Here Comes the Boom

Neither Salma Hayek nor Kevin James have read the reviews yet.

(2012) Comedy (Columbia) Kevin James, Salma Hayek, Henry Winkler, Gregg Germann, Joe Rogan, Gary Valentine, Chance, Bas Rutten, Reggie Lee, Mark DellaGrotte, Mookie Barker, Jackie Flynn, Nikki Tyler-Flynn, Melissa Peterman, Thomas Gallagher, Blaine Stevens, Jonathan Michael Trautmann, Germaine De Leon, Steven Ritchie, Shelly Desai, Earnestine Philips. Directed by Frank Coraci

In an era where education cuts are commonplace, schools more and more have had to find creative ways to fund their various programs that are no longer getting support from their local school districts. It can be a challenge for public schools to keep things like art and music on the curriculum when funding often requires school boards to choose between math and science and the arts.

Scott Voss (James) is a biology teacher just going through the motions at Wilkinson High, a school where falling revenues have led to all sorts of budget cuts. The latest round is jeopardizing the music program and the job of Marty Streb (Winkler), Scott’s friend. Scott feels bad and wants to do something, but is unsure of how to raise the revenue that would pay Marty’s salary and save the program.

Scott also teaches a U.S. citizenship course in the evenings to help make ends meet and one of his students (Rutten), a former MMA fighter, gives Scott – a former NCAA champion wrestler – the idea to do some MMA fights and use the losing purse money to help pay for Marty’s salary. At first the idea is pooh-poohed but Scott feels very strongly about this and begins training with his student to get stronger. In the meantime, he is romancing Bella Flores (Hayek), the school nurse – and if my school nurse had looked like that, I’d have been sick a lot more often, who is for the most part disinterested but now that Scott has come alive both as a fighter but also in the classroom as well, is beginning to regard him in a new light.

The students begin cheering for Scott, inspired by his dedication and newfound passion. However, making the approximately $50K needed to save the music program is no easy task and time is ticking down before the opportunity to save Marty’s job ticks away.

This is one of those sports comedies that is pretty much predictable from beginning to end. Movies like this depend on likable leads and they don’t come any more likable than Kevin James. He’s got a very blue collar, down-to-earth personality that is perfect for the small screen and doesn’t always translate well to the big one, but does in this case.

What doesn’t work is the plot which requires quite the suspension of disbelief; school officials don’t act like this and neither do MMA fighters. More worrisome is the lack of humor in the comedy. While there were some fairly funny bits (almost all of them in the trailer), for the most part the movie just plugs along getting by on its charm and the obvious charisma of Hayek and James.

The MMA sequences are realistic enough, given that James is in no way shape or form an MMA athlete, but he acquits himself all right all things considered. Of course, if you’re watching this movie for realistic MMA sequences, chances are you’re in need of some form of therapy or another. Still, there are less pleasant ways to spend an hour and a half and less pleasant people to spend it with. If “pleasant” is an adjective for movies that doesn’t bother you, this might be just the thing for you.

WHY RENT THIS: Nothing here that is objectionable. James is pleasant and Hayek is gorgeous.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Really formulaic and a bit unrealistic. Needs a bit more funny stuff.
FAMILY VALUES: Some sports violence, a little rude humor and a bit of mild profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The car that James and his friends ride in is the same one James drove in the early seasons of King of Queens.
NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: There is a gag reel, a featurette on the real-life fighters that appear in the film and a fascinating featurette on James’ training to become an MMA fighter.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $73.1M on a $42M production budget.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix (DVD/Blu-Ray Rental only), Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, Flixster, Google Play, M-Go
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Hitch
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Ride Along 2

New Releases for the Week of October 12, 2012

ARGO

(Warner Brothers) Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, Kerry Bishe, Kyle Chandler, Tate Donovan, Clea DuVall, Victor Garber, Zeljko Ivanek, Richard Kind. Directed by Ben Affleck

Most people are aware of the Iranian Hostage Crisis which occurred on November 4, 1979 when Iranian “students” overran the U.S. embassy and took all of the personnel hostage. What isn’t well-known (and only came to light after top secret documents were recently declassified) was that six American embassy workers escaped to the home of the Canadian ambassador. There’s no doubt if they are discovered they will all be killed and in a most unpleasant way. That’s when a CIA operative comes up with a wild plan so bizarre it just might work.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: True Life Drama

Rating: R (for language and some violent images)

Arbitrage

(Roadside Attractions) Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Brit Marling, Tim Roth. A Wall Street mogul tries to hide the evidence of his sins – an extramarital affair, financial impropriety and a drunk driving accident – while his company is in the middle of a merger that will allow him to retire. However, a bulldog-like detective is on his trail. This was screened this past January as part of the Sundance Across America program (which was in turn part of the Sundance Film Festival) at the Enzian and was reviewed here.

See the trailer, a clip or stream the full movie here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Financial Thriller

Rating: R (for language, brief violent images and drug use)

Atlas Shrugged Part II

(The Strike) Samantha Mathis, Jason Beghe, Esai Morales, Diedrich Bader. With the global economy collapsing, innovators and artists disappearing from sight and the world in the throes of a debilitating energy crisis, a beautiful and resourceful industrialist thinks she may have found the answer – a motor, discovered in the ruins of a once-thriving factory, that could conceivably solve the energy crisis and bring the economy back. However, the motor doesn’t work and there are forces in play that don’t want it to work. The inventor must be found or civilization may very well collapse.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Mystery

Rating: PG-13 (for brief language)

Here Comes the Boom

(Columbia) Kevin James, Salma Hayek, Henry Winkler, Joe Rogan. After his school, faced with massive financial shortfalls is forced to cut all extracurricular activities, a teacher with a background in college wrestling resolves to make up the deficit by earning money in MMA bouts. His determination and devotion to his students ends up inspiring the staff and kids in unexpected ways.

See the trailer, clips and a featurette here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Comedy

Rating: PG (for bouts of MMA sports violence, some rude humor and language)

Seven Psychopaths

(CBS) Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Woody Harrelson. A group of misfits who make a little extra cash on the side by kidnapping pets and returning them for the reward money pick the wrong Shih Tzu to steal when they kidnap the beloved dog of a vicious mobster. Caught in the middle is their screenwriter friend who needs to figure out a way out of this mess before things get out of control – if they aren’t already. From the writer-director of In Bruges.

See the trailer, a promo and a spoof trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Caper Comedy

Rating: R (for strong violence, bloody images, pervasive language, sexuality/nudity and some drug use)

Sinister

(Summit) Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Fred Dalton Thompson, Clare Foley. When a novelist and his family move into a new home they discover a cache of old home movies that seem to indicate that the previous owners of the home fell victim to some sort of demon. He soon discovers that seeing is literally believing – and that his own family is now in danger because of it.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Supernatural Horror

Rating: PG-13 (for some disturbing and sexual images)

Zookeeper

Kevin James talks to his target demographic.

(2011) Family (Columbia) Kevin James, Rosario Dawson, Leslie Bibb, Joe Rogan, Ken Jeong, Cher (voice), Nick Nolte (voice), Adam Sandler (voice), Sylvester Stallone (voice), Judd Apatow (voice), Jon Favreau (voice), Maya Rudolph (voice), Faizon Love (voice), Don Rickles (voice). Directed by Frank Coraci

 

There’s a Hollywood platitude that a smart actor never works with kids or animals. Of course if a career is going to have any longevity, it is inevitable that one will someday have to work with either or both. If you’re going to do a movie set in a zoo…well, be prepared to be upstaged.

Griffin Keyes (James) is a zookeeper who really loves his job. He enjoys interacting with the animals in his charge and cares very much about them. He is a kindly, genial sort who is also quite shy and a bit clumsy. He is trying to get over the rejection given him by Stephanie (Bibb), his ex who turned down his elaborate marriage proposal five years earlier. It devastated his self-confidence and led him to an existence with virtually no social life.

He has earned the respect of the zoo’s veterinary zoologist Kate (Dawson) who sympathizes with his plight. Stephanie had dumped him because he was a zookeeper, someone with a limited income and limited possibilities. Of course Stephanie is a shallow materialistic individual that has no business with guy like Griffin anyway but Griffin doesn’t see that.

He has a chance to win her back, even though she’s seeing an ex-boyfriend named Gale (Rogan) who is as mean and as shallow as she is. The animals, thinking that Griffin will leave them unless he finds a girl in town who will keep him there, decide to give Griffin dating advice so that he can win the girl.

Of course, this unnerves Griffin more than a little bit. It turns out however that animals can in fact talk and just choose not to because it freaks out the humans when they do. Griffin particularly bonds with Bernie the Gorilla (Nolte) who is depressed. Griffin cheers him up (by taking him to a TGI Fridays of all places) and the two become best friends. No comment on being the best friend of a primate, please.

Of course Griffin must eventually make  a choice between Stephanie and a life as a successful car salesman and Kate and a life as a humble zookeeper. I’m sure you’ll be able to guess which way the wind blows on this one.

The movie got critically panned during its release last year and it made a few “Worst film of the year” lists which I think is a bit harsh. Certainly there are some misfires here.

Casting James isn’t one of them. He is one of the most likable actors working in Hollywood and it’s hard not to root for him, even if his romantic leads of Bibb and Dawson don’t seem to be the types who would fall for pudgy older men. Of course, as a pudgy older man I have some experience in this.

The problem here is mostly with the zoo animals. They were matched with celebrity stunt voice casting which might have pulled a few bodies into the theater at the time but the CG was a little bit rough and the voices don’t always go with the animals really well.

Worse still, I get the sense that this was a movie that wanted to pull in an adult audience but the studio was aiming for a family audience and we got jokes that fell somewhere in-between. Some of the jokes were probably a bit much for kids, and others a bit dumbed down for their parents. Try to please everybody and you wind up pleasing nobody, and that statement is never truer than it is here.

There is some heart and charm and it shows through at unexpected times. Dawson does a great job as being the girlfriend everyone wants to have – just like in Clerks 2. She reminds me a little bit of Meg Ryan in that regard; she has a big future in romantic comedies in my opinion. Kevin James is also pleasant to watch.

And that really sums up the movie in a nutshell. It’s pleasant but not particularly memorable. You won’t hate it while you’re watching it but you won’t love it either. It’s just kinda…there. Your kids might get a kick out of the talking animals but something tells me that it won’t be enough for them to put it on their regular viewing list.

WHY RENT THIS: James is plenty likable and Dawson is the girlfriend every guy wants.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The animals don’t quite work out so well and the humor is mostly either too over the heads of kids or too dumbed down for adults.

FAMILY VALUES:  There is some rude humor, a little bit of innuendo and some mildly bad words. Still acceptable for nearly all audiences.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: James Hong, who voiced noodle shop owner Mr. Ping, is the son of an actual noodle shop owner.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There’s a gag reel and an in-depth look at the creation of Bernie the Gorilla in physical effects. The Blu-Ray also contains a playable demo for a Sony Playstation 3 Game.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $169.9M on an $80M production budget; the movie basically made back its production budget during its theatrical run.

FINAL RATING: 5/10

NEXT: House on Haunted Hill (1999)