“Penguins of Madagascar”
…
I saw it to take my niece and nephew out. Ehh. Have you seen the “Madagascar”
films from DreamWorks? The zoo animals who ditched the Bronx for Africa? Pretty
funny, the first one. Since then? Yawn. Snooze. Get me out. This fourth entry
and add-on to a TV series focuses on sidekick comic-relief characters of
wise-ass penguins who muck about in the Marx Brothers vein. New Yorker humor
abounds. This is their origin tale. Cause we need that. The Penguins join a MI6 type group led by wolf Benedict
Cumberbatch to take down power-mad octopus John Malkovich and we get jokes that
play on actor names: “Nicholas, Cage them!” and “Helen, hunt them down!,” and
oh my God, an hour in I pled for it to end, and it would not, and my nephew and
niece loved it and I Give Up! C-
Meanwhile, Disney, with no small help from Pixar, has CGI animated film “Big Hero Six,” based on a new-to-me Marvel comic for
youngsters that pings “Scooby Doo” with boots, capes and robots. Our lead hero
is Hero (Ryan Potter), a teen living with his aunt and older brother in a futuristic
mashup of San Francisco and Tokyo. Hero is a budding roboticist with a punk-rebel
streak who graduated high school at 13 and takes on college at 14 after a minor
scrape with the law for amusing back-alley robot fights, only to suffer a
devastating personal loss. Brother dies in a fire. Ouch. With the help of a cute
puffy robot nurse named Baymax –- who looks like Shmoo on steroids and full of
air and built by the dead older sibling -– Hero investigates the fire and finds
himself a super villain right out of a four-color comic book. The simple story
aims young with some edgy humor (there’s a stoner kid who’s far more a stoner
than ever was Shaggy) but its charms are strong and its “Stargate” references worthy
of fan-fiction tribute. B
Speaking of childish
films, “Earth to Echo” is a fast-paced, found-footage jumpy
cam version of “E.T.” meets “Goonies” as a group of school kid pals find a
robotic alien near their housing development. The one their being forced out
of. (That was the kick-off of “Goonies,” recall?) Using iPhones and video
cameras to record their every moment to save Echo -– he’s metallic, bur cute,
chirping, and a bit void of personality -– the kids run up against Big Brother
villains, find a female pal along the way, and in a funny moment, find the cool
older brother asleep in a bathtub as a party. They take his car. Harmless and
sweet, I think my young self would have grooved to the film’s adventure. Even
if the stomach and brain of my current body fell camera seasick. One of the
boys, Reese Hartwig, eerily reminds me of a school friend. B
Another flick I took
the niece and nephew to is “Night at
the Museum: Secret of the Tomb,” the
third and apparently final entry in the comedy-adventure series with Ben
Stiller –- he once long ago of grungy grown-up films -– as a guard at the New
York Museum of Natural History. You know the drill, right? Sun goes down, the
exhibits come alive, Easter Island head, dinosaur, Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams),
and cowboy (Owen Wilson) included, all mucking about, making “education” fun.
And action packed. Here, the magical stone that powers our heroes is dying, and
Stiller must zip away to London’s history museum to save the day. Why? Um, up
ticket sales in Europe? It’s only mildly funny, despite a great M.C. Escher gag
that plays like a classic 1980s A-Ha video and a cameo from a winking X-Man. Dan
Stevens (“Downtown Abbey”) impresses as Lancelot. Williams? My heart breaks
again. RIP. B-
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