She's Out of My League

She's Out of My League - Dir. Jim Field Smith (2010)

You kinda wonder what went on in the lives of Sean Anders and John Morris when they wrote the screenplay for She's Out of My League. A schlubby guy falls for a smoking hot chick, winning her over from her alpha male boyfriend while humiliating his bitchy ex-girlfriend. It's pure nerd wish fulfillment.

Jay Baruchel is cast as the same guy he always plays, the stammering, gawky geek. Here, he's Kirk Kettner, a security officer at the Pittsburgh International Airport. He's still trying to get over being dumped by his ex, Marnie (Lindsay Sloane). To heap humiliation upon humiliation, Marnie and her new boyfriend, Ron (Hayes MacArthur), remain close to Kirk's parents and they are all planning a family vacation to that faraway land known as Branson, MO. Kirk hits it off with Molly (Alice Eve), a successful event planner, after returning her missing iPhone. Kirk's insecurities over their drastic differences in looks and social class threaten to end their unlikely romance. Not even his circle of ribald friends (Mike Vogel, TJ Miller, Nate Torrence) give him a chance in Hell. She's a 10 and he's a 5. How will it ever work out? Kirk also has to deal with Molly's former fighter pilot boyfriend, an insanely jealous Marnie, and his embarrassing family.

She's Out of My League plays like a Knocked Up knock-off. It's the type of film someone makes after watching the entire oeuvres of Judd Apatow and the Farrelly Brothers. League is littered with lowbrow gags that include nut shots, gay jokes, and a sequence that involves Baruchel getting his pubic hair shaved. Another scene revolves around Kirk ejaculating into his pants and trying to stop the dog from licking it. Just as the movie never moves beyond juvenile humor, the cast never moves beyond broad caricatures. For example, Debra Jo Rupp is cast as Kirk's mother, but she's basically reprising her role as the mom from That 70's Show. Baruchel is the same stammering beanpole he has in other pictures like Tropic Thunder. He isn't given the opportunity to imbue enough charm to his character in order to make the audience root for him.

Rating: * ½

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

The Sorcerer's Apprentice - Dir. Jon Turteltaub (2010)


Two Bruckheimer productions in one summer? Thank the cinematic gods that the world has not ended underneath a torrent of special effects-laden schlock. Earlier, we saw the release of Prince of Persia, a loud and brainless movie based on a video game. Now, we have The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a loud and brainless movie loosely based on a Mickey Mouse cartoon which, in turn, was based on a poem by Goethe. Aside from a scene involving enchanted mops run amok, this Sorcerer’s Apprentice has very little to do with any of the previous versions.

The film opens in Arthurian times as Merlin (James A. Stephens) falls in a battle against the evil sorceress, Morgana le Fay (Alice Krige), after being betrayed by one of his apprentices, Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina). Merlin’s other apprentices, Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage) and Veronica (Monica Bellucci), manage to stop the evildoers. Veronica traps Morgana’s soul inside her body and Balthazar in turn traps them both inside a nesting doll. Over the centuries, Balthazar has captured over evil sorcerers (including Horvath) within layers of the doll as he searches for the Prime Merlinian, a magician with the power to destroy Morgana once and for all.

Flash forward to New York City in the year 2000 where a young boy named Dave Stutler (Jake Cherry) stumbles upon a magic shop run by Balthazar. Just as he realizes Dave is the chosen one, Horvath is accidentally freed from his prison. The wizards battle and entrap each other in an enchanted vase for ten years.

Flash forward again to the present day and both are finally released. Meanwhile, a grown-up Dave (Jay Baruchel) is now a physics student at NYU. Since that fateful day, he’s had countless hours of therapy and was forced to transfer to a new school. Dave still has a crush on fellow student, Becky Barnes (Teresa Palmer), who he knew back in grade school. Dave is thrust into the strange world of magic when he’s placed under the tutelage of the eccentric Balthazar. Together, they must stop Horvath from freeing Morgana and resurrecting an army of the dead to conquer the world.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice takes us on a Cliff Notes edition of the hero’s journey. Much as he did in his last film, She’s Out of My League, Baruchel is the gawky nerd who overcomes his doubts to win the day and get the pretty girl. Director Jon Turteltaub, who previously helmed the National Treasure films, makes sure to throw in plenty of whiz-bang special effects, a car chase, a giant steel eagle, a dragon, and even a few Hadokens for the Street Fighter II fans. Apprentice bounces from lengthy exposition to action sequence in breakneck manner.

Cage sports one of his least bizarre hairstyles for one of his least bizarre roles. It’s refreshing to see Cage restrain himself from his usual mugging of the camera. On the other hand, Molina realizes what a Z-grade film he’s starring in and acts accordingly with mustache twirling glee. The same goes for Toby Kebbell as a Criss Angel-esque illusionist.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is the perfect movie for those of you who think Harry Potter could use more explosions and less of those pesky things like plot and character development.

Rating: * ½

How To Train Your Dragon

How to Train Your Dragon - Dirs. Dean DeBlois & Chris Sanders (2010)


Dreamworks Animation has always played second fiddle to Pixar. Films like Antz and Shark Tale haven’t come close to matching the quality of A Bug’s Life or Finding Nemo. Kung Fu Panda and the first Shrek were good though the latter has become a franchise of diminishing returns. It’s taken a long time, but Dreamworks has produced their best movie to date in How to Train Your Dragon.

On the island of Berk is a village of Vikings constantly under siege by dragons. Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) is the son of the village’s leader Stoick (Gerard Butler). While Stoick is the biggest, burliest of the Vikings, Hiccup is an awkward, neurotic beanpole. Hiccup apprentices for a one-handed blacksmith named Gobber (Craig Ferguson) though his gadgets are never taken seriously. Using a catapult of his invention, Hiccup manages to bring down the most dangerous of all dragons, the Night Fury.

Hiccup finds the injured dragon, but cannot bring himself to kill the feline-like creature. Naming him Toothless, the pair bond quickly and Hiccup begins cataloguing all manner of dragon behavior. All of these new facts conflict with everything the Vikings are taught about dragons being utterly savage. Hiccup and a band of young warriors must protect the dragons’ nest when Stoick leads the others on a mission to wipe them all out.

How to Train Your Dragon bares many superficial similarities to Avatar. Both films feature protagonists that embark on almost identical hero’s journeys. However, Dragon manages to capture the wonders of flight in a slightly better manner. The 3D here gives you a slight sensation of flying without any nauseous side effects. The film even has a Superman-like moment when Hiccup takes love interest Astrid (America Ferrera) for her first dragon ride. It’s not essential to see it in 3D since the process does dull the vivid colors of the animated world.

What works best for Dragon isn’t some fancy new gimmick, but the relationship between Hiccup and Toothless which is the heart of the film. In lesser hands, Dragon would have been filled with anachronistic pop cultural references and the dragon would have been voiced by a high-priced celebrity. Remember Dragonheart? No? There’s a reason. Co-directors Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders previously worked on Lilo & Stitch which dealt with comparable themes. They manage to convey all the right emotions without being bogged down by on-the-nose dialogue. DeBlois and Sanders also bring some of the same irreverent humor exemplified by a gag in which Stoick presents his son with matching Viking helmets made from their late mother’s breastplates.

Wonderfully animated, How to Train Your Dragon is worth catching in the theaters.

Rating: ***1/2

Fanboys

Fanboys - Dir. Kyle Newman (2008)


A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a pair of writers, Ernest Cline & Adam F. Goldberg, wrote a script called Fanboys. The screenplay was snatched up by Kevin Spacey’s Trigger Street Productions and the Weinstein Company. The film was scheduled for release in 2007, but in a rare move, the Weinsteins gave the filmmakers more money to shoot additional scenes. Internet circles were abuzz, but reshoots were delayed until all cast members were available. Even then, original director Kyle Newman was unavailable and reshoots were taken over by Steven Brill (Drillbit Taylor) whose lack of Star Wars knowledge and profanity laced emails (in response to fan attacks) won him no popularity contests. Harvey Weinstein stepped in, looking to excise a cancer storyline in favor of more nudity and crude humor which prompted fans to start a ‘Stop Darth Weinstein’ petition. The film was finally released in an extremely limited run at the beginning of 2009 before being dumped to DVD this May.

So, was it worth the wait? This fanboy says, ‘no.’

Fanboys stars a core group of four friends; Eric (Sam Huntington), Linus (Chris Marquette), Hutch (Dan Fogler), and Windows (Jay Baruchel). All of them diehard Star Wars fans eagerly awaiting the release of the upcoming of Episode I. Eric was once best friends with Linus before drifting apart after ditching their dream of becoming comic book creators for a safe job at his dad’s car dealership. Eric returns to the fold when he’s informed that Linus has cancer. The quartet make a pact to break into Skywalker Ranch and steal a print of Phantom Menace for Linus to see before its too late. From there, the movie becomes a standard road trip film as the boys get into all sorts of misadventures such as a brawl with Star Trek fans, taking peyote in the desert with Danny Trejo, and meeting an angry Harry Knowles (Ethan Suplee) in Austin, Texas. Along the way, the film is littered with cameos from Star Wars personalities such as Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, and Ray Park as well as Kevin Smith (who was the second choice to play Knowles after Lost star Jorge Garcia) and Apatow players Seth Rogen, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson.

Fanboys acts as both an homage and send-up of obsessive geek culture. It takes a few jabs at the exceedingly high expectations that fans had for the new Star Wars films without actually commentating on its quality. Much like Phantom Menace, there was a lot of anticipation for Fanboys so it’s a shame that the humor is so unoriginal. Gags include characters arguing over incestuous feelings between Luke & Leia and a Trekkie (sorry, Trekker) angering our heroes by calling Han Solo a ‘bitch.’ I wasn’t expecting any deep insights into the thought processes of the average nerd, but I was expecting some inventiveness in the jokes. Fanboys won’t be very accessible to anybody who hasn't memorized every line from the trilogy.

Those of you familiar with Jay Baruchel’s gawky beanpole act in Knocked Up and Tropic Thunder will get more of the same. He provides some of the film’s most amusing moments including a funny Willow reference. Kristen Bell also shows some sparks as the token female of the group. Meanwhile, Dan Fogler sucks the life out of nearly every scene he’s in with his Jack Black-lite act.

Rating: **

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist - Dir. Peter Sollett (2008)

Michael Cera and Kat Dennings bum around NYC looking for love and music.

Cera continues to milk his awkward teen in a hoodie gimmick in yet another teen comedy. Not as witty as Juno or outrageous as Superbad, Infinite Playlist is a saccharinely sweet love story that rambles along until a less than satisfying conclusion. The script juggles two major plot lines between Nick, Norah, and their respective exes along with a more entertaining subplot involving Norah’s drunken best friend lost in the city. And it’s all set to a soundtrack that came right out of your standard hipster’s iPod Nano.

Kat Dennings is going to give Ellen Page a run for her money as the young, sardonic it girl while Jay Baruchel makes a 180 turn from his usual gangly dweeb roles for a role as a sleazy dweeb.

Infinite Playlist is Before Sunset for the Juno generation. It tries hard to capture the spirit of the 80’s classics of John Hughes, but I doubt it will be remembered as fondly in twenty years time.

Rating: **