by Logan Butts | Jul 19, 2013 | Opinion
Recycled fun. That’s the name of the game when it comes to R.I.P.D. Take a scene of The Avengers, throw in a plot point from The Dark Knight, add a full-on Coens’ Rooster Cogburn impersonation and mix it all together in Men in Black‘s central idea. And voila, you have R.I.P.D. Robert Schwentke (director of the extremely entertaining and surprisingly successful Red) once again tries to coast off of the charisma of his leading actors. And when the leading actors are Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges, that charisma can carry the film a long way. The sheer enjoyment of watching the leading duo, combined with the comfy familiarity and easily digestible material, leads for a night of recycled fun at the movies. Reynolds and Bridges toss zingers back and forth at each other with a pace that is almost as quick as the action-packed movie itself. The film wastes no time setting up the plot. It dives headfirst into the action with the death of Ryan Reynolds’ character, Nick Walker, only minutes into the movie. Walker is then promptly taken up to that big police department in the sky (the Rest in Peace Department, wink, wink) and is assigned to his native Boston division. Walker is assigned a partner, the grizzled chatterbox lawman Roy Pulsipher, who was literally lifted straight from the Old West. Their personalities clash and hilarity ensues, same as any other buddy cop film. Mary-Louise Parker (playing a high-ranking official for the R.I.P.D. named Proctor) more than holds her own with Reynolds and Bridges. The films’ marketing team also made the fascinating decision to give hardly any...
by Cory Woodroof | Jul 18, 2013 | Opinion
The hero’s species may have switched from Rattus norvegicus to Helix aspersa, but DreamWorks Animation’s latest venture Turbo borrows more than a few tricks from Pixar’s Ratatouille, with Ryan Reynolds’ determined garden snail Theo following nearly the same vermin-to-victory path as Remy the rodent chef. Like Remy, Theo has an absurd dream of one day being a pint-sized race-snail and leaving behind his tomato-gathering job in the yard. After a freak accident involving nitrous oxide, Theo gains racecar-like speed, attracting the attention of Tito (Michael Peña), a chipper food-truck driver who has the bright idea of entering the snail (now called Turbo) in the Indy 500 to compete against the best — including Theo’s idol, Bill Hader’s suave Guy Gagne. Turbo shares a lot in common with the Pixar movie, but it isn’t a soulless carbon copy. Director David Soren’s jovial saga delivers a hearty helping of underdog sentiment with a side of giggly sight gags and some beautifully detailed animation (the racing scenes look stellar in 3D). But the emotional sophistication and depth of storytelling that made Ratatouille a classic just isn’t here. Closer in tone, spirit and achievement to Pixar’s Cars, the earnest Turbo is content just to provide a lot of fun. I’d be lying, though, if I said that Theo’s awestruck gaze over a busy highway didn’t carry the same emotional heft as Remy’s perusing of the Paris skyline. After June’s Monsters University bravely told kids that their career path might work out as they’d hope, a good-hearted movie like Turbo may be needed to remind the little ones that it’s still okay to dream. Review also at...
by Logan Butts | Jul 11, 2013 | Opinion
Welcome back, readers, to another edition of Logan’s Home Video Update! In honor of the upcoming Marvel film The Wolverine, I decided to dig through the series of X-Men films and pull out the best ones for this week’s recommendations. X-Men (PG-13, 104 minutes- starring Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart)
The first X-Men movie opened up the floodgates for the oncoming rush of modern superhero blockbusters that would eventually takeover the film industry. It had an impressive cast, with the likes of Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart and James Marsden all being perfectly suited for their mutant roles. It also didn’t hurt to have a villain with the charisma of Magneto and the acting prowess of Ian McKellen. It is a fun movie (especially any scene involving Hugh Jackman) and one that you can re-watch many times. X2: X-Men United (PG-13, 133 minutes- starring Hugh Jackman and Ian McKellen)
By far the best film of the original trilogy, X2 wasn’t settling for cute and enjoyable. It was going for greatness. This is obvious form the very beginning. The opening scene with Nightcrawler invading the White House still leaves me breathless to this day. Magneto upped his villainy, Wolverine and Cyclops traded stinging insults over their affection for Jean Grey and Halle Berry held her own as Storm. Once you reach the climax, you’re fully expecting anything to happen, and the ending doesn’t disappoint. X-Men: First Class (PG-13, 132 minutes- starring James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender)
In an attempt to erase the embarrassment of the previous two X-Men films (X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine), director Matthew Vaughn brought both style and tenacity...
by Cory Woodroof | Jul 6, 2013 | Opinion
The art of the animated sequel is a funny thing. On occasion, we get nearly-eclipsing pieces of beauty that attempt to transcend the genre (the Toy Story sequels). But more often than not, we get mind-numbing bores (Shrek the Third). Easier put, animated sequels are usually hit-or-miss commodities – many unsure of whether or not to expand the first into a larger ballgame or just provide a cruddy copycat of the original. I’m all for animation pushing cinematic boundaries (think Pixar), but sometimes, it’s just fine to offer more of the same. For the folks at Illumination Entertainment, making a follow-up to 2010’s surprise hit Despicable Me could have been a disastrous move. The strikingly original first installment had impeccable animation, heart-warming sentiment, a delicious sense of rapacity and those brilliantly addicting Minions that nearly set the bar for the phrase “implausibly-cute-yet-voraciously-annoying-in-high-doses.” Despicable Me wasn’t high art; it was the best kind of kiddie fun. So, why try to double it? Okay, yes, a sequel was bound to make a boatload of cash, but from a creative standpoint, what was left to say about Gru, his daughters and the Minions? The universe set up in the first was interesting to explore, but a sequel could have tanked the entire formula. There was such a sweet simplicity to the first movie that I didn’t think could be duplicated, thinking that Illumination would just overload on Minions and slapstick to the point of blasting the franchise into oblivion. Thankfully, the animation studio proved me wrong. Despicable Me 2 is the exactly same movie as Despicable Me, and I couldn’t be more...
by Cory Woodroof | Jul 3, 2013 | Opinion
Looking back on Disney’s new western revival The Lone Ranger, I’m still under the firm belief that the movie could have just as easily been called Trains, Manes and More Trains, as most of the proceedings either takes place upon a trusty steed or the booming steel of the railroad. In fact, the latest collaboration between megastar Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean 1-3/Rango director Gore Verbinski is a chugging locomotive of a movie – one that keeps up an effortlessly extravagant, businesslike pace. The latest update on the masked avenger is almost “Pirates goes West”, hitting the same tonal marks of the monstrous at-sea franchise. We get plenty of high-stakes actions sequences, vile villains, playful banter between supporting players and stellar acting from Mr. Depp. But, The Lone Ranger might just weave a better yarn than the three Pirates films combined. Story-wise, John Reid (the wide-eyed Armie Hammer), the goody two shoes district attorney, rides into town upon the budding railway system to visit his brother Dan and family when the train is ambushed by a wretched gang of outlaws looking to free their leader (William Fichtner’s slack-jawed smile Butch Cavendish). During the jaunt, John meets Tonto (Depp), a Native American who is in the same prison car as Butch. Tonto helps John fend off the bad guys, but makes haste as soon as the train derails in stunning fashion. Inspired by his love of justice, John joins up with his brother’s posse to track down Cavendish once and for all and bring him to justice. After a ruthless betrayal, John and company are murdered by the...
