Welcome to the Jungle

Welcome to the Jungle - Dir. Rob Meltzer (2014)

From the late-80-'s to the mid-90's, Jean-Claude Van Damme was a box office draw who was able to knock out the competition with a swift roundhouse kick. However, his clout slowly started to fizzle away until he fell into the almost inescapable limbo of the direct-to-video market. Lately, he's been stretching those muscles from Brussels in an effort to regain his relevance. Van Damme played himself in the reflexive JCVD, which earned him critical praise and was his first theatrical release in almost a decade. He had a really enjoyable turn as the subtly named Jean Vilain in The Expendables 2. Even some of his recent DTV projects have been out of his comfort zone. Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning was a dark and bizarre take on the franchise that was more akin to David Cronenberg or Gaspar Noé.

Van Damme has never really tried his hand at comedy before, aside from a brief cameo in Last Action Hero and the unintentional laughs of the much-maligned Street Fighter. This time around, Van Damme does the splits and dives deep into the genre with Welcome to the Jungle, which has aspirations at being Office Space with a dash of Lord of the Flies.

Adam Brody is Chris, a timid graphic designer at a big advertising firm where he's constantly pushed around by the odious Phil (Rob Huebel). Phil steals one of Chris's designs for a toilet paper campaign, yet the poor kid still can't muster up the courage to stand up for himself. Meanwhile, their incompetent boss, Mr. Crawford (Dennis Haysbert), won't do anything about it. Instead, he announces that all employees will take part in a team-building exercise on a remote island under the supervision of Navy Seal Storm Rothchild. The trip goes terribly wrong when the pilot is found dead and Rothchild is mauled by a tiger.

These white collar goofs are completely clueless until Chris teaches them survival skills he learned as a Boy Scout. Phil grows insanely jealous of Chris suddenly becoming the new alpha male and begins undermining all his orders. Using a hallucinogenic weed, Phil turns nearly everyone into an obedient savage with himself as their god. Chris escapes along with a small group consisting of best friend Jared (Eric Edelstein), the rabbit-obsessed Brenda (Kristen Schaal), and Lisa (Megan Boone from NBC's The Blacklist), the pretty girl from HR that Chris has long had a crush on.

Van Damme takes center stage in the posters and cover art in spite of his relatively small role. It's still justified as JCVD happens to be the only entertaining part of the movie as he pokes fun at his own tough guy image. Outside of Van Damme, Welcome to the Jungle labors to elicit a single chuckle or smirk in its thankfully brief 95 minute runtime. It desperately grasps for humor with repetitive and lazy jokes about gays and masturbation. All the characters are cartoons with the exception of Chris and Lisa, who are about as white bread as can be.

The Rundown, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Seann William Scott, was previously titled Welcome to the Jungle. I only point this out because that is a far better film than this painfully dull attempt at comedy. You could also do better by listening to the Guns 'N' Roses song over and over for an hour and a half.

Rating: * (*****)

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World - Dir. Lorene Scafaria (2012)

An apocalyptic love story is unique, but not an entirely new concept. There was 1988's Miracle Mile with Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham searching for one another in a chaotic Los Angeles under the threat of impending nuclear war. You could also count Don McKellar's Last Night, about intersecting lives in Toronto on their very last night on Earth. Written and directed by Lorene Scafaria (Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist), Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is a bit more bright and hopeful or as bright and hopeful as a movie can be when it's about Armageddon. Let's just say it's on the opposite spectrum of Lars von Trier's Melancholia.

Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck won't be saving anyone. The film opens with the dour announcement that a cataclysmic asteroid is about to collide with Earth and a last-ditch effort by NASA to divert it has failed. Insurance salesman Dodge Petersen (Steve Carell) gets another shock when his wife, Linda (played by Carell's real-life spouse Nancy) suddenly exits the car and runs off into the night without a word. Dodge stumbles into a numb daze while his friends throw wild parties. Eventually, he forms a friendship with Penny (Keira Knightley), the free-spirited girl next door. It turns out that Penny has been holding on to some of Dodge's mail for months, including a letter from an old flame.

As riots break out across the city, Penny agrees to help Dodge find his former high school sweetheart in exchange for getting her to England to be with her family. Accompanied by a scruffy little dog named Sorry, they embark on an epic road trip where they encounter an assortment of eccentric characters such as a trucker (William Peterson) who has decided to die via hired assassin and a military man (Derek Luke) fully stocked and prepared for the apocalypse.

It's a safe bet that no matter what Dodge and Penny will wind up together. The A-story may be a tad predicable, but Carell and Knightley make for a winning couple. They're likeable enough that you root for them on their cross-country adventure. Just as he's done in Little Miss Sunshine and Dan in Real Life, Carell gives an understated performance that mixes pathos with a dry wit. Knightley brings warmth to the role of Penny. Some critics have described her as the dreaded 'manic pixie dream girl,' perhaps because she totes around a collection of vinyl records like a safety blanket. Thankfully, Penny does not display the typical quirks of the archetype though she does resemble a pixie with her short hair and petite frame.

In addition to the leads, Scafaria has assembled a wonderful supporting cast that includes Rob Corddry, Connie Britton, Patton Oswalt, Melanie Lynskey, and Amy Schumer as Dodge's party pals. There's also Adam Brody as Penny's dim-witted musician boyfriend and Martin Sheen in an emotional turn as Dodge's estranged father. Gillian Jacobs and T.J. Miller cameo as the wait staff of a TGIFriday's type establishment that has descended into full-blown hedonism. But, some of the funniest scenes involve Dodge and his maid (Tonita Castro), who seems absolutely oblivious to the fact that all life on Earth is about to be wiped out.

Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back, world is destroyed by massive rocks from outer space. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is a breezy and bittersweet romantic comedy bolstered by some terrific performances.

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

Scream 4

Scream 4 - Dir. Wes Craven (2011)

”You forgot the first rule of remakes…don’t fuck with the original.”

It's been fifteen years since a creepy voice over the phone asked a terrified Drew Barrymore if she liked scary movies. When Scream hit theaters in 1996, it revitalized the slasher genre, spawning two sequels and a litany of knockoff franchises. A decade has passed since the last installment and I doubt there was a huge demand for another Scream, aside from the Weinsteins. The former heads of Miramax have been looking to milk the cash cow of their previous successes. Scream 4 is the first of many sequels to come with a new Spy Kids coming out later in the summer as well as spinoffs of everything from Rounders to Shakespeare in Love in development.

Neve Campbell is back once more as tormented heroine, Sidney Prescott, who returns to her hometown of Woodsboro on a promotional tour for her memoirs. No sooner does Sidney arrive then a new Ghostface emerges to hack and slash his way through a smorgasbord of good-looking victims. Also returning for this latest R-rated Scooby Doo mystery is reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox), who is still adjusting to small town life as the wife of Dewey (David Arquette), now the sheriff of Woodsboro. New to the film series are Sidney's cousin, Jill (Emma Roberts), and her best friend, Kirby (Hayden Panettiere), as one of the hottest horror movie aficionados ever. Replacing the late-Randy Meeks are Robbie (Eric Knudsen) and Charlie (Rory Culkin), two geeks who run the high school film club and record everything 24/7 with their webcam.

What set the original Scream apart from its pale imitators was the clever screenplay by Kevin Williamson, which played with the conventions of the horror genre. The movie was filled with self-aware characters ironically commenting on the very clichés they were occurring around them. It's not too much of a surprise that Wes Craven was drawn to the production as Scream came out two years after Wes Craven's New Nightmare, a meta-textual sequel in which Freddy Krueger stalked the cast and crew behind the movies.

After skipping out on the last picture, Williamson is back on scripting duties though Ehren Kruger (who penned Scream 3 in his absence) was brought on for last-minute rewrites. The final product still bares the Scream trademarks of self-aware humor, walking a thin line between satire and horror. A lot has changed since the initial film and Scream 4 attempts to address everything from the current state of horror movies to new technologies. Craven and company spread themselves too thin trying to tackle so many topics and come up short each time.

There are brief mentions about the lack of originality in Hollywood, the spate of remakes, and the rise of torture porn. At one point, Kirby lists nearly every major horror movie that has been remade in the past few years. Empty name-dropping seems to be the best they could do. One character comments that the old rules have changed, the kills have to be much more extreme. However, the kills in Scream 4 aren't very extreme or unique. Ghostface follows the same M.O. as always stalking unsuspecting victims then gutting them with a butcher knife. There are multiple scenes of victims running up staircases and kicking away their attacker.

As a part of the YouTube Generation, the young characters of Scream 4 are far savvier about technology than their predecessors. Everyone has an iPhone, but most of the gags about webcams and internet streaming feel like they were written five years ago. Not to mention these sorts of things have already been touched upon in other (inferior) movies like Halloween: Resurrection and FeardotCom. The one bit that does work involves a Ghostface App that allows callers to disguise their voice as the infamous murderer.

The filmmakers also try too hard to maintain the meta-textual elements that had already been exhausted by the previous installments. Characters drop remarks about how this is the point in the movie where everyone feels they're safe until the killer shows himself. And what do you know; everyone feels they're safe until the killer shows himself. There's an underlying layer involving the film's starlets, Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox. Their characters have become inexorably linked to the events of the original film and have yet to move past them. In particular, Gale Weathers has yet to break a new story to surpass the first Woodsboro murders. The actresses themselves have yet to achieve the movie star status predicted by many following the original Scream. The script also throws in a few heavy-handed comments about established stars who have earned their fame and the newcomers who have undeserved done so through viral marketing and reality television.

Scream 4 is also rife with plot holes and it's difficult to tell if the writers got sloppy or if they were an intentional callback to its inspirations. Where exactly are the parents? Evidently, the perfect time to leave your kids alone is when a maniac killer is on the loose. How does the killer get around so quickly on foot? Meanwhile, how do the cops never arrive in time despite driving around in police vehicles? Then again, considering the police department is run by David Arquette…

Most of the script problems can be forgiven due to a quality ensemble with many of them giving fantastic performances. The two best performances come from Hayden Panettiere and Alison Brie from Community and Mad Men. Sporting a short hairdo, Panettiere is wonderful as the sexy and sassy Kirby. She's the best she's ever looked. Brie goes for the gusto as Sidney's snarky, opportunistic publicist. Also good is Marley Shelton in a small role as spunky deputy with a crush on Dewey, of all people. You don't feel too bad when she meets an inevitably grisly fate. As the franchise's holy triumvirate, Campbell, Cox, and Arquette have become old hat at playing their characters and some of the most noteworthy scenes involve the three of them. There's also a cool opening sequence of false starts featuring a bevy of young beauties like Aimee Teegarden, Kristen Bell, and Anna Paquin.

Scream 4 does feel like the same old routine, despite promises of new decade, new rules. It may not be perfect, but it is a fun popcorn film that plays out more like a dark comedy than a straight horror movie. It largely ignores the events of the second and third pictures, making it a true sequel in spirit to the original.

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

SPOILER WARNING: My thoughts on the ending in the comments section.

Cop Out

Cop Out - Dir. Kevin Smith (2010)


Bruce Willis is Jimmy Monroe and Tracy Morgan is Paul Hodges, a pair of NYPD detectives who have been partners for nine years. After botching a drug bust, Jimmy and Paul are suspended without pay by their angry precinct captain. Yes, he does force them to turn in their badges and guns, but we never hear anything about the mayor shitting bricks.

With his daughter, Ava (Michelle Trachtenberg), about to be wed, Jimmy needs cash to pay for the ceremony and hopes to cash in on a valuable baseball card. Just as he’s about to have it appraised, the shop is robbed and the card snatched up. Jimmy and Paul are able to catch one of the thieves, a motor-mouthed practitioner of parkour named Dave (Seann William Scott). From him, they learn the card is now in the possession of a wannabe kingpin known on the streets as Poh Boy (Guillermo Diaz). This leads to a stolen Mercedes, a kidnapped woman (Ana de la Reguera) locked in the trunk, and Po Boy’s plot to take over the drug rackets on the entire east coast. Meanwhile, Paul is constantly worried that his wife, Debbie (Rashida Jones), is cheating on him.

Cop Out marks the first time Kevin Smith has directed a film not based on his own script. Smith is certainly an unlikely director-for-hire. His name certainly coming up due to getting along swimmingly with his fellow New Jerseyite on the set of Live Free or Die Hard. Smith, by his own admission, isn’t the most visual of directors. He and his long-time cinematographer David Klein have produced their slickest looking film to date, but the action is far too bland to excite.

The script (originally known under the far superior title of A Couple of Dicks) by Robb & Mark Cullen is a throwback to the Shane Black-style 80’s buddy cop flicks. Adding to the feel, the synth score for Cop Out is composed by Harold Faltermeyer of Beverly Hills Cop fame. But, the sad attempts at comedy here pale in comparison to films like the aforementioned Beverly Hills Cop as well as 48 Hrs. and Lethal Weapon. The movie strains under childish gags like Seann William Scott annoyingly repeating what other people say.

Bruce Willis essentially plays Bruce Willis here and that’s worked out well for him, but Tracy Morgan proves he’s not ready for a leading role. On 30 Rock, Morgan is hilarious in those short bursts. However, his Tracy Morgan shtick wears thin after an hour and forty minutes.

It’s said that every hero is only as good as his villain. If that’s the case, the heroes are incredibly weak considering their weak villains. Poh Boy and his gang are some of the least menacing and least memorable bad guys in recent memory.

Cop Out opens with Morgan interrogating a prisoner by quoting lines from random films like Jaws, Star Wars (it is a Smith film), Dirty Dancing, and even Die Hard. To paraphrase Roger Ebert, you never want to remind the audience of movies they’d rather be watching.

Rating: * ½