Unknown

PG-13 | 1 hr 49 mins | Thriller Movie
A man (Liam Neeson) wakens from a coma while on a business trip to Europe only to watch that some other man has taken his identity and stepped into his life.
Synopsis:
Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) wakes up after a car accident in Berlin to discover that his wife (January Jones) suddenly doesn't know him and another man (Aidan Quinn) has assumed his identity. Ignored by disbelieving authorities and hunted by mysterious assassins, he finds himself alone, tired, and on the run. Helped by an unlikely ally (Diane Kruger), Martin plunges rush into a deadly mystery that will force him to question his sanity, his identity, and just how far he's willing to go to uncover the truth.

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Starring: Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger, January Jones

Rango

Director: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Alfred     Molina, Bill Nighy, Ray Winstone
Release Date: UK & US – 4th March
 
An unnamed chameleon (voiced by Johnny Depp) finds himself stranded in the Mojave Desert after his terrarium falls off his human family’s car.  Rather than try to find his way home (he’s not a dog), the chameleon desperately hunts for water and his search leads him to the Western-style town of Dirt.  Once there, his instincts as an actor/writer/director kick in and he decides to assume a new identity: Rango, meanest reptile in the west.  The gullible townsfolk believe him and after he accidentally defeats a hawk, he’s made sheriff by the Noah Cross-esque mayor (Ned Beatty).

Rango proudly wears its Chinatown inspiration on its sleeve.  The major conflict in the film is that Dirt is almost out of water, which functions not only as a refreshing beverage, but as the town’s currency.  Every Wednesday, the town lines up to do an intricate line dance in order to appease the mighty desert faucet, which is now only pumping mud. After the water reserve is stolen from the bank, Rango gathers up a possum posse and seeks to reclaim the reserve (neglecting to mention that he stupidly helped the supposed thieves tunnel their way into the vault).
Everything in Rango is done with a great deal of charm.  There’s plenty of slapstick and a little bit of bathroom humor, but I find these aspects far less grating when they’re coupled with a desire to be strange.  The script has no problem giving its characters SAT-level vocabulary or providing the love interest (Isla Fisher) with a malfunctioning defense mechanism.  Verbinski makes room for the broad comedy that everyone will enjoy and a bunch of movie references and wordplay jokes that only adults will get.

What’s wonderful about Rango is how it deftly balances the light, silly humor with the darker, more thoughtful aspects of the story.  There’s pathos to Rango’s story as he struggles to make his own identity and there’s smart commentary about the nature of authenticity against the backdrop of Hollywood’s facade of the west.  But then you’ll see a hawk inserting quarters into a vending machine or Rango quickly explaining that camouflaging is “an art not a science,” and the movie continues on at its brisk pace.  Only when it reaches the third act does the story begin to feel a bit drawn out and in need of some trimming.

However, the length isn’t too much of a problem because Verbinski has created such a delightful world.  All of the voice acting is terrific, but Depp in particular does tremendous work with his Rango voice and you can really hear him throwing himself into the performance.  The animation of the characters is equally outstanding.  The cast is comprised of southwestern fauna such as reptiles, amphibians (“Ain’t no shame in that.”), and rodents, and Verbinski doesn’t try to make them look cuddly.  He understands that giving them big, expressive eyes will make them relatable to the audience, and then he can let the animators do impressive work when it comes to how their skin shifts and moves.  And it’s all tied together with some gorgeous visuals, which should comes as no surprise when you consider that cinematographer Roger Deakins (True Grit) served as a visual consultant on the picture.

Megamind

With the voices of:
Megamind Will Ferrell
Roxanne Tina Fey
Hal/Titan Jonah Hill
Minion David Cross
Metro Man Brad Pitt

"Megamind" was the third 3-D movie I'd seen in a row, and as I struggled to free my glasses from their industrial-strength plastic envelope, I wasn't precisely looking forward to it. Why do 3-D glasses come so securely wrapped they seem like acts of hostility against the consumer? Once I freed my glasses and settled down, however, I was pleased to see a 3-D image that was quite acceptable. Too dim, as always, but the process was well-used and proves again that animation is incomparably more suited for 3-D than live action is.
I'd just been rewatching "Superman" (1978) and felt right at home with the opening of "Megamind," narrated by a bright blue alien over flashbacks to his infancy. Born on a distant planet, he's packed into a rocket ship and blasted off to Earth, just like the Man of Steel. En route, he meets his lifetime nemesis, a golden child who lands on Earth and in the lap of wealth. The blue child, alas, lands in a prison and is raised by hardened convicts.

As they grow up, these two super-beings are destined to play crucial roles in nearby Metro City, where they're named Megamind (voice of Will Ferrell) and Metro Man (Brad Pitt). We may remember that Superman was given his name by Lois Lane, and here the story of the two superbeings is covered by a TV reporter named Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey). Roxanne's cameraman, Hal (Jonah Hill, looking rather Jonah Hill-like), later morphs into yet a third super-being named Titan.

This set-up is bright and amusing, even if it does feel recycled from bits and pieces of such recent animated landmarks as "The Incredibles" with its superpowers and "Despicable Me" with its villain. "Megamind" even goes so far as naming Megamind's fishy sidekick "Minion" (David Cross), a nod to the Minions who serve the despicable Gru. I enjoyed Megamind's conclusion, after being bullied as a child, that if he can't get credit for doing anything good, he might as well become a villain.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a hero requires a villain, and "Megamind" has some fun by depriving Megamind of Metro Man. Left without an opponent, he loses his zeal for evildoing, and actually clones Titan to cure his loneliness. All of this of course is accomplished with much slapstick and sensational action, in a population which consists entirely of super-beings, plus Roxanne, the prison warden and cheering thousands of anonymous humans.

Tina Fey does a spirited job with Roxanne, and again I was reminded of "Superman" and Margot Kidder's high-spirited, unafraid Lois Lane. This time Roxanne isn't smitten by anyone, which is just as well because these guys are aliens, after all.

"Megamind" is an amusing family entertainment and gains some energy from clever dialogue and the fun Will Ferrell has with his character. I like the way he pronounces "Metro City" like "metricity," for example. The 3-D is well done, if unnecessary. Nothing in the movie really benefits from it, and if you can find it in 2-D, that's the best choice. Save the surcharge and see those colors nice and bright.

Drive Angry 3D

John Milton Nicolas Cage
Piper Amber Heard
The Accountant William Fichtner
Jonah King Billy Burke
Webster David Morse
Frank Todd Farmer
Mona Christa Campbell
Candy Charlotte Ross
Cap Tom Atkins
Fat Lou Jack McGee

"Drive Angry 3D" opens with a muscle car racing across a burning bridge out of Hell, while we hear a famous 12-letter word used three or four times. So right away we know where we're at. Here is an exercise in deliberate vulgarity, gross excess, and the pornography of violence, not to forget garden variety pornography. You get your money's worth.
A movie review should determine what a movie hoped to achieve, and whether it succeeded. The ambition of "Drive Angry 3D" is to make a grind house B movie so jaw-droppingly excessive that even Quentin Tarantino might send flowers. It succeeds. I can't say I enjoyed it. But I can appreciate it. It offends every standard of taste except bad. But it is well made.

Of course it stars Nicolas Cage. Is there another actor who could or would have dared to sign on? Cage is a good actor in good movies, and an almost indispensable actor in bad ones. He can go over the top so effortlessly he rests up and makes lemonade for everybody. Here he plays a man named John Milton, a reference I fear will be lost on the film's target audience. Milton is hell-bent to rescue his baby granddaughter. A Satanic cult enslaved and murdered his daughter, and now plans to sacrifice the infant by the light of the full moon. This Milton cannot abide.

The cult is led by Jonah (Billy Burke), who is obeyed by slavish followers he seems to have recruited from porn movies and guests on Jerry Springer shows about redneck incest. Their idea of partying is a topless orgy around a fire in an abandoned prison yard, while swigging Jack Daniels and warming up for a midnight infanticide. Their ranks are swelled by the usual shaved-headed and tattooed fatsos. There must be a pool of Hollywood extras who play big, bald guys who can take three steps forward and glower into the camera.

Anyway, Milton's quest begins in a bar named Bull by the Balls, where he meets a barmaid named Piper (Amber Heard). After inconceivable violence, they link destinies. You've heard of girls attracted to the wrong kinds of guys? Nic Cage plays a guy here who, if he was a girl, Nic Cage would be afraid of. Piper inexplicably stays with Milton, despite many questions which are even better than she thinks. Heard makes a plucky heroine who, although Piper's sexy and Milton likes the ladies, doesn't fall into the usual abyss of "love interest" but slugs it out like a cage fighter.

On their trail is the enigmatic Accountant (William Fichtner). This seemingly spoiler supernatural figure is relentless in pursuit, yet moves with the speed of a plodding gumshoe when he's not at the wheel of a muscle car or, oh, say, a tank truck filled with liquid hydrogen. (The movie of course contains the official quota of Walking-Away-From-Fiery-Explosions-In-Slo-Mo Shots.) As Milton chases Jonah and the Accountant chases Milton, Jonah's followers chase Milton, which is a great convenience, allowing "Drive Angry 3D" to be more or less nothing but chase scenes, except for some interior gun battles and much portentous dialogue. (Cage brings an inimitable personal touch to "The bullet is still in there." Pause. "I can feel it.")

Gene Siskel drew the line at Children in Danger. As a father he disapproved of thrillers that exploited violent scenes involving kids. What would he have made of an extended sequence here where Jonah commands one of his followers to sacrifice an infant? He would have despised it, I believe. The only justification for it is that this entire movie is so broadly, grotesquely over the top that the baby is more of a prop than a human child. And "Drive Angry 3D" trusts its audience to put every principle of Western civilization on hold.

So my review is a compromise. I'm giving it two stars. That's halfway between three stars (well made) and one star (loathesome). Nic Cage once again provides the zeal and energy to wade through a violent morass. William Fichtner makes The Accountant so intriguing that, although all CPAs aren't from Hell, we know this one is. He has a nice twitchy reserve. Amber Heard and Billy Burke do everything that can possibly be done with their characters, and don't stop there.

Oh, and the 3D? For an extra charge you get to wear glasses that make it look like it was shot where the sun don't shine.

Hall Pass

Rick Owen Wilson
Fred Jason Sudeikis
Maggie Jenna Fischer
Grace Christina Applegate
Leigh Nicky Whelan
Coakley Richard Jenkin

I was just reading an article about the oddly prolonged adolescence of American males, especially those in the movies. There's a common fantasy where the guys get away from their wives and girlfriends, and escape to where they're free to guzzle beer, eat sloppily, belch, fart, leave pizza boxes on the floor, scratch their butts, watch sports on TV, and in many other ways become irresistible to hot chicks. When was the last time you saw a man under 30 in the movies who had a stable marriage, a job, children, and a life where he valued his wife above his buddies?
“Hall Pass” extends the 20s and 30s into the 40s, and imagines a world in which there are no grown-up men at all. We meet two pals named Rick and Fred (Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis) who are well married to Maggie and Grace (Jenna Fischer and Christina Applegate), and yet lust improbably after every nubile woman who strays into their target zone. Rick in particular is always being caught by his wife while checking out the passing parade.

It is perhaps hard-wired into men that their eyes should be constantly on the prowl. Maybe it's an evolutionary trait, and our species has developed it to encourage the sowing of human seed in many fields. Women, by contrast, have evolved to be sure their mates gaze in admiration at them alone and nobody else. There's a famous story by Irwin Shaw, “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses,” about an estranged couple who decide to make up. They go for a stroll down Fifth Avenue, but break up all over again because the man can't prevent his eyes from straying. He loves his mate — yes, he really does — but you see the girls are so pretty in their summer dresses.

Maggie and Grace eventually get fed up with the vagrant eyeballs of their husbands and decide to call their bluff. They issue weeklong “hall passes,” which are permission slips to allow both men seven days of unsupervised and guiltless sexual freedom. Maybe then they'll get desire out of their systems? Rick and Fred rejoice, and so do the members of their posse, because of course men when set free seek the protection of the pack. Any real man would hunt alone, the better to sneak up on his prey. A woman does not respond eagerly to flattery emanating from a booth jammed with guys at Fuddrucker's.

“Hall Pass” is by the Farrelly brothers, Bobby and Peter, who are in the unfortunate position of forever being judged against the impossible standard of their "There's Something About Mary" (1998). That remains the only movie where I literally, cross my heart, saw a man laugh so hard, he fell out of his chair. One of the essential qualities of “Mary” was the performance by Ben Stiller as a man with much dignity, easily offended. Stiller can evoke a kind of vulpine cunning that is funny when thwarted.

A problem with “Hall Pass,” I think, is that both Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis are affable, and the movie wants us to like them. It is often more useful for a comedy to have characters whose embarrassment we enjoy. I suspect we're expected to empathize with the lads here in their inept attempts to plunder the netherlands of steamy chicks.

The truest words in “Hall Pass” are spoken by Joy Behar, as a more experienced older woman who tells the two wives that their husbands, like all men, believe only marriage is preventing them from being irresistible to women. It is probably a good thing for the species that so many men believe they're irresistible, because so few are.

The plot of the movie is meh. It involves the lads and their posse being cycled through several unsuccessful and quasi-slapstick situations showing their cluelessness, immaturity and how women easily see straight through them. Meanwhile, the wives and their posses have a great time on a getaway retreat. Women seem to get along perfectly well when set free from men, but men seem uncomfortable without women. It probably all involves which gender has the greater need to be reassured.

I Am Number Four

John Alex Pettyfer
Henri Timothy Olyphant
Number 6 Teresa Palmer
Sarah Dianna Agron
Sam Callan McAuliffe

"I Am Number Four" is shameless and unnecessary. That's sad, when a movie casts aside all shame, demonstrates itself willing to rip off anything that might attract audiences, and nevertheless fails. What we have here is a witless attempt to merge the "Twilight" formula with the Michael Bay formula. It ends with sexy human teenagers involved in an endless special effects battle with sexy alien teenagers who look like humans, in a high school and on its football field.
Let's pause for a moment to consider this apocalyptic battle. It is all special effects. None of it is physically possible. It might as well be a cartoon; it's essentially CGI animation intercut with brief bursts of inane dialogue. Brief, because the global action market doesn't much care about dialogue, and besides, when people start talking about something you could run into the hazard of having actual characters in a plot. Minute after relentless minute, creatures both human and alien, who we care nothing about, wage war and occasionally disintegrate into clouds of tiny pixels for no particular reason.

I like science fiction. The opening shot of "I Am Number Four" holds promise, as John (Alex Pettyfer), the narrator, explains that he is a Mogadorian, no doubt from a planet named Mogador. Specifically, he is Mogadorian No. 4. Don't expect me to explain the Mogadorian numbering system. He is hiding out on planet Earth and doing everything possible to disguise himself as a box-office attraction like Edward Cullen. They have already killed Nos. 1, 2 and 3.

Consider. The "Twilight" movies were about a handsome and sexy teenager who exerted a powerful attraction upon a virginal young girl, and yet held himself aloof because he was a vampire. Here John is a handsome and sexy teenager who is technically unavailable because he is an alien, although it appears that Mogador may luckily have evolved teenager boys indistinguishable from humans to such as Sarah (Dianna Agron).

John has been on the lam around America to remain in hiding from those who would kill him, and is accompanied by his fellow Mogadorian, Henri (Timothy Olyphant), who poses as his father and cautions him that his real father didn't die only to see John marry an Earth girl. Whether John has the option of returning to Mogador and settling down with a nice Mogadoress to raise Mogadorlings, I am not certain.

The high school elements in the plot revolve around John's popularity in some areas (he's an ace on a Jet-Ski) and non-conformity in others (his palms function like high-powered searchlights). He is also free of the ordinary constraints of gravity and can leap for dozens of yards and even fly. What this means is that the climactic battle scene can take place largely in the air, and Harry Potter's Quidditch games join the honor roll of the plundered.

There is no doubt a degree of identification available for the primary audience of "I Am Number Four." Many teenage girls have perhaps imagined themselves in love with a handsome hunk with tousled blond hair, a three-day stubble, incredible athletic abilities and hands that glow in the dark. That he is Not From Around Here makes him all the more attractive.

In the film, we see native Mogadorians, whose faces are deeply scarred with gill-like extrusions. I am not completely sure if this is how John really looks and he has somehow morphed into teenager form, or if he was forced to flee Mogador because he looked like an alien Edward Cullen. I'm sure this is all spelled out in the movie. Sometimes I find it so very, very hard to care.

Now imagine "I Am Number Four" as a "novelization." There would be the setup, a little dialogue, and then pages and pages of violent action: John leaped 100 yards into the air and struck him with a deadly ray! An enemy fighter disintegrated into an ashy grey cloud of pixels! Number 6, her hair flowing in slow motion, whirled around and kicked the Mogadorian Commander! "Look out!" John shouted! "Behind you!" cried Sarah.

This would quickly grow old. Why audiences enjoy watching protracted sequences of senseless action mystifies me, but they do. There is no strategic or spatial way in which the battle in "I Am Number Four" makes any sense. It is movement and conflict edited together in incomprehensible chaos.

Where is Mogador? Why did nine of its citizens flee to Earth? How did they do so? How is it they breathe our air, eat our food and make such expert use of our grooming products? Why didn't the other Mogadorians say to hell with it and leave them on Earth? What is a Mogadorian life span? Given what we know about the time and distance involved in space travel, are these the same nine individuals who fled Mogador, or their descendants after many generations in an interstellar ark? What's the story on those spotlights in their hands?

In all modesty, I think my questions are more entertaining than this movie.