Movie Times

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Bay Weekly Movie Reviews

Iron Man – Jonathan Parker

Downey is fun to watch, and his smart-alecky lines hit hard in this superhero movie with dramatic heft.

A super-wealthy weapons magnate develops a metal suit that turns him into a superhero in the solid action thriller Iron Man. Director Jon Favreau (Elf; Made) gives us a superhero movie with more dramatic heft than your average lightweight comic-book movie, thanks in no small part to a charismatic Robert Downey Jr. as our hero.

Tony Stark (Downey) is the heir to Stark Enterprises, an enormously lucrative high-tech military weapons company serving the allied world. Stark is both genius and playboy, and his life gets thrown for a loop when he is captured by terrorists while in Afghanistan on a weapons demonstration junket. It’s there, as a terrorist prisoner, that Stark develops the ideas and the technology that will turn him into he of the eponymously named suit. When Stark returns to America, he discovers there is more to his business partner (Jeff Bridges) and his corporate stock than he ever knew. With the aid of Colonel Jim Rhodes (Terrance Howard) and his faithful assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), Stark must stop the ruthless greed that could destroy the world.

As typical of the comic-book-hero genre, this movie joyously walks us through the creation of a superhero. The difficult trick with these superhero movies is the sequel. What’s intriguing here is the fact that Favreau’s film is almost entirely dedicated to the creation of the superhero, with little left at the end for full-on climactic fighting and world saving. Indeed, the name iron man is not evoked until the end. Favreau leans more to drama than action, when given the choice; but there’s plenty of the latter, with the usual blend of explosions on top of explosions.

The film is less traditional in the casting of its leading man. Downey’s cocky realism is so much more than the familiar cardboard cutout that dominates the genre. As a result, he is more fun to watch and his smart-alecky lines hit hard.

Favreau leaves us with a teaser at the end, clearly indicating there is more Iron Man to come — a future last weekend’s box office figures ensures. After seeing this film, everybody will want him.

Good action thriller • PG-13 • 126 mins.

Baby Mama – Jonathan Parker

You could call this an Amy Poehler tour de force, if zany comic actresses can have tour de forces in such light fare.

A 37-year-old single woman wants to have a baby and goes the surrogate mother route in the lightweight but funny comedy Baby Mama. Former Saturday Night Live writer and first-time director Michael McCullers give us a rather ordinary movie spiced up by plenty of zingers from stars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

Kate Holbrook (Fey) is a corporate executive for a national organic grocery store chain. All around her she sees people with babies and realizes her biological clock is ticking — yet she has no man. When it turns out she can’t have her own baby, she decides to hire a surrogate mother through an exclusive surrogacy service. So appears Angie Ostrowiski (Poehler), an uneducated girl from the sticks, who, because the price is right, agrees to carry Kate’s baby. One thing leads to another, with Angie moving in with Kate, and the two of them learning plenty of lessons (ick) from each other.

The film is not quite up to the sharpened standard of usual Tina Fey fare, probably due to the fact that Fey, a former Saturday Night Live head writer, did not write this film. That doesn’t change the fact that Fey is playing what we have now become familiar with as the typical Fey character. Indeed, she might as well be Liz Lemon from TV’s 30 Rock. It also doesn’t prevent Fey and Poehler from improvising scenes and lines. Perhaps director McCullers deserves the most credit for staying out of the way and letting Fey and Poehler do their thing, while keeping the proceedings going at an amiable clip.

Best of all is Poehler. Indeed, you could call this film an Amy Poehler tour de force, if zany comic actresses can have tour de forces in such light fare. Who knew she could milk that redneck character of hers for over 90 minutes? Almost all the best laughs go Poehler’s way, usually with Fey alongside playing her straight woman comedic teammate.

The film features plenty of nifty cameos, including Steve Martin as an egomaniacal hippy corporate head and Sigourney Weaver as a genetically superior-surrogacy entrepreneur. Unfortunately, the plot is ultimately commonplace stuff, and this film winds its way to all of the sappy conclusions we expect But with Poehler and Fey cracking us up along the way, it comes out all right.

Good comedy • PG-13 • 96 mins.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall – Mark Burns

Comedy runs the gamut from tender to lewd in one of the more nuanced and less crass progeny of Freaks and Geeks alumni

Peter (Jason Segel: Knocked Up) is an unremarkable L.A. everydude who’s settled into the gig of scoring episodes for a CSI Miami-like series. The homebody’s also managed to score an improbable long-term relationship with the show’s star, Sarah (Kristen Bell: Veronica Mars). His happy doldrums turn stormy, though, when Sarah sweeps in out of the blue to dump him. Peter vacations to Hawaii to ease his crisis, but he finds himself at the same resort as Sarah and her new squeeze, rocker Aldous Snow (Russell Brand: Penelope). Thus Peter begins a tormented quest to move on, helped along by resort hostess Rachel (Mila Kunis: That ’70s Show), his new crush.

Comedy runs the gamut from tender to lewd. Awkwardly realistic yet exaggerated uncomfortable situations a la The Office represent the former. See Peter as the hypersensitive male, lapsing into doubt, obsession and girlish weep as he tries to adjust. As for the lewd, sexual humor — including a strangely explicit crash-course in lovemaking — it imparts a funny edge. Fun tweaks include a few ridiculous lampoons of pop culture plus one oddly creative late element.

Star Jason Segel follows the lead of fellow Freaks and Geeks alum Seth Rogen in penning his own script here. Freaks auteur Judd Apatow increasingly resembles a comedic Fagin. His creative progeny continue to fan out across the Hollywood scene to spread his aesthetic of explicit humor nuanced with healthy drama and story.

The script is smart. Humor proceeds as ebb and flow, building up to the ridiculous before retreating to subtler fare that gives the drama room to breathe. The two lives of this movie mesh nicely through consistent interplay. As contrast, while Wedding Crashers did both, it loaded all the best fun at the front, then flipped a switch and labored through a heavier finish. Here, transitions are smooth and frequent, and the drama is substantial yet light enough to prevent it from becoming a downer.

Among its filmic cousinry, Forgetting Sarah Marshall seems friendliest for those who’ve thus far shied from Apatow and his ilk. This is one of the more nuanced and less crass of such options to come down the pike. (More surprisingly for its pedigree, there’s no toking.) Plot proves solid, and the story unfolds neatly, if a touch predictably. Flashbacks flesh out the history between Peter and Sarah, and performances benefit from well-developed characters. Surprisingly, heartbreaker Sarah is allowed a dose of humanity rather than relegated to simple villain. Caricature does run a bit thin in Aldous’ dim, libidinous rocker — averaging two-and-a-half dimensions — but the twit proves fun and is even afforded a smarter moment or two.

First-time director Nicholas Stoller does a fine job of capturing the tale, generally evidencing a good sense of comic timing and overall pacing. Certain moments do want for snap, though, and a couple laughs spoiled in previews might lack sufficient additional context to keep them fresh.

Still, such weaknesses are minor strikes. Fans of similar movies will no doubt enjoy, and even doubters may be pleasantly surprised.

Good comedy • R • 112 min.

Smart People – Mark Burns

This dud is summary recycling.

Intellectual heavyweights slog through emotional doldrums in this self-absorbed movie.

Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid: American Dreamz) is a snooty grump of a literature professor, sunk deep into a widower’s miasma. The prof grimaces at the world through a tweedy beard, and his students are hip to the fact that they’re despised. Only a chance encounter with former student Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker: Sex in the City) promises to snap him into an emotional awakening. Alas, his selfish withdrawal keeps love at bay. Doubly alas, his daughter Vanessa (Ellen Page: Juno) proves fiercely protective. But all is not lost, as Lawrence’s slacker brother Chuck (Thomas Haden Church: Spider-Man 3) mooches into their lives and massages the family’s humanity.

The film toys with the notion of book-smart people struggling to emerge from emotionally dense self-fixation. While Lawrence gradually learns not to be a jerk to get the girl, Chuck sets out to corrupt housekeeping teen Vanessa away from remaining a stick-in-the-mud Young Republican. On the dramatic end, Vanessa makes a hypocritical effort to make her dad get over the loss of her mom.

Smart People is unique for its charismatic void. Lawrence is too much of a stereotypical, tortured, annoying bore. Janet’s attraction to him is inexplicable and uninteresting. Vanessa, the most interesting character, is a missed opportunity — though she does deliver the one laugh substantial enough that it can’t be vented as simple exhalation through the nose. Character development is limited to what they reveal about themselves in real time (very little), and they are allowed to evidence very few eccentricities of genius. Instead they are given uppity dialogue that reads like Scripps National Spelling Bee edition Mad Libs. Only with less soul. And the camera returns to shots of the home staircase, each time with a different arrangement of books stacked on the steps. See? They read a lot. They must be smart.

Performances are understated to a fault, though decent given the lack of available character. Either way, newbie director Noam Murro can’t quite bring them together in rhythm. Thin plot doesn’t offer them much chance.

Ultimately, this dud is summary recycling. Retreat into your own sheltered malaise. It’s probably more interesting.

Poor dramedy • R • 95 mins.

Leatherheads – Jonathan Parker

Swell looks and deft football sequences can only take this one so far.

George Clooney stars as an over-the-hill pro football player who thinks he has the answer to rescuing his team — and maybe the game — as they teeter on the edge of bankruptcy in the dull and doltish Leatherheads. Only this film’s stylish look and exciting football action keep it from being a total bomb.

Dodge Connelly (George Clooney) is the rough and resourceful captain of the Duluth Bulldogs, a hardscrabble 1920s’ professional football team playing in front of hundreds of people for only enough money to make it from game to game. When even that money runs out, Dodge decides he needs to recruit college football sensation Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski) to play for the Bulldogs, saving the team and the game of pro football — this in an era when an amateur’s turning pro seemed preposterous. Meanwhile, Chicago Tribune reporter Lexie Littleton (Rene Zellweger) is assigned to write an expose on Carter: Perhaps his past as a war hero is not as on the up and up as the country thinks. Romance blooms between Dodge and Lexie, and a pro football era begins to bloom as well.

Clooney both stars and directs (as he did Good Night and Good Luck; Confessions of a Dangerous Mind). As director, he tries to capture the magic of fast-talking newspaper reporter films like Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday (1940). But what should be homage comes off as satire, and unfunny satire at that. Zellweger gives it all the gumption and conviction of a bad Saturday Night Live skit, falling flat on her face. Indeed, none of the so-called comedy manages to tickle any funny bones. Clooney as director should stick to dramas.

Clooney does deserve credit for capturing the fun action on the field. Sports movies often have the most trouble scoring points with the scenes of play. Clooney captures a realistic in-the-middle-of-the-huddle feel while giving the play an added extra flare that seems appropriate for the loopy times. The handsome 1920s’ look from newsroom to football stadium to speakeasy is also a nice touch.

However, the film’s swell look and deft football sequences can only take it so far, especially because there aren’t that many football scenes. As a one-joke Howard Hawks rip-off, Leatherheads loses us early, and it never wins us back.

Fair comedy • PG-13 • 114 mins.

Run Fat Boy Run – Jonathan Parker

This one’s a marathon of mediocrity.

A down-on-his-luck security guard decides to run a marathon to prove his worth to his ex-fiancée in the run-of-the-mill comedy Run Fat Boy Run. Brit star and co-screenwriter Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) is likeable enough, but the material is tired and unfunny.

Pegg plays Dennis, who we first meet as he was about to wed beautiful and pregnant bride Libby (Thandie Newton). Dennis got cold feet and ran, leaving his bride blushing at the altar. Flash forward to today: Not surprisingly, Dennis has made little of his life toiling away in ignominy as a security guard at a London lingerie shop and barely able to pay the rent on his basement apartment. Meanwhile, Libby is successful and being courted by handsome financial wiz Whit (Hank Azaria). Dennis sees Whit’s courtship as stealing his wife and school-aged son. Whit goads Dennis into doing something he has never done in his life: exercise. Next thing Dennis knows, he has decided to run a marathon to prove himself.

As the movie harmlessly begins, it’s hard not to give it the benefit of the doubt. Pegg seems clever, and Dylan Moran is especially enjoyable as Dennis’s reprobate best friend Gordon. Between the two of them, we want to like this movie; so we sit hopefully along. But nothing interesting — or for the most part funny — ever happens. Our sad sack protagonist is likeable (if not unoriginal), so we cheer for him. Our too-perfect antagonist is a cad, so we boo him. Our female lead is a cardboard cutout with nothing to say or do, so we do nothing in regards to her.

Unlike Pegg’s other efforts, where he has turned the familiar onto its head, this is just familiar after familiar after familiar. Director David Schwimmer (he of Friends cast fame) has to take a lot of the blame. Yes, the material is weak, but it’s the director’s job to recognize that everything going on is flat and not funny. Plus, Schwimmer has this unusual talent of framing his shots so that the tops of people’s heads are cut off.

Still, all is not lost thanks to Pegg and Moran. When they are on the screen together, things seem to work — though they are not on the screen together enough. As for the rest of it, you can assume what happens. Probably better to stay at home assuming than to sit though this marathon of mediocrity.

Fair comedy • PG-13 • 95 mins.

Drillbit Taylor – reviewed by Mark Burns

Much humor is intended, but little comes through in this noodle-armed comedy.

Geeks outsource questionable muscle to take down a bully in this noodle-armed comedy.

Outcast friends Wade (feature film newcomer Nate Hartley) and Ryan (Troy Gentile: The Pick of Destiny) have had a rough time of middle school. As freshmen, they’re determined to redefine themselves. Hope proves fleeting, though, as they immediately find themselves targeted by hell’s own bully. Desperate, they turn to the Internet in search of protection. Instead they find Drillbit (Owen Wilson: The Darjeeling Limited), a bum who sees the well-off kids as just the con he needs to escape the gutter.

This movie strives for freak chic in the vein of Superbad. Awkward, spindly Wade and mouthy, rotund Ryan meet up with strange third-wheeler Emmit in direct echo of that film’s trio. This is in no doubt owing to Superbad writer Seth Rogen’s similar contribution to Drillbit. The twist here is that, while the geeks still seek coolness and female attention, their primary concern is survival.

Humor ostensibly stems from Drillbit’s survival lessons, as the bum improvises lessons in martial arts and techniques in conflict resolution for the naïve kids.

Much humor is intended, but little comes through. Instead, the story suffers from cursory treatment and lazy synopsis. Life among the bums flits in and out at random. Wade’s awkward pursuit of a crush is a whiff of missed comedy: introduced, forgotten then picked up again at the end. Drillbit himself is underdeveloped, and his romantic tangent is pointless.

There was promise here in exploring the strange battleground of adolescence, but too many opportunities were missed. Blame it on bad screenwriting and direction. Comic scenes that might have succeeded are snuffed by bland direction on the part of Steven Brill (Without a Paddle). Scenes of violent bullying are his only consistent snap, and they end up too bold.

The brightest spot is Troy Gentile as Ryan, easily the most colorful character in the flick and source for the more successful humor. Adam Frost as Filkins makes a fine menace, though in this case he throws off the balance of the ride.

It’s a ride worth skipping.

Poor comedy • PG-13 • 102 min.

Horton Hears a Who! – Jonathan Parker

We learn a lesson and we feel an overwhelming sense of hope at the same time.

No one believes a humble and loveable elephant hears a tiny voice coming from a small speck on a flower in the enjoyable animated comedy Horton Hears a Who! This Dr. Seuss classic is spread thinly over 90 minutes but wins us over thanks to its warm heart and joyous climax.

Horton (voice of Jim Carrey) is a playful goof of an elephant who lives in a land with numerous creatures of all animal and Seussian sorts. Horton’s world perspective is thrown for a loop the day he hears and then starts talking to a voice coming from a little speck.

On the other end is the mayor of the happy-go-lucky land of Whoville (voice of Steve Carell). Horton realizes that he needs to get that land — the speck — to safety, while the mayor realizes he needs to warn his fellow citizens that they are in danger. No one believes Horton, and no one believes the mayor. Yet both know what they have to do.

There is always a danger in turning a Dr. Seuss story into a feature film. First, you are messing with a classic. Second, you are trying to stretch a very short poetic story into 90 minutes of entertainment. The latter is this film’s biggest shortfall. There is just not a lot going on here. As a result, simple plot lines are turned into 15-minute vignettes (though not songs, mercifully).

Carrey and Carell are asked to riff through much of their characters’ dialogue, and it grows quite strained quite quickly.

Frankly, the recent Hollywood practice of using bankable stars to insert their own personalities into the main cartoon characters doesn’t work all that well. More talented and interesting though less famous voices really do the job better (exhibit A: the Disney classics). In this film, the most interesting character is a buzzard with a deep Russian accent portrayed by TV supporting actor Will Arnett. The buzzard gets more laughs and has more personality than the big celebrity characters.

In the end, the Dr. Seuss-ness of the film carries the day. The animation is modern, but wonderfully stays true to the cartoonish Dr. Seuss look. More importantly, no one knows how to deliver a climactic scene quite like Dr. Seuss. We learn a lesson and we feel an overwhelming sense of hope at the same time. Who can ask for anything more?

Good animated comedy • G • 105 mins.

The Bank Job – by Jonathan Parker

Bank Job smartly wastes little time getting to the good parts: How it is all planned and how it all turns out.

A group of East End London small-timers attempt to rob a bank as part of a much larger government conspiracy in the enticing, though far from flawless, The Bank Job. It’s hard to make a bad bank heist film; and try as he may, director Roger Donaldson (The Recruit, No Way Out) can’t ruin the layered-plot fun.

It’s based on a true story, circa 1971. Terry (Jason Statham) is a small-time London hood whose legitimate profession is as a failing car dealer. Terry is approached by old neighborhood beauty Martine (Saffron Burrows) to put together his gang of cronies and break into the safe deposit vault of a neighborhood bank branch. Unbeknownst to Terry, the robbery’s real purpose is to purloin some compromising photographs being used by prominent Black Nationalist Michael X (Peter De Jersey) to blackmail his way out of jail. As the boys set to rob the bank, they are watched by government spies and crooked cops The underbelly of London’s smut society are about to get involved: They’ve got stuff in that vault too.

How it is all planned and how it all turns out is, of course, what always makes such bank job capers so interesting. The movie smartly wastes little time getting into the planning and heisting, along with subsequent complications. We are spared the intricate details of the public officials in question; we know they’re important, and that’s good enough.

Unfortunately, this swiftness of foot is about the only well-executed part of the film. Director Donaldson, for some reason, gives the whole film an air of bad soap opera melodrama through silly mood music and painful close-ups. Added to the mix is really bad acting all around. I’m not sure if I blame the actors or Donaldson, who seems to go to great pains to take the fun out of this bank caper and turn it into As the World Turns.

Despite Donaldson’s attempts, the thrill of the robbery and the delicious somewhat-true-to-life facts involving England’s ruling class overcome the film’s faults. So much so that it’s not until the end that we even mind rooting for the crooks. After all, they’re just burglars. It’s not like they are murderers or smut merchants or corrupt cops or sexually deviant members of parliament. For shame.

Good drama • R • 110 mins.

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