after the movie. “It’s the dark one,” Sammy grouses, disappointed by their lack of holiday lights.

 

He also has been dithering about what he wants for Hanukkah, but inspiration suddenly strikes. Over the course of the celebration’s eight days — in a charming montage — he receives the individual cars, transformer and locomotive of a Lionel train set.

The Lion King: More of a whimper than a roar

The Lion King (2019) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

It’s difficult to view this film as anything but a cynical cash grab.

Cruelly tricked into believing that he has committed an unspeakable act, the forlorn
lion cub Simba's spirits are lifted when he unexpectedly befriends a warthog (Pumbaa)
and a meerkat (Timon).

Disney has been cannibalizing its legacy of late, and the results are increasingly deplorable. Bad enough that we had to endure (mostly) live-action remakes of Dumbo and Aladdin earlier this year; at least they’re populated mostly by human characters who could be given fresh interpretations by flesh-and-blood actors (as will be the case with a live-action Mulan, arriving next year).

But The Lion King is different: nothing more than “trading up” an entirely non-human cast from (more or less) traditional animation to CGI. To what end? Animation is animation. The opulent, Tony Award-winning Broadway production was highlighted by Julie Taymor’s costume design and inventive direction, Richard Hudson’s scenic design, and Garth Fagan’s choreography … none of which translates to this animated retread.

And, as was the case with Aladdin, this Lion King has been expanded from the 1994 original’s just-right 88 minutes, to a bloated and often insufferable 118 minutes. That additional half-hour adds nothing to the story, aside from granting director Jon Favreau more space for portentously long takes apparently intended to amplify the drama.

In fact, such lengthy pauses make the film seem like more of a drag.

In fairness, the animation is stunning:  a collaborative effort by visual effects supervisor Rob Legato, animation supervisor Andrew R. Jones, and MPC Film VFX supervisors Adam Valdez and Elliot Newman. It’s not merely a pride of lions looking and moving in a lifelike manner; this story has a massive cast of four-legged and winged characters, not to mention sidebar insects, reptiles and all manner of other critters.

The verisimilitude is breathtaking … and that’s part of the problem. Because it frankly looks weird when these creatures break into song. The talking is disorienting enough, but at least that’s subtle; watching the mouths of a lifelike lion, warthog and meerkat wrap their lips around the lyrics of “Hakuna Matata” utterly destroys the illusion.

Long Shot: Genuinely unlikely

Long Shot (2019) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for strong sexual content, drug use and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.3.19

An engaging premise — with some shrewd topical jabs at our real-world political dysfunction — beats within the heart of this fitfully entertaining romantic comedy.

As proximity encourages increasingly intimate contact, Fred (Seth Rogen) finds his
childhood dream coming true, as Charlotte (Charlize Theron) begins to share his
romantic feelings.

Too bad the charm is so frequently buried beneath vulgarity, relentless profanity and jaw-droppingly lunatic bursts of physical slapstick.

It’s a shame, because — absent such wretched excess — scripters Liz Hannah and Dan Sterling could’ve had a keenly observed little parable. 

Instead, in the hands of apathetic director Jonathan Levine — who most recently gave us 2017’s Amy Schumer/Goldie Hawn train wreck, Snatched — we have yet another failure that tries to satisfy wildly divergent target audiences, and succeeds at neither.

Not that it’s entirely Levine’s fault. Plenty of blame also falls on his frequent acting collaborator, the forever unrestrained Seth Rogen, who rarely misses the opportunity to ruin a scene with his own inimitable brand of overkill. This overly protracted 125-minute disappointment could be a much more manageable 100 minutes, if Levine and editors Melissa Bretherton and Evan Henke were more disciplined about not holding the camera, while Rogen mugs and mumbles interminably.

He simply isn’t as funny as he believes.

Nor does he possess one-tenth of the sharp, savvy comic timing of co-star O’Shea Jackson Jr., who rocks every one of his (lamentably) too few scenes.

Rogen stars as Fred Flarsky, a hot-headed, otherwise talented journalist who frequently sabotages his own sharp commentary by succumbing to a strident tone and raging, ultra-left-wing sensibilities that leave no room for negotiation. He’s his own worst enemy; when his beloved alternative newspaper is absorbed into a conglomerate run by international media mogul Parker Wembley (Andy Serkis), Fred quits in a huff, rather than allow himself to be laid off by a sympathetic editor, thereby retaining unemployment benefits.

Any resemblance between Wembley and Rupert Murdoch is purely intentional. But as is typical of their feeble script, Hannah and Sterling don’t give Serkis enough material with which to make this under-written parody really sizzle. Apparently, we’re supposed to be sufficiently impressed by the make-up work. (Not hardly.)

Kung Fu Panda 3: Still kicking up lots of fun

Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, and needlessly, for mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang

For a franchise that began with a one-joke premise — a roly-poly panda, as a kung fu master? — this series has shown remarkable resilience.

Once Po, left, meets his equally mischievous biological father, the two pandas embark on
a spirited "play date" that almost destroys the venerable jade palace.

Considerable credit obviously goes to scripters Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, who’ve been on board since 2008’s first film. They’ve nailed just the right blend of goofy physical comedy and witty dialog (gotta keep the adults entertained!) while including a virtuous moral or two.

The voice talent also is first-rate, starting with the always amusing Jack Black, as the frequently flustered title character; ample assistance comes from supporting players performed by Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen and particularly James Hong. They and others have remained involved from the beginning, and such continuity definitely helps the franchise.

Mostly, though, these films are fun, in the silly, good-natured manner that also has kept the Ice Age series running strong for so long.

As Kung Fu Panda 3 opens, our hero Po’s beloved teacher, Shifu (Hoffman), decides to step down as the local kung fu master. On his way out, Shifu assigns Po the next challenge in his evolution as the local Dragon Warrior: to become the instructor of his warrior colleagues, the Furious Five: Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Monkey (Chan), Mantis (Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Crane (David Cross).

The first training session ... leaves much to be desired.

Recriminations and self-doubt are cut short, however, by the arrival of an unexpected visitor: another dumpling-devouring panda, named Li (Bryan Cranston), who bears a striking resemblance to Po ... and claims to be our hero’s actual father. This doesn’t sit well with Mr. Ping (Hong), the goose who runs the village noodle shop and has been Po’s adoptive father, lo these many years.

Steve Jobs: A tarnished Apple

Steve Jobs (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for profanity and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.23.15

The ensemble cast is strong, impeccably directed and well-suited to each role.

The dialog is rat-a-tat enthralling: classic Aaron Sorkin arguments and badinage, with verbal zingers and snarky rejoinders landing like physical blows, recipients wincing in pain or retreating behind wary glances. It’s the stuff that made The Social Network and TV’s West Wing and The Newsroom so spellbinding: the intelligent, sharp-edged and fast-paced discourse that we’re neither clever enough, nor quick-witted enough, to deliver in real life.

Struggling to find some way to connect with the young daughter whose paternity he denies,
Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender) encourages Lisa (Makenzie Moss) to play with a
spanking-new Macintosh computer. "You can't break it," he promises.

It feels more like an intimate, minimalist stage play, and in fact Sorkin has structured it that way, with three distinct acts. I was reminded, more than once, of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, made into a similarly mesmerizing 1992 film.

But those characters were fictitious, if familiar archetypes that we’d likely find in the rapacious atmosphere of a high-end, nail-the-deal-no-matter-what real estate office.

Steve Jobs, in contrast, profiles the actual Apple guru, with ample attention paid to the close advisors circling his incandescent star. (He doesn’t appear to have any actual friends.)

And not once, not for a second, did I feel that Sorkin and director Danny Boyle had come anywhere close to capturing the actual Steve Jobs. This relentlessly distracting fact ruins the entire film. Although clearly a sort of “truthiness” — the script is adapted from Walter Isaacson’s thoroughly researched biography of Jobs — this drama seems to exist in a parallel universe where Sorkin has indulged in his own myth-making.

Goodness knows, Jobs was highly skilled at crafting and stage-managing the persona he displayed in public. And, in the interest of full disclosure, Sorkin has described this film as an “impressionistic portrait” of Jobs: an abstraction concocted to surround the Apple guru with the same six characters, at three crucial points in his career, and let them “bang on each other.”

A “heightened version of real life,” Boyle adds, in the press notes.

Balderdash. Those quotes sound like a defensive excuse: an effort to get ahead of the negative publicity destined to emerge — and it definitely has — after Jobs’ actual associates begin to complain, quite noisily, that Sorkin’s so-called portrait is pure hooey.

The degree to which this does or doesn’t prove off-putting will depend on each viewer’s allegiance to truth, and/or a sense of the real-world Jobs. Taken purely on its own merits, Boyle and Sorkin’s film deserves all the descriptive accolades cited in my opening paragraphs; it is riveting.

But even if we give Boyle and Sorkin the benefit of that particular doubt, we cannot escape one glaringly obvious problem: The Steve Jobs depicted here is a relentless, abusive, unapologetic bully. Michael Fassbender’s nuanced performance notwithstanding, there’s no trace of the persuasive, charismatic futurist who inspired and demanded greatness from his associates and staff.

This big-screen Jobs is just a cruel bastard. He couldn’t inspire anybody to change a light bulb, let alone deliver the miracles that routinely emerged from Apple. And all viewers, even clueless tech luddites, will understand the utter wrongness of this dynamic.

That said, one cannot argue with Sorkin’s clever narrative structure.

This Is the End: Out with a whimper

This Is the End (2013) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rating: R, and quite generously, for pervasive profanity and drug use, violence, gore, relentless crude and sexual content, and impressively graphic nudity (not all of it human)
By Derrick Bang

The devoutly religious are certain to disagree, but this tiresome vanity production is too stupid to be blasphemous.

After Emma Watson re-thinks her ill-advised decision to place her safety in the hands of
half a dozen self-centered horn dogs, she mounts an escape with the help of a handy
axe. Unfortunately, this may be a classic case of leaping from the frying pan and
directly into the fire...

It’s relentlessly vulgar, however, in the arrested adolescent manner that we’ve come to expect when Seth Rogen, James Franco and their homies assemble for “something fun.” In this case, the “fun” comes from playing themselves — no stretch there, since most have been doing that all along — and behaving badly when God proves that the Book of Revelations wasn’t mere biblical filler.

Like so many of today’s limp-noodle, man-boy comedies, This Is the End stretches a mildly amusing concept far beyond the average viewer’s patience. Actually, we know this to be true, since this film is “expanded” from a 9-minute 2007 short titled Jay and Seth Versus the Apocalypse. Honestly, beefing up the cast and adding another 98 minutes (!) did nothing to improve the material.

Although Rogen and Evan Goldberg uncork an impressively apocalyptic third act — they collaboratively wrote and directed this case study in wasted celluloid — one must wade through nearly an hour of tedious, contrived and self-indulgent “banter” in order to get there.

Riffing the stoner culture may have been novel and slightly daring when Cheech & Chong made Up in Smoke way back in 1978, but I’d like to think film comedy has progressed a bit since then. Rogen and Goldberg apparently didn’t get that message, since they clearly believe that merely showing a baggie of weed is enough to prompt a belly laugh.

By the same toke(n), it’s time to declare a moratorium on the faux homoeroticism that seems to pass for “cool” among some of today’s Hollywood types. When Rogen and his fellow “reality stars” aren’t chortling over how blasted they’ve gotten, they trade barbed comments apparently intended to demonstrate their hip, quasi-gayness, while nonetheless retreating to safer hetero territory whenever the tone threatens to become emasculating.

“Safer territory,” in turn, emerges in strained one-liners that make sport of bodily functions: the sort of lowest-common-denominator crudeness that once remained the province of little boys trading bad words behind the woodshed, but now has become something of a badge of pride among today’s lazy comedy writers. It’s apparently shorthand for rugged manhood.

This overworked 21st century cliché hits low ebb here during an ejaculation exchange — merely verbal, I’m happy to report — between James Franco and Danny McBride, which goes on and on and on and on. Constant Companion and I exchanged glances, and the unspoken message was obvious: Seriously? This is what film comedy has descended to?

50/50: Beats the odds

50/50 (2011) • View trailer for 50/50
Four stars. Rating: R, for profanity, drug use, sexual candor and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.30.11


Flip a coin. Heads, you live; tails, you die.

Shuffle a deck of cards — remove the jokers first — and deal the top card onto the table. Red, you live; black, you die.

Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is mildly uneasy when he learns that his
therapist is three years younger than he is. His uncertainty increases further when
he discovers that the inexperienced Katherine (Anna Kendrick) has had only
two previous patients.

We all exist under the shadow of survival odds; it’s how insurance companies stay in business. Most of us, though, are blessed by never knowing how good or bad our odds have become, from one moment — day, week, month — to the next.

Those receiving unexpected news regarding a deadly disease aren’t that lucky. In a heartbeat, they enter a world of statistics and percentages. Life becomes ... challenged.

Director Jonathan Levine’s 50/50 is a thoughtful, frequently funny and unexpectedly sensitive movie about a young man’s response to cancer. Will Reiser’s script is sharp, acutely perceptive and — regardless of outcome — richly life-affirming. The result is another impressive tightrope act of tone and balance: the second such film I’ve seen in the past week.

And, as with director Mona Achache’s handling of The Hedgehog, Levine’s approach to 50/50 is every bit as skilled. Frankly, I’m impressed; after a weak start with the forgettable horror flick All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, Levine has fulfilled the promise he demonstrated with his far better — albeit unjustly ignored — sophomore effort, The Wackness.

Granted, 50/50 isn’t without flaws. A little bit of Seth Rogen goes a very long way, and at times he threatens to hijack the film. But Levine clearly perceives the fine line of Too Much, and he rarely lets Rogen step over it. Not an easy task, when dealing with such a comedic force of nature.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, an increasingly accomplished actor of the “quiet” school, stars as Adam, a 27-year-old guy living an unremarkable, unthreatening “B-minus” life, in producer Ben Karlin’s words. Adam wouldn’t view it that way, but he’s definitely the mildly withdrawn and “safe” counterpoint to his wild ’n’ crazy best friend, Kyle (Rogen).

The guys live in Seattle (the film actually was shot in Vancouver, B.C.) and work at the local National Public Radio station, where Adam has been editing a feature on volcanoes long past the point of perfection. Adam takes pride in his craft; Kyle can’t understand why he’d bother with a piece that people will hear while driving to work, and then immediately forget. And thus Adam and Kyle’s contrasting personalities are established.

The Green Hornet: Not much sting

The Green Hornet (2011) • View trailer for The Green Hornet
Three stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for violent action, profanity, brief sensuality and fleeting drug content
By Derrick Bang


As also is true of Will Ferrell, a little bit of Seth Rogen goes a long way.

A very long way.

As a result, one’s ability to enjoy – or even tolerate – this crazed, quasi-satirical update of The Green Hornet will depend on a willingness to endure Rogen’s signature role, which never changes from one film to another: the amiable arrested adolescent with delusions of grandeur.

Having unwisely allowed their villainous adversary to trap them, the Green
Hornet (Seth Rogen, right) and Kato (Jay Chou) scramble to avoid being
crushed by several cement mixers, in one of this film's chaotic and often
unusual action scenes.

Suffice it to say, Rogen’s shadow looms quite large over this project. No surprise there, since he co-wrote the script (with Evan Goldberg) and took an executive producer credit, aside from making sure director Michel Gondry employed plenty of tight close-ups on his grinning, college-frat-boy mug.

Gondry’s involvement also raised numerous eyebrows, when this project was announced awhile back. The eclectic French director who brought us Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep has a surrealistic, dream-state approach to storytelling that seems at odds with the goofy atmosphere Rogen maintains during most of this film’s overlong (119 minutes) running time. Indeed, Gondry’s presence seems wasted: a “name” director brought in merely for his cult-film cred, rather than compatibility with the sort of mood Rogen clearly desired.

That said, Gondry gets to display his bizarre side a few times, during reality-heightened flashbacks when Rogen’s character struggles to employ the brain cells with which God endowed him at birth. (This effort at deep thinking generally is played for laughs, since an original idea would perish of loneliness in this man-child’s head.)

This poke at The Green Hornet joins last year’s Kick Ass and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World in what could be termed the nerd wish-fulfillment response to conventional superhero roles: the rise of the geek action star. Despite a lack of physical stature, dietary habits that blend alcohol with processed snack foods, and a pathological aversion to working out, somehow these habitually picked-upon social misfits can don a costume (of sorts) and effortlessly deck muscle-bound goons while collecting little more than bruises in return.

Nice thought.

Funny People: Far from amusing

Funny People (2009) • View trailer for Funny People
1.5 stars (out of five). Rating: R, for nudity, sexual candor and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.31.09
Buy DVD: Funny People• Buy Blu-Ray: Funny People (2-Disc Unrated Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray]

Wow ... what a tedious, self-indulgent mess.

Filmmakers who decide to become "meaningful" must be regarded with eyebrow-raised skepticism, because it's a sure sign that somebody is taking himself much too seriously. The situation inevitably occurs because the artist in question — often a director — has made buckets of money in the recent past, and therefore has the clout to be green-lighted for what amounts to an insufferable vanity project.

When Clarke (Eric Bana, far right) returns home early from a business trip, his
wife, Laura (Leslie Mann), stumbles to find a reasonable explanation to justify
the presence of long-ago lover George (Adam Sandler, left) and tag-along Ira
(Seth Rogen) in their home. Because Clarke is such an idiot -- a failing that
afflicts every character in this film -- it's not that hard a sell.

Which, in a world where poetic irony rules, flops.

Think back to Steven Spielberg, who stumbled big time with 1941, after having been such a media darling with Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Recall James Cameron, parlaying his two Terminator films into the mooningly melodramatic The Abyss. Or Barry Levinson, following Rain Man and Bugsy with the jaw-droppingly dreadful Toys.

Judd Apatow's shtick always has skirted the ragged edge of cruelty, and Funny People is distastefully mean-spirited. This is a sordid little tale of morally compromised troglodytes who are intended, in Apatow's imagination, to be sympathetic protagonists in his interminable, clumsily written narrative.

They are not sympathetic. They do not deserve happiness or anything else that might be construed as a "reward." As a group, they begin this film with the ethics of snake-oil salesmen, and their bad behavior remains consistent until a thoroughly unpersuasive epilogue.

They do not learn; they do not respect even their so-called best friends; they lack sense — common, good or any other kind — and carry on like spoiled children.

All of them. All the time.

Normally, such misanthropic behavior would be held up for low comedy, as was the case with Apatow's The 40-Year-Old Virgin or Knocked Up, both of which blended hilariously coarse dialogue with a sweet romantic underbelly. We tolerated and laughed at the former because the latter was a satisfying payoff: Steve Carell genuinely fell in love, Katherine Heigl did right by her unborn child.

Funny People, in great contrast, overflows with so much contrived melancholy and faux poignance that it becomes the sort of purple melodrama that Tom Servo and the 'bots from Mystery Science Theater 3000 would have roasted with glee.

Worse yet, this film gives us no satisfaction: nothing to be pleased with, as the lights finally rise after 146 interminable minutes.