Penguins of Madagascar, Big Hero Six, Earth to Echo, and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (all 2014)

“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-

The Fisher King (1991)

Damn it. Robin Williams is dead. When I heard the awful news, I knew “The Fisher King” was the first film I wanted to watch, honoring the man. This is his greatest performance as Parry, a former academic who suffers a mental collapse after the murder of his wife, and lives homeless on the New York streets. The unstable gunman was set off by a shock jock radio host (Jeff Bridges) who decries yuppies on air, but lives in a NYC flat as lifeless as the moon. The main action of Terry Gilliam’s pitch-black drama/comedy takes place three years after when Parry saves Jack from suicide. Jack, realizing Parry’s downfall, commits to “saving” Parry. Serving his own ego. Dig the 15-minute midsection where Parry –- taken in by Jack -- woos his dream woman (Amanda Plummer) at dinner then walks her home, only to suffer a breakdown, pleading, “Let me have this,” to his demons. What follows is Williams’ finest moment. Also dig Williams’ perfectly told tale of a lonely, turmoil-stricken king. It’s a heartbreaking moment that now ought to leave any person in tears. Bridges, in the lead role, is excellent as always. A full daft feast. A

Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013)

Perfect case of best intentions, and short results. “The Butler” aspires for Oscar glory and to do nothing less than tell the story of African-Americans and their plight to obtain true equality in America through the eyes of one White House butler (Forrest Whitaker) and his family (Oprah Winfrey as an alcoholic wife, and David Oyelloyo as an activist son). 

The titular butler is Cecil Gaines -– based ever so loosely by a thin thread on real-life figure Eugene Allen -– and his prideful job and moral millstone is to play silent witness to the terrible and great moments of the 20^th century Civil Rights movement as he serves tea and roast beef to a line of succeeding American presidents. Naturally, or so the film wants us to believe, each POTUS is won over to see the light of love and racial equality by Gaines’ stoic silence and dedication to the job, making sure the butter knife is just perfectly set so. 

Look, Whitaker knocks the part out, no surprise. He’s been a favorite actor of mine since “Platoon,” and his quiet anger and love shine through in scene after scene. But he’s still standing still for 99 percent of the film, like an end table. Mouth shut. It is Winfrey who near owns the film. Her rounded performance captures illness, anger, love, and jealous hate of the attention Cecil gives Jackie Kennedy, and is the sharp. The wife, though, barely leaves the house. That’s a mixed-bag. See, Daniels’ staging of those at-home scenes with Whitaker and Winfrey shine and sting as we finally see the American story through the hearts of our nation’s most belittled people. This is no “Leave it to Beaver” American Dream lie sold by conservative Tea Party drones. 

But, damn, “Butler,” is a mess. We get an eye-rolling list of Hollywood big names as those presidents, each one more miscast than the last: Robin Williams as a fuddy-duddy Ike, John Cusack as an “SNL” version of Nixon, and -– worst move ever -– Alan Rickman as a Reagan so piss-ant dreary, one wonders if anyone here ever saw film of the real man. Reagan dripped charisma. Love him or hate him, you know the man practically sparkled. Rickman? Not at all. Sorry. These cameos stop the film and had the audience snickering. 

As well, spread out for five decades and hitting every historical race marker like some warped liberal version of “Forrest Gump” -– that feels racist to say, but it’s true -– “Butler” plays like a road trip with a rush-rush-rush pop racing the family car down I-95, yelling to the children in the back, “There’s New York, there’s Philadelphia, there’s Washington, we’ll make Orlando by noon,” never stopping to see Independence Hall. 

This history is too important for such treatment. The scenes of black protesters at lunch counters being molested and tortured are soul-crushing, and this is not ancient history. This story would have made an amazing television series on HBO, with room to truly explore what it means to work in a marble building that represents the highest office in all the world, but have absolutely no power of one’s own, unable to even safe your own child from death or a policeman’s billy club. Mr. Allen’s life seems to have played more quieter than the story here. I want to see that life. Not a stand-in quietly serving Hans Gruber supper. B-

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” is a train wreck masterpiece I love all the more because it derails, because the guy who some critics continuously dismiss aims for the sun and misses, but comes oh so close. And leaves us stunned, too. Spielberg could coast on every film he makes. In “A.I..,” he spins wild chances and smashes down a scene midway through so devastating, it leaves one reeling flat, near in tears. 

Inspired by “Pinocchio” and a screenplay by Stanley Kubrick –- a master of cold dread –- Spielberg’s tale follows a humanoid boy (Haley Joel Osment) adopted by a couple (Sam Robards and Frances O’Connor) whose own son lies in a coma. Young, perfect David is a little boy balm until the “real” son Martin (Jake Thomas) reawakens. 

David is programmed to be loved. Martin wants to mommy to himself. Two events paint David as a family danger, and so mommy –- here’s the killer scene -– abandons David in a forest; she weeps, David begs, and Spielberg lays bare every child’s worst nightmare: Your parents do not truly love you, you are a fake. 

From there, the film flies high and nose dives hard as David falls into a nightmare world that involves grisly robot gladiator arenas, needless voice cameos (Chris Rock? Robin Williams?), and a search for the Blue Fairy to make David a “real” boy, just like … Martin? 

I won’t spoil more. Much of it works and a good bit does not as Spielberg takes on The End of the World, but really is pulling out the end of childhood innocence, that blind-faith moment when children firmly believe mommy and daddy are good, and will always be there, keeping you -- all that matters in the world –- safe. Which is more tragic?  

Osment is so amazing. I still bristle he did not get a Best Actor nomination. Unnaturally warm and bright, unblinking, desperate to please, and able to regurgitate a call, he is flawless, yet unmistakably eerie. Early in, tricked by Martin into cutting their mother’s hair, David pleads, “I just wanted mommy to love me. More.” That quick pause, before the word “more,” is true horror for the youngest of us, scarier than any death in “Jaws.” 

Speaking of that classic Spielberg film, John Williams provides the score here and it’s truly one of his best, and with certain beats recalling the wonder of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” A-

Jumanji (1995)

I disliked “Jumanji” when I saw it in theaters. I cannot recall why: Too much newbie CGI, or just an irritation with Robin Williams running loony? But with this second viewing, I like its goofy innocence. 

The story: Orphans Judy (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter (Bradley Pierce) arrive in a New England town with their aunt (Bebe Neuwirth), a woman who can renovate an entire derelict mansion in one day. Sorry. That is not the plot. 

This is: The children find a centuries-old bored game called “Jumanji” in the attic, begin to play it, and out comes jungle beasts and bugs, and a bushy man (Robin Williams) who once was a boy in that same house, trapped in the game for decades. The rest of Joe Johnston’s film follows the trio -– Dunst, Pierce, and Williams -– keeping the board game’s animals, vines, and raging waters in control. 

It’s a playful film, not afraid to break the fourth wall, and let kids in on the joke of goofy fun. I cringed again at David Allan Grier’s policeman, all big eyes. It rubs wrong. I may have been wrong in 1995. B+