Movie Review - The Way Way Back

The Way Way Back (2013)

Starring Liam James, Sam Rockwell, Toni Collette, Steve Carell, AnnaSophia Robb, Allison Janney, Maya Rudolph, Rob Corddry, Amanda Peet, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash

Directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash

Fourteen year-old Duncan (Liam James) isn't too happy to be spending his summer at the New York state beach house of his mom's boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell).  First off, Trent's a bit of a dick who says and does whatever he can to try and motivate the sullen and mopey Duncan to better himself.  Second, Duncan would rather just spend time with his dad than with his mom Pam (Toni Collette).  Nevertheless, his summer plans are set and he's forced to pal around with Trent's buddies Kip and Joan (Rob Corddry and Amanda Peet) and Trent's next door neighbor Betty (Allison Janney), all of whom look to alcohol and pot as a means to relive their youth on a seemingly daily basis.  Betty, however, has a daughter named Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb) who just so happens to be Duncan's age, but the shy Duncan can't seem to fathom why any girl would care to communicate with him.

So, with his summer home life a wreck, Duncan bikes around the beach town and comes across the Water Wizz water park which he sneaks into one day before being caught by the park's owner Owen (Sam Rockwell).  Owen recognizes that Duncan seems to be a bit down on his luck and offers him a job at the water park which ends up being a life-changing, personality-enhancing experience for the teen.

The Way Way Back is a movie that, in retrospect, seems a little unrealistic in terms of its characters.  Everyone's a little too quirky or a little too humorous to be rooted in reality.  However, writer-directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (in their directing debuts) balance the oddness of comedic characters like Owen and Betty with the genuineness of Duncan, Trent, and Pam, creating a film that had me laughing when I was supposed to be laughing and feeling sympathy when I was supposed to be feeling sympathy.  That may seem like it should be a given, but weighing both sides of that coin isn't always an  easy task for directors -- especially first-timers.

Admittedly, the directors get better performances from their actors that fall onto the comedic side of the tale, especially a scene-stealing one from Allison Janney who had me laughing at (I think) every single line she delivered as Betty, the kooky neighbor who rarely is seen without a drink in her hand.  Sam Rockwell is also slick, smooth, and sarcastically dry humored as Owen, a character who ends up bridging both the comedic and dramatic sides of the story quite well.  This isn't to say that Liam James, Steve Carell, and Toni Collette disappoint in any way, but the film's funnier moments worked a bit better than its dramatic ones.

Overall, The Way Way Back isn't revolutionary or particularly inventive, but it's a rather sweet, funny coming-of-age tale that's enjoyable for the whole family to watch together.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Identity Thief

Identity Thief (2013)

Starring Jason Bateman, Melissa McCarthy, Jon Favreau, Amanda Peet, Tip "T.I." Arris, Genesis Rodriguez, Morris Chestnut, John Cho, Robert Patrick, and Eric Stonestreet

Directed by Seth Gordon

Maybe it's because I was bracing myself for something horrid based off reviews, but Identity Thief isn't half bad.  I laughed a few times (not nearly enough, however), but this one seemed to have much vitriol headed its way.  Admittedly, I had grown tired of Melissa McCarthy's supposed shtick -- I loved her in Bridesmaids, but thought she was phoning it in for her bit role in This Is 40 -- and the previews for Identity Thief depicted her as being much of the same old-same old.  However, her role as Diana, a Florida gal who steals peoples' identities, actually was a bit more well-rounded than I expected, stepping beyond the brashness we've come to expect from her movie characters.

Don't mistake this praise for something fantastic, though.  Identity Thief is a comedy with not enough laughs and a subplot that's simply horrid involving two sets of criminals chasing after Diana for payback for wrongdoings she's enacted upon them.  If the film was smart, it would have had the nerve to simply make itself focus on Diana and Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman), the schmuck whom Diana took advantage of by stealing nearly everything he had.  When Sandy is faced with losing his job because of Diana's dirty thievery, he leaves Colorado to track her down in Florida and force her to return to Colorado to tell his boss that he isn't involved in the crimes she's committed.  (He's told by police that they essentially can't do anything which conveniently allows for this set-up to happen.)  On their cross country trek, they bond and become emotionally attached all the while avoiding the bad guys who are trying to hunt down Diana.

I'm sure many critics lambasted the mushiness of the film's final act, but I must admit that I found it welcoming and that it shed a decent light on Ms. McCarthy.  There are moments here that prove she's more than just a raucous buffoon and that she may have more to offer the movie industry than what she's given us prior.  Of course, I say this and can't help but think that The Heat is simply a return to what we've seen from her before...but maybe like Identity Thief the trailers were a poor indication of what was to come.

Jason Bateman is fine here and perfectly watchable, and I really do wish the film had the courage to have simply made this a movie about two people and their interactions with one another.  The extraneous plots of both a bounty hunter (Robert Patrick) and a two criminals sold faulty credit cards (Genesis Rodriguez and T.I.) were horribly underwritten and seemingly shoe-horned into things without any rhyme or reason.  Less is more in comedy and, as I always say, we can thank Judd Apatow  (who I don't think was involved in this at all) for the modern notion that comedies must be as lengthy as possible to have "substance."  Still, while I'm well aware lowered expectations helped this one, Identity Thief wasn't nearly as bad as other critics would have you think.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Please Give

Please Give (2010)

Starring Catherine Keener, Rebecca Hall, Oliver Platt, Anne Guilbert, Sarah Steele, and Amanda Peet

Directed by Nicole Holofcener
***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Honestly, I'm not quite sure of the point that writer-director Nicole Holofcener was trying to impart on the audience in her feature Please Give.  I think that she was trying to say something about either personal connections or feeling guilty about things as we age (very Oprah-esque), but the film never quite got there (or, if it did, I didn't really care).  Shockingly, however, despite the lack of an apparent purpose, Please Give was quite an enjoyable ninety minutes.  Mixed in with both the laugh-out-loud and touching moments that are sprinkled throughout, there are actually some realistic characters onscreen, none of whom I found to be the least bit fake...a rarity in film and what makes this flick rise above what I perceive to be a slight lack of focus.

The film focuses on two families.  Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt) are a married couple with a teenage daughter (Sarah Steele).  They own an antique furniture store and are financially stable.  Emotionally stable?  Not so much...while they're both happy, it's obvious that they're in a rut.  Living right next door to Kate and Alex is Andra (Anne Guilbert), a crotchety ninety-plus year-old lady who is taken care of by her granddaughter Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) with a little bit of assistance from Mary (Amanda Peet), her other granddaughter who's incredibly abrasive and isn't afraid to admit that she's looking forward to her grandmother's death so she can stop wasting time caring for her.  The two families meet up to celebrate Andra's birthday and things begin to unravel a bit.  The nice thing about the unravelling is that Ms. Holofcener never takes things to a point of unbelievability.  The outcomes for each of the six characters above all seem logical.

All of the actors are quite good here and it was lovely to see all six of them really come together and play off of one another at the aforementioned birthday party.  Each character has a unique voice and there's not a bad apple in the bunch.  It's also nice to be able to say that Please Give is truly an ensemble piece with no one stealing anyone else's thunder in scenes.  So, instead of pointing out any particular actors here, I'll simply say that the group as a whole is worth your Netflix streaming time.

Yes, in the end, I think that the writer didn't quite succeed in getting across her thoughts on guilt and love, but Ms. Holofcener almost makes it there and her acting sextet more than makes up for those flaws.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - 2012 (2009)

2012 (2009)

Starring John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, and Woody Harrelson

Directed by Roland Emmerich

Most disaster movies are horrendous.  Characters have one specific attribute or mannerism to distinguish them from the hordes of other characters, none of whom you can even remember their names after the movie is over.  Crowd scenes are set up with the sole purpose of creating mass destruction.  Dialog is silly.

All of that is true in 2012, but for some insane reason, I wasn't the least bit bored watching this.  Yes, I laughed out loud at the ridiculous first ninety minutes when loving father John Cusack (as I mentioned above, character names are irrelevant here) and his family utilize a variety of modes of transportation to narrowly escape exploding volcanoes, huge tremors, and giant clouds of smoke.  Yes, the scene where the President of the United States gets mowed down by an aircraft carrier was inane.  Sure, the scientific technobabble blabbed by geologist Chiwetel Ejiofer was mind-numbingly ludicrous. 

But, this movie is what it is.  It's a disaster movie along the same lines as The Poseidon Adventure and Armageddon, and while no one would call those two films cinematic masterpieces, I'm up for their silly fun every now and again.  (Unfortunately, the special effects in those two aforementioned flicks were much better than what was on display here.  In fact -- and this is a huge detriment to this film -- the fx were really awful.)

Certainly helping 2012 is the fact that I actually enjoyed watching several of the actors (despite their idiotic dialog and the impossible situations they finagle out of).  Cusack, Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, and Thandie Newton all did the very best they could with what they were given.  Certainly, there were some actors -- Oliver Platt and Woody Harrelson -- who chewed up the scenery with their over-the-top antics, but overall, the acting was better than it needed to be.

Is 2012 a good movie?  No.  Will I ever watch it again?  Probably not.  Would I recommend this two-hour-and-forty-minute flick to anyone?  Not a chance.

But I still had a moderately enjoyable time watching it.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Battle for Terra (2009)

Featuring the voice talents of Evan Rachel Wood, Brian Cox, James Garner, Danny Glover, Amanda Peet, David Cross, Dennis Quaid, and Luke Wilson
Directed and Story by Aristomenis Tsirbas
Written by Evan Spiliotopolous

Well...if this is the start of the summer movie season, it can only go up from here.

Created to be seen in 3D, Battle for Terra was screened (in my case) in regular 35mm format. Most theaters across the country chose to show it in this "regular" way since there was zero buzz on this animated flick (deservedly so).

Pixar (and to a moderately lesser extent, Disney, and, to even lesser an extent, Dreamworks) realize that in order to have a successful animated film, you need to appeal to a broad spectrum of people -- kids, teenagers, their parents, their grandparents. Lesser studios (including the company MeniThings which produced this flick) can't seem to pick up on that...or, if they do, they can't quite grasp what needs to be done in order to achieve broad-spectrum appeal. Battle for Terra has no idea who it wants to appeal to -- the story is much too complicated and boring for kids and ridiculously heavy-handed for grown-ups.

Essentially, Earth has been destroyed in some type of power struggle between humans (we destroyed Venus and Mars, as well, both of which we were inhabiting). Desperate for some place to live, we come across Terra whose inhabitants are sperm-like, completely emotionless creatures (at least I felt no emotion towards them) that float around in their world with little airplanes made of leaves and stuff. These Terra things are "peaceful"...us humans love war. Because we love war so much, we utilize it to take whatever we want...at least the humans in the military do. Who will win in the end? The peaceful people of Terra or the awful, awful humans?

The film is an incredibly thinly veiled attempt at pointing out that war is bad, the military is awful, and peace needs to reign supreme. In an ideal world, the latter would happen, but we don't live that way. Instead, in this movie, it is painfully obvious that the white, Anglo-Saxon male is evil (for, you see, us white men are the military fighters). All we want to do is go kill things. Females and African Americans in this film (who partly make up what is essentially a futuristic Congress) are thoroughly opposed to this. In this Obama Age, I would expect nothing less. The movie was essentially "Down with Republicans! Up with Democrats! Go hug each other and throw away your guns!"

Anyone who knows me knows I fall on the conservative side of most issues, but I'm always willing to listen to jokes and poke fun at the party with which I align myself (I'm no Sean Hannity "Republicans Can Do No Wrong" kind of guy). But this movie was so blatantly in my face about its agenda, it was annoying.

Let alone the awful story, the animation was poorly done, and the voice acting was painfully boring. When the best thing about the movie is trying to figure out whose voice you're hearing, you know you're in trouble. On another note about the voicing...granted, there aren't "huge stars" in this, but that list of actors above is full of highly recognizable names. How the heck did this nobody podunk little animation studio sign up all these big names for this ridiculousness that I watched? Oh...I know...Liberal Hollywood must've fallen head over heels for this one...

The RyMickey Rating: F