"Shrek Ever After"
Richard's Review: 3 1/2 stars
Once upon a time, in 2001, a green ogre named Shrek lumbered on to screens, bringing with him a different kind of animated story.
The original "Shrek" was a fairy tale that mixed family friendly characters with a edgy sense of humor -- like a Gingerbread Man tortured with a milk dunking. It was a monumental hit, so it wasn't long before "Shrek 2" and "Shrek the Third" came along, each time with diminishing results.
Luckily, the new "Shrek Ever After," the fourth and final installment takes us off into that fairy tale happily-ever-after on a high note. The 3D "Shrek Ever After" sees the giant green ogre (voiced by Mike Myers) in the midst of a mid-life crisis.
He's feeling bogged down by the responsibilities of marriage to Fiona (Cameron Diaz), raising his three kids and trapped by his newfound celebrity as the friendliest ogre on the block. "I used to be an ogre," he says, "but now I'm a jolly green joke."
Longing for the days when life was simple he strikes a deal with an evil magician (voiced in an apparent tribute to Pee Wee Herman by story editor Walt Dohrn. In exchange for one day of freedom he will give the magician one day from his life.
In a prime example of "be careful what you wish for because you just might get it" the unsuspecting Shrek signs the deal and begins a nightmarish "It's a Wonderful Life" journey into a world completely different than any he could have imagined.
Only the kiss of his true love -- Fiona -- can break the spell, but does she love him anymore? Call this "Shrek the Metaphysical" if you like, one thing is for sure, it is darker than the preceding "Shreks"—although dark is still a relative term in the world of kid's entertainment.
The "you don't know what you've got till it's gone" message isn't much different from anything you'd see in a regular children's flick, but the journey to get there is. In its opening moments this grim fairy features a tour-de-force sequence illustrating how snowed under Shrek feels by his new responsibilities.
It's a scene that will likely seem familiar to some of the parents in the audience, what follows -- the well worn puns both vocal and visual, classic rock music cues and pop culture references -- will seem familiar to anyone else who's seen "Shrek" one through three. Even the bodily function jokes make an appearance -- Shrek is described as "a lovable lug who showed that you don't have to change your undies to change the world" -- but instead of the been there, done that feel of "Shrek the Third" the new film weaves the familiar elements together into something resembling a large helping of comfort food.
It doesn't have the sparkling freshness of the first installment, but it has heart, some good jokes for both kids and adults and is a fitting send off to the series.
"MacGruber"
Richard's Review: 2 1/2 stars
There are one-joke movies and then there are the SNL skit movies like "It's Pat" that stretch a thin premise out to ninety minutes. And then there is "MacGruber," a spy spoof starring Will Forte as a secret agent ready to save the world with only a couple of celery stalks, some dental floss and a tennis ball.
Similarities to "MacGyver" are intentional, but only the tip of this all-80s parody. As the movie begins MacGruber has been in retirement for 10 years since the murder of his bride (Maya Rudolph) on their wedding day. He is pulled back into the fray when it appears that his arch enemy -- Val Kilmer playing a bad guy whose name cannot be repeated here for fear of having to wash my mouth out with soap afterward -- may have gotten his hands on a nuclear warhead.
Using their wits (and the above mentioned celery stalks) MacGruber, along with his Blaupunkt car radio, a cherry red Miata and cohorts Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig) and Lt. Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe) must stop him before the State of the Union address.
Like the television character it is loosely based on, "MacGruber," (the movie, not the man) aims to use odds and ends to cobble together a weapon capable of slaying the SNL skit movie curse. It's not entirely successful, but as a parody of 1980s action films -- and the fashions of the 1980s, the cheesy soundtracks of the 1980s and that decade's cavalier attitude toward movie violence -- it has its moments just not enough of them.
First the good stuff. The casting of Powers "Red Dawn" Boothe as a tough talking army colonel is inspired, as is the prerequisite "getting-the-team-together montage. Also great is the dialogue, the kind that used to roll off the tongue of sweaty action stars like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren. "He can be quite a fly in the ointment," says MacGruber, "so let's get a couple of fly swatters."
Those lines, played straight as an arrow, and coupled with some crazy non sequiturs provide many of the film's laughs and there are many laughs, until the movie starts to rely a bit too heavily on bathroom jokes. This movie is more consumed by bums (and their contents) than a diaper designer.
Imagine if JCVD told poo poo jokes in "Double Impact" and you get the idea. Up until the introduction of celery stalks to a place where the sun doesn't usually shine, the movie is a silly homage to the excess of 1980s b action movies, afterwards it's an only occasionally funny homage to the excesses of modern sketch comedy -- awkward pauses, pushing the joke past its breaking point and juvenile characters.
Forte is 100 per cent committed to the role of the inept MacGruber, but his cocky, but insane take on the character gets tired after the first half hour. Wiig fares better. It seems she is incapable of not being funny even when the material isn't up to snuff. Val Kilmer, who is looking more like mid career John Travolta all the time, hams it up, but doesn't have the same comic verve he did in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," but then, he had a much better script to work with that time out.
"MacGruber" has some laugh-out-loud moments, just not enough of them. It seems it would take more skill than Mcgyver to rescue this movie.
"Harry Brown"
3 1/2 stars
Harry Brown is a common name, like John Smith or Greg Jones. It's the kind of name that doesn't draw attention to itself, but in the hands of Michael Caine, who plays the lead character in the revenge thriller "Harry Brown," the name, the character and the movie become memorable. "Harry Brown" is a gritty "Gran Torino" with British accents and a dash of "Death Wish." Caine plays Brown as High Noon's Gary Cooper, but instead of being set on the wide open plain, the action in this Teabag Western takes place in the urban terrain of the Elephant and Castle section of London.
Caine plays a widowed man who strikes back after a gang of feral yobs kill his best mate and confidant Len (David Bradley). D.I. Alice Frampton, (Emily Mortimer), a persistent but ineffectual detective with the thankless job of policing the council estate, suspects Harry is a part time vigilante but can't prove it, and even if she could her partner is ambivalent to the pensioner's gun slinging ways. "As far as I'm concerned, Harry Brown is doing us a favor," says D.S. Terry Hicock (Charlie Creed-Miles).
"Harry Brown" is a lurid picture of a crime ridden society. Its bleak worldview effectively illustrates the flip side of the Swingin' London Caine came to personify in the 1960s. It's a dark and menacing world where Len admits, "I'm scared all the time, Harry." But all the atmosphere in the world wouldn't be worth a hill of bangers and mash if you didn't believe that an 80 year old man with an inhaler could effectively turn vigilante, take the law into his own hands and go all Dirty Harry on kids a fraction his age.
In a film ripe with nice performances -- Mortimer is marvelous and Jack O'Connell is frightening as a young thug -- Michael Caine shines, giving us a well rounded portrait of a man who is a trained killer -- he was a marine -- with a "certain set of skills" and as a defeated old man who has seen too much death and strife in his life.
He's at his best when he plays the extremes -- the heartbroken pensioner on one hand; the lethal killer who tosses off Tarantino-esque one liners like, "You failed to maintain your weapon, Son," to a drug dealer whose gun jammed at the wrong moment, on the other -- and it is his performance that humanizes the film's often passionate pontificating on "Broken Britain."
