Review – The Wild

I’m sure a Disney-fication of Madagascar was necessary for some reason. Yes, the animation is better. The animals look a lot more realistic. The actors supplying the voices are more up-scale as well. And of course there’s the parent-child death and/or suffering trauma we’ve all come to know and love in productions from the Holy Rodent Empire. Trouble is, it just doesn’t work. While the Dreamworks version was cute in a cartoony sort of way, the realism of the animals in this go-around actually makes them less sympathetic when they behave like dumb cartoon characters. The pacing is almost constantly off, the dialogue is stiff, and the characters’ motivations are often vague. But the real killer is the flatness of the humor. Plot points that were no doubt intended to be clever and quirky instead come across as odd and awkward. Final thought: this isn’t the first movie I’ve disliked despite Eddie Izzard’s presence in the supporting cast, but this is the first time I’ve ever disliked the character Izzard was playing. See if desperate

Review – Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Although I’ve hated almost every previous Wallace and Gromit outing I’ve ever seen, oddly enough I kinda liked this one. It’s still nowhere near as good as Nick Park’s “Creature Comforts” work, but it packs at least a little charm nonetheless. The plot is pure kiddie corn, and even the effective sight gags are more than a little stupid. Still, it’s cute enough to be endearing. It would have been cuter still if the clever little clay rabbits hadn’t been sculpted with pig noses. Mildly amusing

Review – Over the Hedge

Eh, it’s cute. Bruce Willis is one of the few low points in this fuzzy little tale of a raccoon who has to replace a bear’s stash of junk food in less than a week, a task he can apparently only accomplish by duping a heterogeneous group of woodland creatures into helping him. And if you’ve got any experience at all with kids’ movies, you know exactly where the plot goes from there. The interaction between the animals and their new, suburban-sprawl environment provides plenty of physical comedy potential, and some of the supporting characters manage to be entertaining. Of course, any movie that takes a pro-environment, anti-homeowners’-association stance starts out on my good side. Mildly amusing

Review – Shock Treatment

I guess I can see why the studio thought this was going to work. It’s got a lot of the same ingredients of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Of course in hindsight it’s easy to see where it goes wrong, too. There’s nobody in this production who comes anywhere near the talent or screen presence of Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon or even Barry Bostwick. But more than that, the grim truth about the original is that – once all the audience-response cult appeal is stripped away – it isn’t really all that good a movie either. And with that in mind, what could possibly be worse than a cult movie with no cult appeal? Wish I’d skipped it

Review – James Elroy presents Bazaar Bizarre

I’ve long thought that the bizarre crimes of Kansas City serial killer Bob Berdella would make a good movie. Unfortunately, this ain’t it. Instead, this is a half-assed mélange of bad interviews, graphic re-creation of the crimes, and James Elroy opining that Berdella deserved to suffer for his misdeeds (which, however true, isn’t exactly the world’s most profound sentiment). As an extra added bonus, we get long interludes devoted to performances by an awful local band (friends of the producers, perhaps?) singing songs of no apparent direct relevance (except for the final song, which is actually about Bob). The re-enactments are sufficiently disgusting to provide a little shock value, but beyond that the most entertainment I got out of the whole thing was counting the fact errors in the Netflix description (three serious ones in a single paragraph). See if desperate

Review – How I Got into College

If you’re trying to make your way though every dumb teenage comedy from the 80s, eventually you’re going to have to take a deep breath and plunge into this one. To be fair, the experience isn’t entirely unrewarding. There are a lot of familiar faces drifting in and out, particularly Lara Flynn Boyle as the female lead. Overall, however, the only emotion stirred by this production is a vague resurgence of anxiety over SAT scores. Mildly amusing

Review – The Notorious Bettie Page

Anyone who’s ever seen Bettie Page’s old stills and shorts already knows that her work is tame to the point of boring, particularly compared to 21st century porn. However, it was disappointing to learn that the behind-the-scenes story wasn’t much more interesting than the photos themselves. Gretchen Mol does a solid job in the title role. The production is full of art house conceits (such as switching back and forth between black and white and color depending largely on location). Overall this is a so-so production, far from the worst movie I’ve ever seen on the subject of sex, but also not exactly the best. Mildly amusing