Spy Kids: All the Time in the World

Spy Kids: All the Time in the World - Dir. Robert Rodriguez (2011)

Robert Rodriguez has made his name as an innovative and visually inventive director in the action genre. He exploded onto the scene with the ultra-low budget El Mariachi before moving on to blockbusters like Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, and Sin City. In between his R-rated pictures, Rodriguez has helmed the kid-friendly series of Spy Kids movies. It's not too surprising considering Rodriguez is the father of five boys.

It made sense that the third movie, Spy Kids: Game Over, would launch the franchise into 3D. Eight years later, the fourth entry, Spy Kids: All the Time in the World was advertised as being presented in 4D. Time is considered to be the fourth dimension and while it plays a large role in the film, the 4D also referred to Aroma-Scope, Rodriguez's attempt to bring back Smell-O-Vision. Audience members were given scratch 'n' sniff cards, along with their 3D glasses, which gave them a whiff of scents like bubblegum, bacon, and chocolate. Perhaps, Spy Kids 5D will see the return of William Castle's "Tingler" gimmick where theaters are equipped with electrified seats. The following review is for the plain, old 2D version of Spy Kids.

Jessica Alba stars as Marissa Wilson, the top agent for the OSS, the Organization of Super-Spies. In her final mission before retirement, Marissa tracks down and captures Tick Tock, a villain who uses weapons that can temporarily freeze people in time. Why is she retiring? Because she's nine months pregnant and goes into labor while battling Tick Tock's henchmen. Rodriguez was inspired to make the movie after watching Alba change diapers on the set of Machete.

Marissa faces all new challenges as a happy homemaker. Her husband, Wilbur (Joel McHale), spends all his time working on his new reality show, Spy Hunters, where he fruitlessly searches for spies hiding in society. Her step-children, Rebecca (Rowan Blanchard) and Cecil (Mason Cook), can't stand her and are always pulling messy pranks on her.

Marissa is called back into action by her superior, Danger D'Amo (Jeremy Piven), when a new supervillain known as the Timekeeper begins stealing time. This causes the days to flow faster than normal. The Timekeeper's next move is to activate the Armageddon Device and the only thing that can stop it is a gem called the Chrono Sapphire. As it turns out, Marissa gave it to Rebecca as a gift. Thus, the kids are dragged into the mission and teamed with the original Spy Kids, Carmen (Alexa Vega) and Juni (Daryl Sabara), who are all grown up. They receive help from a robotic attack dog named Argonaut (voiced by Ricky Gervais).

Spy Kids unfolds at a fast and furious pace, which is perfect for anyone who might have the attention span of a goldfish. It's a cinematic sugar rush; all candy colored and powered by hefty amounts of caffeinated cola. The youngsters will be entertained, but older folks might get a headache. The plot doesn't make a lick of sense and is bogged down by blunt messages about the importance of family. There's a disturbing amount of scatological humor with jokes about dog poop and farts. The heroes also incapacitate the bad guys with a dirty diaper and a bag of vomit. Joel McHale and Ricky Gervais are talented comedians, but neither man is given strong enough material to elicit even a modest chuckle. All the Time in the World also could have used the presence of past stars like Carla Gugino, Cheech Marin, and Danny Trejo (who only appears in a quick one scene cameo).

It's ironic that the theme of Spy Kids: All the Time in the World is about living in the present and not dwelling on the past. The Weinstein Company has been cannibalizing their own past in an effort to resurrect their successful franchises to grab some quick cash. I don't know if anyone was truly clamoring for another Spy Kids movie and after watching this latest one, it's doubtful their minds were changed. All the Time in the World is the definition of junk food cinema, a movie lacking in substance and not at all healthy for consumption.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

Beginners

Beginners - Dir. Mike Mills (2011)

Beginners is a semi-autobiographical film from writer/director Mike Mills and based on his experiences with his father, who came out as a gay man at the age of 75 before dying of cancer five years later.

Standing in for Mills is Ewan McGregor, who stars as Oliver Fields, a graphic designer still coming to grips with the death of his father, Hal (Christopher Plummer). Oliver's parents entered into a marriage of convenience in the 1950's with Hal as a closeted homosexual and his wife, Georgia (Mary Kay Keller), a Jew. Both maintained appearances in order to move about in high society. They stayed together for nearly fifty years until Georgia's death. Five months later, Hal reveals to his son that he is gay and finds a renewed zest for life. Hal embraces gay culture by going clubbing, starting letter campaigns in support of gay-friendly politicians, and hosting movie nights where they watch The Times of Harvey Milk.

Beginners is told through three points in time. We see flashbacks to Oliver's unique childhood with his free-spirited mother as well as his relationship with his father as he battles terminal cancer. In the present, a melancholy Oliver falls in love with a beautiful French actress named Anna (Mélanie Laurent). The two meet in the cutest of all meet cutes. Oliver dresses as Sigmund Freud for a Halloween party where he dispenses in-character advice to other party-goers. Anna, dressed as communist spy Julius Rosenberg, lays on the couch next and communicates entirely through a notepad due to a case of laryngitis.

On a surface level, Beginners has all the quirky trappings of hipster cinema. Oliver and Anna engage in French New Wave inspired dates that involve roller skating through the lobby of a ritzy hotel and creating graffiti art during the late hours of the night. When Oliver learns his dad has a tumor in his lungs the size of a quarter, Mills cuts to a quarter followed by twenty five cents worth of pennies, nickels, and dimes. Oliver also inherits Hal's dog, a scruffy little Jack Russell terrier named Arthur, who communicates through subtitles like "I can understand up to 150 words, but I can't talk." Mills pushes the boundaries into being self-consciously cool from time to time. However, Beginners has a genuine soul not found in its insufferably twee brethren. The films of Mills' wife, Miranda July, come to mind.

Beginners finds a delicate balance between sorrow and joy. While some scenes could only happen in a movie, the dialogue is sharp and never feels phony. The performances from the lead actors are wonderful with Ewan McGregor headlining the movie with an understated turn. Mélanie Laurent brings a graceful beauty and soulfulness to her character and never devolves into the archetype of manic pixie dream girl. Christopher Plummer will likely earn an Oscar nomination for his whimsical performance as Oliver's elderly father.

Rating: *** (*****)

Larry Crowne

Larry Crowne - Dir. Tom Hanks (2011)

Tom Hanks has earned his reputation as an all-around nice guy and one of the most likeable actors in Hollywood. Hanks brings every ounce of that likeability for Larry Crowne, which marks his second film as a director following his debut behind the camera with 1996's That Thing You Do!

Hanks stars as the titular Larry Crowne, a mid-level employee for U-Mart, a big-box retailer resembling Target. Larry enlisted in the Navy straight out of high school and never went to college. This lack of higher education is cited as the primary reason for his lack of promotion into upper management. Since he can no longer advance any further, U-Mart executives decide to fire him despite years of exemplar service.

Larry finds himself in an all too familiar situation as a divorced, middle-aged man who is now unemployed and saddled with a mortgage he can no longer afford. Left with few options, Larry decides to enroll in community college. Thus begins a series of life-changing events for our affable protagonist.

First, he trades in his gas-guzzling SUV for a sporty scooter and befriends the cute and free-spirited Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who renames him "Lance Corona" and recruits him into her scooter gang. She even gives Larry a makeover, giving him a new hairdo and ditching his dorky polo shirts for a hip leather jacket. Next, Larry signs up for a morning class on informal speaking taught by the disillusioned Mercedes Tainot (Julia Roberts). Not only has she lost her passion for academia, but she also deals with a husband (Bryan Cranston), who considers posting on internet message boards as creating a beachhead in new media. He also surfs for porn, but since this is a PG-13 movie, the women are fully clothed.

In addition to directing, producing, and starring in Larry Crowne, Tom Hanks co-wrote the script with Nia Vardalos, whose My Big Fat Greek Wedding was championed by Hanks and wife Rita Wilson. Vardalos has yet to recapture the same success and the middling response to the clichéd Larry Crowne won't change that. The way in which the film offers sitcom solutions to complex issues borders on condescension. Is a degree from a community college really going to protect someone from the economic downturn? I know people with Master's degrees who are still having a rough time in the job market. How does Larry Crowne still manage to stay afloat in Los Angeles while working as a part-time short order cook? Sometimes Crowne comes off more as a man going through a mid-life crisis when he's wearing a leather jacket and wallet chain.

Larry Crowne was released the same weekend as Transformers: Dark of the Moon. It certainly serves its purpose as counter-programming to the hordes of loud, effects heavy blockbusters. Hanks and Roberts (who gets more beautiful with age) have a winning chemistry together and there are some fun performances from Taraji P. Henson and Rami Malek as an annoyingly dim classmate. Without a doubt, the best thing in the movie is George Takei as an eccentric economics professor. The boisterous Takei steals every one of his scenes. I wouldn't want to see Larry Crowne 2, but I'd readily shell out twelve bucks to see a spin-off starring the former Mr. Sulu.

It's obvious Larry Crowne was meant as a soothing salve on the gaping wounds caused by the financial collapse with Hanks serving as a modern day Frank Capra or Preston Sturges. Sadly, Hanks is unable to capture the heart and wit of those cinematic masters. It is simply populist pabulum with a tone as affable and easy-going as its leading man.

Rating: ** (*****)

13

13 - Dir. Géla Babluani (2011)

Remakes happen all the time. On occasion, those remakes will be helmed by the director of the original movie. Cecil B. DeMille first made The Ten Commandments as a silent film in 1923 before his more iconic version in 1956 with Charlton Heston. Alfred Hitchcock did the same with The Man Who Knew Too Much, which he originally directed in 1934 then remade in 1956 as well. Both directors were more experienced and polished the second time around and the remakes have become more renowned than their predecessors. Those may be exceptions to the rule. More often than not, the remake is considered a lesser picture compared to the original. Michael Haneke's Funny Games is a prime example though I'm not a fan of either version. The Pang Brothers' Bangkok Dangerous, which featured the unique concept of a hitman who was deaf. For the American remake starring Nicolas Cage, the lead was no longer deaf and the results were met with derision. This brings us to 13, a remake of 13 Tzameti, both of which were directed by Georgian-French filmmaker Géla Babluani.

Vince Ferro (Sam Riley) is an electrician whose family is drowning in debt. They are unable to make mortgage payments on their home and Vince's father requires expensive medical care. He overhears his employer discuss a lucrative opportunity after receiving a mysterious envelope. When said employer overdoses on heroin, Vince steals the letter and follows the byzantine instructions while unknowingly eluding the police.

Vince is taken to a ritzy mansion in the countryside and is shocked to learn he has become a participant (number 13) in a high stakes game of Russian roulette. The contestants are given a single bullet then stand in a circle and forced to aim a gun at the back of the next man's head. The survivors are given one more bullet with each successive round. The final round is a face to face duel between the last men standing. All the while, gangsters and wealthy ne'er do wells bet millions of dollars on who will live and die.

The majority of the competitors remain anonymous, but the narrative does delve into the back stories of two others. Mickey Rourke plays Jefferson, an American locked up in a Mexican prison after a heist who is shanghaied into the game. Ray Winstone is Ronald, who won last year's tournament and is checked out of a mental hospital by his brother, Jasper (Jason Statham).

Released in 2005, the original 13 was a minimalist noir shot in stark black and white. Babluani's film was a prescient parable about the wealthy elite exploiting the middle and lower classes. His remake is little more than empty imitation. For a movie where the stakes are life and death, 13 surprisingly lacks any tension. The original had a genuine sense of claustrophobia and you could almost smell the sweat on the brows of the players. Here, you just want the movie to hurry up and get on with it. Meanwhile, the histories of Jefferson and Ronald are dropped clumsily into the story. While Ronald and Jasper play relevant roles in the third act, Jefferson's didn't even need to be there.

13 has a stellar cast in its favor. Sam Riley, who was impressive as doomed Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis in Control, gives a strong performance as Vince. There are also solid turns from Rourke, Winston, Jason Statham, Michael Shannon as the emcee, Ben Gazzara as a dapper gambler, Alexander Skarsgard as Vince's handler, and David Zayas as a police detective. The worst performance, however, comes from rapper Curtis "50 Cent' Jackson, who might want to spend some money on acting lessons after his embarrassingly wooden turn here.

Despite an ensemble cast of name actors, 13 sat on the shelves for over a year before being released directly to video. 13 isn't so much a bad movie as it is a bland one where everyone involved seem to be going through the motions.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers - Dir. Paul W.S. Anderson (2011)

Paul W.S. Anderson is a name feared by all right-thinking film critics. Much like Michael Bay, M. Night Shyamalan, and Uwe Boll, when Anderson's name appears in the credits, nothing good can come of it. Anderson takes time away from video game adaptations for The Three Musketeers, in which he turns Alexandre Dumas's seminal swashbuckling adventure into a garish and modernized thrill ride.

The story begins in Venice with Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Aramis (Luke Evans), and Porthos (Ray Stevenson) breaking into the vault of Leonardo da Vinci in order to steal blueprints for an airship. They are betrayed by Athos's paramour, Milady de Winter (Milla Jovovich), who steals the plans for Lord Buckingham (Orlando Bloom) in order to build a fleet of flying war machines.

A year later, the Musketeers are now living in disgrace. Athos has become a drunkard, Aramis is relegated to being a glorified meter maid, and Porthos lives off richer women. Along comes the hotshot D'Artagnan (Logan Lerman) who hopes to follow in his father's footsteps as a Musketeer. They band together and uncover a plot by Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) and Milady to plunge France into war against England by fabricating an illicit affair between Buckingham and the Queen (Juno Temple).

The Three Musketeers lives up to the reputation of its director as a mindless spectacle that is light on intelligence and heavy on action. There's plenty of lavishly choreographed swordfights such as when the Musketeers face the Cardinal's guards with the odds ten to one. These clashes are broken up with slow motion flourishes in the vein of Zack Snyder or the Wachowskis. Anderson's wife, Milla Jovovich, gets her chance to shine once again performing Resident Evil-style stunts while wearing ornate 17th century gowns and tight corsets. Her Milady is part-Mata Hari and part-ninja assassin. It's all so ludicrous, but the movie is pushed into absurd boundaries when a steampunk element is introduced through the use of flying pirate ships armed with turrets and flamethrowers. And just when all this action builds to a crescendo, it sinks like the Hindenburg thanks to a non-ending that shamelessly sets up a sequel.

Matthew Macfadyen and Luke Evans give solid performances as Athos and Aramis while Ray Stevenson follows Thor by once again playing the boisterous member of a trio of warriors. Logan Lerman is far too white bread to leave any impression as D'Artagnan and his romance with Gabriella Wilde as one of the Queen's ladies in waiting is equally bland. Christoph Waltz is never given the chance to really shine as one of the movie's many villains. As the Cardinal's henchman, Rochefort, Mads Mikkelsen is easily the best thing in Musketeers, playing a one-eyed man for the third time after Casino Royale and Valhalla Rising. Orlando Bloom is the worst thing in the movie. His attempts at playing an over-the-top bad guy are awful and thoroughly unconvincing.

As he did with Resident Evil: Afterlife, Anderson shot The Three Musketeers in 3D, but the process hardly adds anything to the experience aside from a dimmer picture and the occasional blade pointed at your face.

The Three Musketeers cost $75 million and has so far barely scrapped together $20 million in box office gross. Surely, Summit Entertainment can find better uses for all those piles of Twilight money. Even with a strong ensemble cast, Musketeers can't offer the empty excitement expected of shallow popcorn fare.

Rating: * (*****)

The Change-Up

The Change-Up - Dir. David Dobkin (2011)

2011 has been flush with raunchy, R-rated comedies. Though it received poor reviews, The Hangover Part II was undoubtedly the biggest financial success with a box office gross of over $300 million. Bridesmaids was more critically accepted and one of the better films of the year. There were also plenty of also-rans like Bad Teacher, Horrible Bosses, Friends with Benefits, and Hall Pass. Then, there's The Change-Up which takes a low-brow, Judd Apatow-style approach to that 80's staple – the body switch movie. Think Freaky Friday and Vice Versa with plenty of dick and poop jokes.

Dave Lockwood (Jason Bateman) is a workaholic lawyer with a loving wife, Jamie (Leslie Mann), and three kids. When he's not putting in long hours at the office and bucking for a promotion, Dave is up in the wee hours of the morning changing diapers and heating formula. His best friend, Mitch Planko (Ryan Reynolds), has no such responsibilities. As a wannabe actor, Mitch spends his days smoking pot, playing video games, and having kinky sex with a steady stream of loose women. After a night at the bar, the two of them piss into a fountain while idly wishing they had each others' lives.

The next morning, Dave and Mitch are shocked to discover they've switched bodies. To make matters worse, the magical fountain has been removed and lost in a sea of bureaucracy. They must make the most of their strange situation until they can find a way to switch back. Mitch is in way over his head taking care of a family while negotiating a multi-million dollar merger. On the other hand, Dave enjoys his new freedom as a carefree bachelor. There's even the possibility of a dalliance with his gorgeous assistant, Sabrina (Olivia Wilde). Is it really cheating if you're in someone else's body?

Don't expect The Change-Up to intelligently deal with high-falutin' questions of morality. Its primary concern is revealed during an opening scene featuring a baby's undulating sphincter followed by a shot of Jason Bateman getting a mouthful of projectile feces. The scatological humor is a recurring theme in The Change-Up with another gag involving Leslie Mann making a very noisy bowel movement and Ryan Reynolds being forced to stick his thumb up a woman's butthole during a making of a "lorno" (a light porno). The woman, by the way, is played by Taafe O'Connell, the scream queen best known for being raped by a giant worm in the Roger Corman production, Galaxy of Terror. I'm no prude. I enjoy good toilet humor every now and then, but the gross-out gags of The Change-Up wear thin real quick.

If an R-rated comedy can't offer up a few decent chuckles, you can at least expect some quality nudity, but The Change-Up isn't even able to do that. While we do see several actresses in various states of undress (including Leslie Mann), those breasts were all done through prosthetics or CGI. Those delightfully digital nipples may be fool many, but later effects depicting toddlers juggling kitchen knives and banging their heads against a crib are thoroughly unconvincing.

One reason why a film like Freaky Friday works is because there is a drastic difference between the two protagonists who have switched, Barbara Harris changing with a teenaged Jodie Foster or Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan in the remake. There isn't a lot to separate Bateman and Reynolds, especially since their acting styles and deliveries aren't far from each other. Bateman gets a little more to do than simply play the straight man, but Reynolds runs through his usual wisecracking persona throughout. Alan Arkin is completely wasted in a throwaway role as Mitch's disappointed dad. Olivia Wilde provides some of the film's few bright spots just by being cool and insanely hot.

You'd think Michael Bluth switching bodies with the Green Lantern would be more fun. "The Change-Up" had a lot of potential as it starred two proven comedic actors in Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds. It was helmed by David Dobkin, the director of "Wedding Crashers," and written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, who also penned "The Hangover" movies. Unfortunately, everyone goes through the motions. The results are a movie that is lazy, puerile, and ultimately forgettable.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker - Dir. Andrei Konchalovskiy (2010)

As a film critic, I am blessed to be able to review and discuss so many great films. The trade off is that I am often forced to sit through some truly terrible ones. But, never have I run into a movie so horrible that it actually made me question my choice to become a critic. Never until The Nutcracker, a movie so wretched that it not only made me question my career choices, but made me question the very purpose of my life. Yes, the sheer horrendousness of The Nutcracker actually shook me on an existential level.

Filmmaker Andrey Konchalovskiy has had a long and varied career. He co-wrote the screenplay for Andrei Rublev with the great Andrei Tarkovsky along with directing films like Runaway Train and Tango & Cash. Okay, so they all can't be winners. Still, Tango & Cash is a cinematic classic compared to The Nutcracker: The Untold Story, a decades old dream project of Konchalovskiy's. These dreams must have come after imbibing of too much egg nog and fruitcake. Konchalovskiy and co-writer Chris Solimine adapted their script from Tchaikovsky's famed ballet and E.T.A. Hoffman's original story, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, which inspired it. There are also Nazis because everything is improved with the addition of Nazis.

The film is set in Vienna during the 1940's with young Mary (Elle Fanning) looking forward to spending Christmas with her family. Those hopes are dashed when her parents (Richard E. Grant and the director's wife, Yuliya Vysotskaya) plan to attend a lavish party with all the other bluebloods. She is further irritated by her younger brother, Max (Aaron Michael Drozin), when he callously breaks her toys. The holiday picks up when the children are visited by their eccentric Uncle Albert Einstein (Nathan Lane), who gifts Mary with a wooden nutcracker. Later that night, Mary is shocked when the Nutcracker (voiced by Shirley Henderson) comes to life. It turns out the Nutcracker, calling himself N.C., is really a prince who was transformed and banished from his land by the evil Rat King (John Turturro) and his goose-stepping minions. Together, Mary and N.C. embark on a quest to break the curse and liberate the prince's kingdom.

Konchalovskiy's production is a nightmarish melding of musical and dance while blatantly stealing from other fantasy works like The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland. Another character, a dreadlocked drummer boy named Sticks (Africa Nile), looks like he wandered away from the cast of Stomp. The second-rate Terry Gilliam style set designs and special effects range from downright laughable to ugly eyesores. There is absolutely no sense of grandeur. There's no sense of grace to the few dance numbers in the picture. The first is an approximation of the "Waltz of the Snowflakes" with Elle Fanning twirling around with snow fairies in front of some atrocious green screen work. Later, we get John Turturro effeminately prancing around before electrocuting a shark inside an aquarium tank in a random reference to contemporary artist Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. I suppose the audience is supposed to think Konchalovskiy is incredibly cultured and intelligent for throwing this into a kids' movie.

The one good thing The Nutcracker has going for it are the renowned compositions by Tchaikovsky. Unfortunately, Konchalovskiy finds a way to ruin those by drowning them out with inane lyrics by Tim Rice, who has written lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber (Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita) and Disney (Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King). Don't expect comparable work here, Rice must have pulled stuff out of his ass for a quick paycheck. The music gets off to a rotten start with Nathan Lane and his cartoonish German accent crooning a Mary Poppins-esque ditty about relativity to "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies."

Despite advertising itself as a whimsical fantasy for the whole family, The Nutcracker has enough creepy imagery that parents should be warned. In fact, some adults may also find some of its elements to be disturbing as well. When angered, Turturro's face morphs into a more deformed rat-like visage that instantly reminded me of Large Marge from Pee Wee's Big Adventure. The wooden Nutcracker also has a sinister bent with his bulging, soulless eyes. There's also an unsettling monkey man. I haven't even gotten to how the rats are rounding up all the children's toys and throwing them into a massive crematorium. Talk about poor taste.

The Nutcracker was released into theaters at the end of 2010 around the same time as Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, which also starred Elle Fanning. You might notice she looks a lot younger here. That's because this film went into production in 2007 and set for a release in December of 2009 as The Nutcracker in 3D. However, the post-conversion process was so shoddily done that it was pushed back another year while the $65 million budget ballooned to a ridiculous $90 million.

Even when I have to write a bad review about a picture, I try to be diplomatic about it. I try to find at least one or two redeeming qualities. Alas, there are none aside from the miniscule relief I felt about not having to see this crap in 3D. I cannot hold back the epic levels of hatred I had for Konchalovskiy's The Nutcracker, which has earned a whopping 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. How did anyone possibly think anything about this movie was a good idea?

Rating: DUD