Planes

The rain in Planes falls mainly o the…well, er, planes.

(2013) Animated Feature (Disney) Starring the voices of Dane Cook, Brad Garrett, Teri Hatcher, Cedric the Entertainer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, John Cleese, Carlos Alazraqui, Priyanka Chopra, Gabriel Iglesias, Stacy Keach, Brent Musburger, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, Roger Craig Smith, Sinbad, Colin Cowherd, John Ratzenberger, Emerson Tenney, Kari Wahgren. Directed by Klay Hall

The latest Disney animated feature is a spin-off from the animated world of anthropomorphic Cars although it takes place above that world. Welcome to the shiny aerial world of Planes.

Dusty Crophopper (Cook) is a crop-duster, a single-engine plane who was built for the specific purpose of spreading pesticides and manure on crops (mostly corn, which is apparently the source of fuel in the world of Planes). Dusty want more out of life – “I’ve flown thousands of miles and never gone anywhere” he complains.

What he really wants is to be a racer, and the Wings Across the Globe race is the perfect outlet for him. With the support of his friends Chug (Garrett) and Dottie (Hatcher), Dusty trains relentlessly and even though he gets a lot of skepticism and negativity thrown his way, he perseveres. He gets into the race where he is befriended by Bulldog (Cleese), a obsequious Spitfire, Ishani (Chopra) a lovely Indian and the would-be ladies man El Chupicabra (Alazraqui).

Not everyone wants to succeed. Ripslinger (Smith) is gunning for his historic fourth consecutive win i the race and nothing and nobody will get in his way, particularly a crop-duster with delusions of grandeur. As it turns out, Ripslinger will go to any and all lengths to nail down that win and if it means that some planes must crash and burn, well….

Although this is based on a Pixar movie, this actually isn’t a Pixar film, even though John Lasseter co-wrote and produced it. No, it was animated by the wizards at DisneyToons, their direct-to-video arm and that was the intention for this as well. However, the stars aligned nicely for Planes – a planned King of the Elves feature shut down and somebody noticed the merchandising potential of the new characters, thus it was added to the theatrical release schedule a bit late in the game.

Quite frankly, I expected direct-to-video quality and I was somewhat surprised when I found this comparable to Pixar’s work in Cars and its sequel. There are a lot of clever little asides (such as the plane-looking rock formations near Propwash Junction where Dusty, Chug and Dottie reside. There are also air traffic controllers at Kennedy Airport who talk with JFK-esque accents, and German planes drinking fuel from beer steins.

There also isn’t much in the way of story and characterization which cobble elements from …well nearly every animated feature of the last 20 years. Skipper (Keach), a crotchety old war hero, is a dead ringer for Paul Newman’s Doc Hudson, El Chupicabra makes a nice Puss in Boots (albeit not quite as cute) and Dusty could easily be the title character from Turbo. In fact, most of the characters are pretty bland, generic characters you’ve met before in other movies. As for the plot, well, this isn’t the first movie that tells us that it’s okay to dream big because if we want something bad enough and have the support of our friends, we can accomplish anything.

I did like the overall charm of the movie and I will venture to say that if you compare this to most direct-to-video fare this is miles and miles ahead of those. Frankly, this deserved the theatrical release it got – it certainly isn’t as bad as some of the other animated features out there that were always intended to hit the theaters (I’m looking at you, Planet 51. Hop and Astro Boy).

REASONS TO GO: Maintains the goofy charm of Cars. Clever in places.

REASONS TO STAY: Runs the gamut of animated feature clichés. No really memorable characters.

FAMILY VALUES:  Suitable for everyone – there’s a bit of semi-rude humor and a couple of action scenes that might scare the kids a little but nothing I wouldn’t feel comfortable sending an 3-year-old to.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Bravo and Echo, two Air Force jets who Dusty runs into during his around the globe race, are voiced by Val Kilmer and Anthony Edwards who played fighter pilots in Top Gun; their flight helmets are identical to those worn by the actors in their live action roles.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/21/13: Rotten Tomatoes: 26% positive reviews. Metacritic: 39/100.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Great Race

FINAL RATING: 5/10

NEXT: Riddick

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World War Z

Flying zombie, disinterested extras.

(2013) Action (Paramount) Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, Matthew Fox, David Morse, Ludi Boeken, Fana Mokoena, Elyes Gabel, Peter Capaldi, Pierfrancesco Favino, Ruth Negga, Moritz Bleibtreu, Sterling Jerins, Abigail Hargrove, Fabrizio Zacharee Guido, David Andrews, Vicky Araico. Directed by Marc Forster

When in the midst of a global pandemic, the sheer magnitude and scope of the carnage can be overwhelming. You can’t wrap your head around it. Instead, everything boils down to the basics – protecting yourself, protecting your family.

Gerry Lane (Pitt) used to work for the United Nations as an investigator into human rights abuses. He was put in harm’s way frequently, going to some of the worst cesspools of humanity that you can imagine. Tired of being away from his family and knowing his marriage wouldn’t survive much more of him being away and in jeopardy, he retires and goes home to Philadelphia to be the dad to his daughters Constance (Jerins) and Rachel (Hargrove), not to mention husband to his wife Karin (Enos).

But all of that turns upside-down after being caught in a traffic jam in which seemingly normal humans turn into super-rabid flesh-eating ghouls, zombies for lack of a better term. He manages to steer them to safety in the apartment of a Hispanic family whose son Tomas (Guido) shows a bond with Gerry’s daughters. Gerry gets a call from his old U.N. boss Thierry Umutoni (Mokoena) who offers to airlift Gerry and his family (which now includes Tomas) to an aircraft carrier in the Atlantic. Gerry is in no position to turn it down.

But there’s no such thing as a free ride and Gerry is expected to earn his keep. Umutoni wants Gerry to find the source of the plague so that it might be cured. Gerry doesn’t want to leave his family but the U.N. Military Commander (Dale) essentially blackmails Gerry into it so off he goes with gung-ho U.N. research virologist Dr. Fassbach (Gabel) to find out how to stop this plague which will wipe out civilization in a matter of days if it isn’t stopped.

So begins the roller coaster ride as Gerry and his team go from place to place in a desperate race against time to find the cause of the plague and somehow cure it before civilization collapses entirely, and that collapse is coming almost as fast as the terrifyingly speedy zombies who seem to have the upper hand.

This isn’t a typical zombie movie in which entrails and blood form the main fascination. While there is some leg munching, we rarely see the zombies in close-up except in the last third of the film when Lane is in a World Health Organization research facility in Wales and has a close encounter with a tooth-clicking zombie that is as terrifying as the opening Philadelphia sequence is. If only the middle third was as good as the opening and closing sequences.

There is a lot of carnage but most of it is off-screen. People do get killed but we rarely see it precisely, making it a definite PG-13 kind of movie. There will be those who miss the explicit gore that comes with a zombie movie but I didn’t think it necessary myself here.

Those who loved the Max Brooks book this was based on will miss a lot more than gore. The movie follows the book only in the barest of chalk outlines. While some of the characters from the book appear here, it is often in different contexts. The tone and themes of the book are essentially gone, along with the whole conceit that this is an archival document of a war that had already ended.

Pitt is one of the more appealing actors in Hollywood and he uses that here to make Gerry a character with a bit of a one-track mind – getting back to his family. Da Queen loved that the U.N. Observer was so…observant. Watching him connect the dots was fun, although not as fun as watching the zombies crawl up a stone wall like ants. While the digital zombies lacked character (the way that you get zombie character in such things as The Walking Dead) it is certainly fun watching them swarm. It emphasizes the inhuman portion of them.

This is basically Pitt’s show. He is onscreen nearly every moment and the focus of all our attention. Few of the other characters are developed at all, if any and for the most part even Pitt’s Gerry is kind of one-note. Still, the suspense of walking in dangerous areas with zombies about is impressive and I found myself on the edge of my proverbial seat for much of the movie. Think of it as extra icing on the zombie cake.

REASONS TO GO: I really liked the Brad Pitt character and his performance. Zombies like ants; great visuals!

REASONS TO STAY: Fans of the book will be very disappointed. A little all over the place plot-wise.

FAMILY VALUES:  There’s quite a bit of zombie violence, some disturbing images and some intense sequences of suspense.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Matthew Fox’s role was originally much larger and was to be set up to be the human villain for the expected sequel. However after multiple re-writes the role was slimmed down to just five lines of dialogue.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/6/13: Rotten Tomatoes: 67% positive reviews. Metacritic: 63/100; the film got surprisingly decent reviews.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Darkest Hour

FINAL RATING: 7/10

NEXT: White House Down

The Hunt for Red October

Sean Connery lights up the screen.

(1990) Thriller (Paramount) Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Sam Neill, Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones, Joss Ackland, Richard Jordan, Peter Firth, Tim Curry, Courtney B. Vance, Stellan Skarsgard, Jeffrey Jones, Fred Dalton Thompson, Tomas Arana, Gates McFadden. Directed by John McTiernan

 

There are weapons of war – planes, ships, tanks, subs – that we all know about and each side keeps tabs on and has whatever countermeasures that are available to combat them. All sides have them and it keeps things honest. What if there was a weapon of war that only one side had, one which avoided the whole Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine and gave one side a critical advantage, one which in order to have would have to be used without the knowledge of the other side?

In this classic Naval thriller set during the Cold War the Soviets have done just that. The Red October is a submarine with a propulsion system that allows it to run virtually undetected by sonar (who might mistake it for whales). This is bad news for the Americans who would never know if the sub parked itself off the Atlantic seaboard and start lobbing nukes into New York City, Washington, Boston, Philadelphia…hell all over the northeast with virtually no warning.

Captain Marko Ramius (Connery) realizes that this is the only use a sub such as this would have; the Red October has nearly zero maneuvering skills and  isn’t particularly fast. He knows that the vessel he has been tasked with taking on a trial run could mean the end of everything. Therefore he enters into a pact with his senior officers, including his second-in-command Borodin (Neill) to do the unthinkable.

In the meantime the CIA is frantic. They’ve monitored a new sub leaving the shipyards and then disappearing as monitored by the USS Dallas’ crack sonar operator Jones (Vance). His captain, Bart Mancuso (Glenn) is mystified. So is the CIA. Admiral Greer (J.E. Jones) has never heard of this kind of vessel. His expert in Soviet subs is Jack Ryan (Baldwin), an analyst who is currently living in London. They put him on the first flight to DC where he is shown some pictures of a sub with an odd pair of openings in stern. Ryan takes the pictures to a sub builder (Jeff Jones) who realizes what it could mean.

Soon it becomes apparent that something extraordinary is going on. The entire Soviet fleet is scrambled, apparently searching for something. Ryan reports his findings to the President’s defense counsel, including his most senior advisor Jeffrey Pelt (Jordan). While the military men think that this signals that an attack on the U.S. is imminent, Ryan – who wrote the C.I.A.’s analysis on Ramius suddenly realizes that Ramius might be intending to defect.

Nobody really thinks Ryan is for real but Pelt wants to hedge his bets; if he can get his hands on a piece of Soviet hardware this advanced, the opportunity has to be at least explored. He sends Ryan – who is not a field agent – to the Dallas (which is by no means an easy feat) to intercept the Red October and determine his intentions – while trying to keep out of the way of the entire Soviet and U.S. Fleet which are trying to sink her.

Jack Ryan is the creation of former insurance agent and now bestselling author Tom Clancy who has made his career out of these political thrillers with military overtones. Clancy knows his military hardware and while even at this date nothing like the Red October exists (at least to the knowledge of the general public), it certainly is within the realm of possibility.  This was the first Jack Ryan novel to make it to the screen and its success both critically and commercially paved the way for three other movies to make the transition (with a fourth scheduled for Christmas 2013).

A large reason for this is Connery. He brings dignity and gravitas to the part of Ramius. Though this is a Jack Ryan film it is Ramius you will remember and it is in many ways his show. The relationship between Ramius and Borodin is crucial in the film and Connery has some pretty believable chemistry with Neill.

The sub chase sequences are as good as any you’re likely to see with the possible exception of Das Boot. I also found the political intrigue that goes on during the movie to be second to none; you get the sense that everyone is playing a game that is unique to themselves, from the ship commanders on up to the President himself. That may well be how it is in real life.

There are some who have criticized Baldwin’s low-key performance as Ryan; certainly I think Harrison Ford nailed the part better in later versions of Jack, but I don’t think Baldwin is that bad. He plays it more intellectual and less action than Ford but that’s all right – his performance is well-suited for the film, which really makes most of its action bones with the sub duels rather than individuals. In that sense it’s the captains of the various vessels involved who make the action heroes here.

There is definitely an 80s film sensibility here (it was shot in 1989) although it would open the door for the 90s political film ethos. In a very real way this is one of the movies that transitioned the 1980s action film into the 1990s special effects film. As such it’s a classic and to my mind one of a kind. I do not necessarily agree with Clancy’s political beliefs, but the man can write an excellent story and he has done so here; I’m not entirely sure if he likes the movie that came of his imagination but I know that I do.

WHY RENT THIS: Quite realistic. Details are superb. Connery, Baldwin, Jones and Glenn are amazing. Great sets and breathtaking story.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Something of a throwback to cold war attitudes.

FAMILY VALUES:  Some violence, a few adult themes and a bit of swearing.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: When the film was released on VHS, the tape was colored red.

NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $200.5M on a $30M production budget; this was a blockbuster.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Das Boot

FINAL RATING: 9.5/10

NEXT: Uncertainty