Film Round Up, Part IV

Another quick dive through several films I've watched recently... 

Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) –- clunky title aside -– smartly carries the story of a boy warrior (Jay Berchanal) and his pet dragon, the former coming of age and discovering a family secret even his own father did not know. If “Dragon” 1 was a wondrous adventure for the young set, this chapter is for pre-teens mature enough to know adventure often brings crushing hurt along with glory. B+

Kiss Me Deadly (1955) is the classically warped film noir with detective Mike Hammer tracking the ID of a woman he meets in the road, hours before she dies. This Hammer (Ralph Meeker) is too GQ clean -– I get it, Hayes Code -– but he can play cruel, within the Hayes Code. The famous leftward climactic turn is one of the great WTF movie moments, inspiring even “Pulp Fiction.” Quite a “Twilight Zone” trip. A-

Wrath of the Titans (2013) is a massive step-up from its predecessor, 2010’s “Clash of the Titans.” I gave that miserable CGI bore a C+, and was generous to do so. Somehow it begat a sequel, but -– shocker -– this chapter improves as Perseus (Sam Worthington) heads Down Under to the Underworld to save dad Zeus (Liam Neeson) from death. It’s still a CGI overload, dumb as hell (good guys fight demons with... fire?!!?), but it’s got a more humorous wink-wink vibe, and Neeson and Ralph Fiennes (as Hades) ham it up wonderfully. B

Non-Stop (2014)

“Non-Stop” is not a comedy. I laughed my ass off. Not a good sign for a thriller that stars Liam Neeson in Angry Action Figure Mode and plays on 9/11 fears of hijackings and police state surveillance. Neeson is Bill Marks, suicidal fuck-up air cop with a booze problem and a tragic life who should never hold a gun, much less be issued one by Uncle Sam for work at 30,000 feet. But here Bill is anyway, sweating buckets as he texts back and forth with a psycho who threatens to down the plane unless $1.5M is delivered to a Swiss bank account. One in Bill’s name. Cue drama! Cue the scenes where Neeson’s hero types. And types. And types. And calls his boss. Bill also kills a man, beats random passengers, screams, and waves and fires his gun like a madman. Why? This is “Taken” in the air. A cell phone and a gun, if those are in a script does Neeson just sign on? As stewardesses, Michelle Dockery of “Downton Abbey” and Lupito Nyong’o of “12 Years a Slave” do just about nothing. I’d watch a movie with them as the heroes. C-

The Lego Movie (2014)

Nearly a week after seeing “The Lego Movie” with my niece and nephew I’m still on a buzzy high of nostalgia for the hundreds of hours I spent playing with the famed building blocks as a child -- especially during those long Philly snow days –- and the endless clever wit and deft satire that filmmakers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (both of “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”) bring to this 90-minute blast. 

Face it, this movie could have been a shallow toy ad hawking nonsense, I’m looking at you, “Smurfs.” In a playful trick, though, our story instead spoofs mass-commercialization, all those “The Matrix” knock-offs with the savior complex, “Nineteen Eighty Four,” and the legendary (and outright silly) debate between those who see Legos as high-art engineering tools and young children who just want to mess about and play and not worry about rules or constriction. 

(I will not touch the Fox News controversy over the plot and story. Some folks truly need to not make everything on earth a political target, a bit of scotch in a glass, buy a puppy, smoke some pot, the choices are wide and plenty.) 

Our hero is blank-slate construction worker Emmet (Chris Pratt) who gets swept up in a massive adventure as “The One,” the Neo-like hero who can save Lego humanity from its destruction and the walls that separate metropolises from western towns. 

The twist: Emmet really is just a guy, and a dork at that, perplexing and outright pissing off all the real “heroes” around him, Batman -– in a legendary vocal turn by Will Arnett, a squabbling Superman and Green Lantern (Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, respectively), and a good lot of heroes from “Harry Potter,” “Lord of the Rings,” and -- most impressive “Star Wars,” all toys that have their own Lego worlds. 

This bit could fall into toy ad here, but it doesn’t: Gandolf and Dumbledore squabble, and Billy Dee Williams (!!) as Lando still is sleazy as ever. (The Millennium Falcon bit alone is worth the price of three admissions.) All these guys could be the hero, but it’s Emmet, following the sage advice of Moses/Morpheus do-gooder prophet Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) who is finally – finally, we get to see this –- full of shit. 

The beginning is shaky, oddly sudden, and the end -- which smashes open the fourth- and fifth- and sixth-walls may be so daring and “out there,” I’m still wrapping my head around it, but I think I loved it. (I saw it coming, but man curve balls are thrown.) It sure as heck is different than anything I have seen come down the pike.

The visuals are amazing as every frame pops and my 11-year-old nephew reached out countless times to “grab” the screen and the plastic “toys” before him. Visual gags come fast, including entire Lego play sets from my youth, and even the cast knocks their own career, none better than Liam Neeson as a two-faced bad cop with a dangerous Irish accent and a squeaky clean voice on the other side. 

Inside jokes are fast as well: The Lego part numbers get a lot of play, a detail even I had forgotten about. An absolute delight and a real high mark from Warner Bros., especially after the rut of so-so CGI animated fare we have seen from normal kings of the block Pixar and Dreamworks. 

“Lego Movie” is amazing endless fun, and puts children center. It also is one of the rare films that excels at 3-D. See it, guys and gals, now. I plan to again. Without the niece and nephew. Just me and *my* 11-year-old self, the one buried deep inside. Still there. A

Stolen (2012)

If Liam Neeson from “Taken” showed up in Nicolas Cage’s my-daughter’s-been-kidnapped thriller “Stolen,” the movie would have lasted 15 minutes. But he doesn’t. Cage plays Will, a master thief who sees life get worse after an eight year stint in prison. Case 1: Cops are on him like creepy on a Southern politician. Case 2: His presumed dead ex-partner (Josh Lucas) is out for revenge, snatching said daughter. The plot centers around taxi cabs. Lucas’ thug tools around in one. Will steals another. Why? No idea. Up against the always unhinged Cage, Lucas seems to have taken the villain role as a one-up challenge. After the prologue, he sports greasy surfer hair, a lazy eye, shaving scars, rotten teeth, an emphysemic cough, and a fake leg. He screams and growls every line. If this freak dropped into a “Pirates of the Caribbean” film, he’d get strange looks. Cage reacts by talking Swedish. Seriously. The climax of this Simon West flick one-ups the actors with a fight to the death not seen since “Freddy vs. Jason.” At an abandoned amusement park. Zany. Crazy. Terrible. Laughable. Grotesque. Better than the “Taken” sequel. C-

Taken 2 (2012)

“Taken 2” is pure GOP values: ’Merica is pure and strong, and every last Muslim is an evil perv-o killer, and women are helpless creatures who cannot drive a car or plan a vacation without male supervision. Fox News would endorse it. The themes are serious, I think. Liam Neeson again plays the ex-CIA agent who shoots,stabs, stomps, and rips apart dozens of evil foreigners to save his daughter (Maggie Grace) and now kidnapped wife (Famke Janssen) from slavery. We’re in Turkey and Islam looms like a disease, and every person of color -– be it police to hotel clerk -- is part of the conspiracy. Fox News. It’s all less than 90 minutes, so the trip is mercifully short, and Neeson is fast becoming a thinking man’s Chuck Norris, even if the thinking is fascist and WASP. To get a PG-13, director Olivier Megaton (his real name?) goes bloodless and when necks break in Neeson’s fists, we hear no sound because snapping bone is somehow more offensive than gunfire. The editing is terrible, and so  is the slant that Neeson (wonderful actor) is taking onscreen. D+

Battleship (2012)

“Battleship” -– based on the board game -– bombed in theaters, and a viewing reinforces its death as deserved. The is an ugly CGI-drunk mess, taking 40 minutes to start as director Peter Berg (“Kingdom”) and his screenwriters break their backs and our patience introducing a screw-up U.S. Navy hero (Taylor Kitsch) destined for greatness when evil aliens invade Earth. Plot? Aliens attack. Navy fights back. That’s it. Unless you count the burrito subplot as vital. I do not. This could have used a rewrite and a butcher’s knife in the editing room because even Liam Neeson, onscreen for 15 minutes, looks bored as the Navy commander/father of Kitsch’s girlfriend. Here’s the real riddle: Despite the dull rip off of “Transformers” and “Halo” that defines 95 percent of the flick, Berg coolly employs real veterans young (Gregory Gadson, amazing) and old (WW2 and Korean vets) as saviors of our Hollywood-cast cardboard heroes and this move openly calls bullshit on every rah-rah action hero ever made. Corny? Yes. But it works. Alas, inept studio mentality sinks smarts. Bombs away! C

The Grey (2012)

Bloody good, “The Grey” pits Liam Neeson against the arctic tundra and a pack of man-eating wolves, their eyes glowing hellfire. This is a Jack London fable, crossed with the grisliest of survival tales and pumped with dark adrenaline and overt symbolism. Neeson is Ottway, a soul-broken sniper for an oil company in northern Alaska who finds redemption and more in the face of death. At the film’s start Ottway attempts suicide. He falters. The next day he’s on an airplane, maybe heading home to quit, we do not know, but the craft goes down, killing dozens, save six men and Ottway. It’s in the wild that our man finds the courage to not die, and to lead his men (including Dermot Mulroney) to safety and life. Nature, the wolves, death, and chance stalk all the way. Neeson – hardcore, of few words -- gives the best performance he’s dealt since “Schindler’s List,” and director Joe Carnahan pulls out of his dumb dive (“A-Team”) to return to real storytelling on film. Stay after the credits for a final shot that will fuel debate in some, and leave others assured of fate and faith. A-

The A-Team (2010)

“The A-Team” is a great B-movie, full of stunts and action so outlandish they make “The Rock” seem as dead serious as “Schindler’s List.” I expected nothing more. This re-make is, after all, based on a 1980s TV show so silly even at age the age of 10, I knew I was watching candy corn being pelted at my noggin. Case in point here: Our heroes “fly” a tank -- falling from the sky -- by blowing off shells in exact succession. The vehicle crashes in a lake, and out it rolls, without a scratch. Candy corn? No. This is the TV show after it injected a bag of liquid sugar, and downed 10 5 Hour Energy shots.

This update takes the same characters and general plot, and injects high-end CGI effects and comic-book violence. As before, the “A-Team” is comprised of four Army rangers framed for a crime they did not commit. We have John “Hannibal” Smith (Liam Neeson, replacing the late George Peppard), Templeton “Face” Peck (Bradley Cooper, in for Dirk Benedict), B.A. Baracus (Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, taking up Mr. T’s mohawk) and “Howlin’ Mad” Murdoch (Sharlto Copley, picking up the crazy from Dwight Schultz). The men are un-killable, quick on wit and have exact timing for every movement down cold. And they smoke. Big fat cigars.

The first 10 minutes of film are a mess as director Joe Carnahan and his crew of screenwriters needlessly spell out how the A-Team met in Mexico after a two-man job by Hannibal and Face goes wrong. It includes a meet-cute involving B.A. and Hannibal that involves a gun and mutterings about fate that plays weirdly homoerotic. Thankfully, the film kicks snaps into focus post-credits as the men get their gym socks pulled over their heads after a mission involving stolen U.S. mint printing plates goes terribly wrong. You can figure out the rest: The team breaks out of prison, nail the bad guys, commits unfathomable wreckage, smile and smoke cigars. End credits. No spoilers here.

In the hands of lesser actors, the film could be an abysmal failure. But Neeson has made far worse films (“Taken”) shine on charisma alone, and he makes Peppard seem old and, well, dead. Ditto for Cooper, playing up his “Hangover” charm as clever womanizer Face. Jackson holds his own, even if he can’t top Mr. T’s boldness. But who could? Copley, so good in “District 9,” is sacked with the least interesting role as pilot Murdoch, and still glides by on funny voices. It ain’t his fault. Carnahan and the writers never tap into the character’s rattled brain, and he spends the climax literally on his ass, a bag over his head.

The OTT climax? It makes the flying tank escapade seem quaint, yet dazzles. Throwing shots at this film is like ripping a child’s drawings, the stray marks and inanity of it all is the point. Any try at figuring out the triple-crossing gaggle of villains only kills more brain cells. These are action scenes strung together en masse. And that’s OK. That was “The A-Team” in its glory days of old. This isn’t the summer movie of 2010, but it’s a placeholder. And like its source, it’ll probably play well on TV. More like "The B Team."

Taken (2009)

I can't decide if "Taken" is a straight kick-ass action film with Liam Neeson as a vengeful daddy out to fork over the bad guys who kidnapped his precious virgin daughter (Maggie Grace from TV's "Lost"), or if it's a black comedy lampooning how violent America can be. Maybe it's both.

Neeson, despite his cooler-than-Jesus Irish accent, plays a violent American ex-CIA spy who warns his precious teen daughter not to go Paris as part of a summer vacation. Why? Because French people is foreigners, sure 'nuff. Theys bad. The girl is kidnapped second after leaving the airport. Literally, seconds.

The "takers" are not thugs looking for ransom, but nasty dark-skinned men looking to sell the girl into sex slavery to a fat sheik who makes Shrek look as trim as Neeson. Dad goes to Paris and immediately starts a body count greater than any large metro's annual amount, all within 70 or so hours. Even housewives aren't safe.

"Taken" is a quick, easy watch. But don't think too much. Or at all. Would the kidnappers really keep the girl in the same city to auction her off? Did writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen really have to make all the women here either naives, b*tches and sluts who deserve death, whores, or otherwise useless? What if -- by God -- the daughter was in her mid-20s (as Grace so obviously is) and sexually active? Would she still be worth saving? Her friend who is sexually active sure is butchered.

Neeson's unsinkable charisma keeps the film racing through all these questions. Mostly. C+