A Simple Favor

Cocktails and besties, the perfect combination.

(2018) Suspense (Lionsgate) Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding, Eric Johnson, Jean Smart, Sarah Baker, Gia Sandhu, Kelly McCormack, Glenda Braganza, Linda Cardellini, Andrew Rannells, Rupert Friend, Joshua Satine, Ian Ho, Glenda Braganza, Danielle Bourgon, Andrew Moodie, Bashir Salahuddin, Aparna Nancheria, Gia Sandhu, Katherine Cullen. Directed by Paul Feig

Da Queen will tell you that I love a good whodunit. Da Queen will also tell you I despise a lazy one. A Simple Favor falls somewhere in between; I don’t love it but I don’t hate it either.

Stephanie (Kendrick) is a suburban supermom who has a mommy vlog full of life hacks for moms and so on. Her son (Satine) is a school chum of the son (Ho) of Emily (Lively), a high-powered public relations VP for a high-powered New York fashion firm led by the aptly named Dennis Nylon (Friend) who never met a wardrobe he couldn’t insult, especially if it didn’t involve his own clothing line.

Stephanie and Emily bond over martinis and quickly become besties, sharing their deep dirty secrets – Emily’s marriage to struggling writer Sean (Golding) is crumbling. Emily’s job is demanding more and more of her time and Stephanie is only too happy to pick up both boys from school, but then one night, Emily doesn’t come to pick up her boy – nor does she show up the next day. Stephanie fears the worst.

But Stephanie is a bit of an amateur sleuth and when the police don’t seem to have any leads on the whereabouts of Emily, Stephanie takes over looking for the lost item as any proper mom would. And what she finds…isn’t what she expects.

Paul Feig, director of Bridesmaids, isn’t afraid to inject some humor – okay, a lot of humor – into the neo-noir thriller. Sometimes, the movie seems almost schizophrenic at times. The tone varies from light to dark and sometimes in between. The chemistry between Lively and Kendrick absolutely works; they both look like polar opposites but it isn’t hard to see what draws the two characters together. The humor works well, but surprisingly it’s the thriller portion that’s less successful; the denouement isn’t hard to figure out in advance and the movie definitely loses narrative steam during the last third. Still, the things that work in A Simple Favor work very well; the things that don’t can be overlooked.

REASONS TO SEE: Kendrick and Lively have excellent chemistry.
REASONS TO AVOID: More or less mindless entertainment, appearances to the contrary.
FAMILY VALUES: There is sexual content and some graphic nudity, drug use, violence and profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: While the character of Emily is a heavy drinker, Blake Lively (who plays her) has been a teetotaler all her life.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Hulu, Microsoft, Vudu. YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/10/20: Rotten Tomatoes: 85% positive reviews: Metacritic: 67/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Gone Girl
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Searching

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The Incredibles 2

The Incredibles live in a bubble.

(2018) Animated Feature (Disney*Pixar) Starring the voices of Holly Hunter, Craig T. Nelson, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Vowell, Huckleberry Milner, Catherine Keener, Eli Fucile, Bob Odenkirk, Michael Bird, Sophia Bush, Brad Bird, Phil LaMarr, Isabella Rossellini, Jonathan Banks, Barry Bostwick, Adam Gates, John Ratzenberger, Bill Wise, Kimberly Adair Clark. Directed by Brad Bird

 

Pixar’s 2004 animated superhero movie The Incredibles is for many fans of comic books their favorite offering from the computer animated giant. After 14 years, director Brad Bird has finally found a story to tell that he thinks is worthy of the franchise, but is it?

Well, nearly. A telecommunications mogul (Odenkirk) and his whiz-kid sister (Keener) want very much to lift the superhero ban that has hamstrung the caped heroes of old but rather than choosing Mr. Incredible (Nelson) as their poster boy, instead they select his wife Elasti-Girl (Hunter) who is far less destructive and a role model for women. With new superheroes coming out of the woodwork, Mr. Incredible becomes something of a house-husband taking care of angsty teenager Violet (Vowell), hyperactive kid Dash (Milner) and baby Jack-Jack (Fucile) who is developing some destructive powers of his own. However, there’s a villain (LaMarr) out there who is hypnotizing people through their computer/smartphone/tablet screens into acts of violence. Can Elasti-Girl stop the carnage?

Maybe it’s just the glut of superhero films talking but this feels kind of tired and old hat. The technical end is, as we’ve come to expect from Pixar, dazzling and the superhero battles (including one between Jack-Jack and a persistent raccoon) rival anything Marvel or DC have done. Hunter does a great job carrying the film largely but as with most team superhero movies, there are too many characters and that means many of them get little sunlight. Overall, the movie feels aimed more at a younger audience (despite the subtext that those devices that connect us to the Internet fail to connect us to life) but at just about two hours in running length, it seems a bit much to ask most kids to sit still for that much time.

REASONS TO SEE: The superhero battles are nicely done.
REASONS TO AVOID: Very formulaic and predictable; it feels like it was aimed at a much younger audience than the first film.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some comic book action violence and some mild profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Dash is shown eating Sugar Bombs, the chocolate frosted version of which is the favorite cereal of Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Movies Anywhere, Netflix, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/14/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 94% positive reviews: Metacritic: 80/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Fantastic Four
FINAL RATING: 6.5/10
NEXT: Destination Dewsbury

You Again

Jamie Lee Curtis keeps an eye out for Michael Meyers while Sigourney Weaver is just happy there are no aliens about.

(2010) Comedy (Touchstone) Kristen Bell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver, Odette Yustman, Victor Garber, Kristin Chenoweth, Betty White, Jimmy Wolk, Sean Wing, Kyle Bornheimer, Billy Unger, Christine Lakin, Meagan Holder, Patrick Duffy. Directed by Andy Fickman

We can’t escape our high school years. Try as we might, they follow us around like embarrassing photographs, our most ill-advised moments and heartbreaking renderings of teen angst caught in living color. Like it or not, we are shaped by those years. Surviving them just makes us stronger.

Marni Olsen (Bell) is living proof of that. She is a beautiful, confident marketing vice-president at a public relations firm whose career is on an upward spiral. She’s a far cry from the awkward teenager with the bad skin, braces, terrible fashion sense and unreliable social skills that she was. She was tormented by J.J. (Yustman), the head cheerleader with a vicious streak who refers to Marni as “Moo” (Marni’s middle name is Olivia which should be a lesson to expecting parents when coming up with names for their kid) and does everything humanly possible to make her high school experience comparable with a four year-long root canal. But Marni has moved past all that.

She’s come home for her brother Will’s (Wolk) impending nuptials to what sounds like a living saint named Joanna, who works with the underprivileged and so on. Of course this being a Hollywood film, we all know who Joanna used to be right? Right! From that moment, Marni makes it her mission to subvert the wedding because she knows that Joanna will make Will’s life miserable too.

Marni’s mom Gail (Curtis) tries to talk Marni down from her neurotic treehouse but Marni is having none of it. Of course, all that comes to a screeching halt when Gail meets Joanna’s Aunt Ramona (Weaver) who was Gail’s high school nemesis. Marni’s dad Mark (Garber) – on a strange diet where he is required to eat blindfolded (don’t ask) – is at first befuddled by all this but his bemusement evaporates as things get out of control.

Also along for the hilarity is Betty White as Grandma Bunny which is yet another Betty White shocking grandma role, Kristin Chenoweth as a Southern-fried wedding planner and Kyle Bornheimer as Joanna’s obsessive ex.

There are well-dressed people falling into swimming pools. There are inopportune ant bites. There is True Love that Triumphs Over All. Yeah, this is a Hollywood romantic comedy and we’ve seen it all before.

Still, I can’t quite bring myself not to like this movie.  For one thing, it’s got Weaver and Curtis, two of the strongest actresses of the past thirty years, and seeing them together is worth the price of rental right there (although I would have preferred to see them battling an alien with a butcher knife if I had my druthers) and Bell and Yustman are both wonderful eye candy.

There’s a warm center to the movie that overcomes many of its sins. I was charmed by Garber and Chenoweth as well as the four leads and even if I knew what was coming, it still entertained me when it finally arrived and left me with the warm fuzzies when the credits finished rolling. The movie got a critical savaging when it was released and I can kind of understand why – there isn’t a lot of inventiveness here. Still in all, there is enough charm and wit to keep its head above water; I was pleasantly surprised by this one.

WHY RENT THIS: It’s Jamie Lee Freaking Curtis and Sigourney Frickin’ Weaver. More charming and warm than it got credit for.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Yeah, we’ve seen it all before in dozens of other movies. Gags are a little rote and telegraphed big time.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s some mildly bad words but this is Disney so nothing too out-of-control.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Referencing a joke in the movie, Weaver and Curtis wore the same dress to the film’s premiere.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There’s a three minute Funny or Die sketch of the four main actresses sniping at each other during an interview, a gag reel and an “ask the cast” segment in which they give their opinions on various romantic questions.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $32M on a $20M production budget; the movie was a financial disappointment.

FINAL RATING: 6/10

TOMORROW: Get Smart

Hancock

The Fresh Prince don't get any fresher than this.

(2008) Superhero (Columbia) Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman, Eddie Marsan, Jae Head, David Mattey, Thomas Lennon, Johnny Galecki, Nancy Grace, Mike Epps, Hayley Marie Norman, Darrell Foster, Liz Wicker.  Directed by Peter Berg

We look to our heroes to be paragons of virtue. They are handsome (or beautiful), brave, selfless and modest. However, not all heroes are built that way. Sometimes it takes more of a hero to overcome the lack of those qualities and still remain heroic.

Hancock (Smith) is one such. He is irritable and socially awkward. He is also a raging alcoholic who often makes a shambles of his attempts to help – the clean-up bills for his appearances are often more than what he prevented from being stolen. The public despises him because of his attitude and his apparent uncaring that his actions cause millions misery.

One day he rescues an idealistic P.R. flack named Ray Embrey (Bateman) from certain death when he stops his car from being hit by a train. Grateful, he takes Hancock home for dinner, introducing him to his wife Mary (Theron) and his son Aaron (Head). Ray offers Hancock his services to help rehabilitate his image but Hancock sullenly declines. Mary, who has taken an intense dislike to Hancock, tells Ray he’s a lost cause and to forget him.

Part of Hancock’s issue is that he has no memory of his past. He doesn’t know how he wound up where he is, only that he’s there. Now he wants more, having had a taste of a normal life. Reluctantly, he agrees to have Ray rehabilitate him.

Part of Hancock’s rehabilitation involves him making amends, so Hancock agrees to go to prison to make up for all the damage he’s caused. While there Ray designs a new suit for him so that when the city becomes besieged by criminals who are attacking citizens with impunity, realizing Hancock isn’t around, Hancock will be ready to display his new image – and he does and as Ray predicts, people begin to love him. However, there is something on the horizon – something that goes back to the secret of Hancock’s past, something far more insidious or deadly than any super villain.

In many ways, this is one of the more imaginative super hero movies to come along. Here we have a hero who isn’t particularly likable, played by an actor who is known for his charm. The result is a little surprising. We’ve never seen Will Smith like this before.

Bateman, who is currently one of the most sought-after comedic actors in the business, was more or less known more for his TV roles as a juvenile (and getting his career jumpstarted again with “Arrested Development” after essentially losing the 90s to drug use and alcohol) before Hancock and it is his performance here that really ignited his movie career.

Theron has good chemistry with Smith and her little secret is surprising (if you haven’t seen the movie I won’t reveal it here) and well-played. Unfortunately, the studio blundered into revealing the secret in the trailer so if you haven’t seen the trailer, don’t watch it before renting the movie.

The special effects are surprisingly unremarkable, although I think most of the big-budget big-ticket superhero movies have pretty much shown off all a superhero can do, at least at present. There is a climactic battle that doesn’t seem particularly spectacular, although there are some shots that are pretty nifty.

What I like about the movie is the smart premise and the different take on the superhero, one who is vulnerable emotionally and not always there to save the day for the right reasons. He is fully capable of messing up, and often does, doing more harm than good despite his best intentions – and his intentions aren’t always his best. Hancock is depicted as going through the motions, another day at the office. Even a superhero has off days.

There is a generous amount of humor here but the filmmakers play it surprisingly safe, which I think is a good call. Turn this into a spoof and it just becomes another shot at comic book fandom (and there are plenty of those out there). However, play it straight and it becomes a serious look at what makes a hero heroic. We see that the best of men can be humbled, and it is often the not-quite-the-best of men who make the best of heroes.

WHY RENT THIS: An unusual take on the superhero genre. Bateman is awesome in a role that helped turbo charge his career. 

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: A noticeable shift in tone from the first part of the movie to the last reel.

FAMILY VALUES: A little bit of action-like violence peppered by a few bad words here and there.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: In the scene where Mary gets ready for bed, she is wearing a Macalester College t-shirt; that is director Peter Berg’s alma mater.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: There is a single disc DVD with just the movie, a two-disc Special DVD edition which has both the theatrical release and unrated versions of the movie, also available on the Blu-Ray which gives viewers the option to watch the eight-part making-of featurette as a picture-in-picture accompaniment to the main movie.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $624.4M on a $150M production budget; the movie was a hit.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: Conan the Barbarian (2011)

The Queen

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip feel the love.

(2006) Drama  (Miramax) Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Sylvia Syms, Alex Jennings, Helen McCrory, Roger Allam, Tim McMullan, Douglas Reith, Robin Soans, Mark Bazeley, Earl Cameron, John McGlyn, Lola Peploe, Pat Laffan. Directed by Stephen Frears

Queen Elizabeth II of England is one of the most public figures of the last half-century, but how little we know her. For most of us, she is this cold, unemotional creature more or a figure than a real person. Few have been allowed inside the inner sanctum of her heart.

One of the most emotional weeks in recent British history was the week following the untimely death of Diana, the former Princess of Wales in 1997. Tony Blair (Sheen) had just been elected Prime Minister and had met, along with his bemused wife Cherie (McCrory),  with Queen Elizabeth (Mirren) just prior for the royal family’s departure to their summer estate at Balmoral in Scotland. It was there that they were given the awful news of the car accident in Paris and anxiously watched the BBC through the night like the rest of us until the final word was received. 

Elizabeth’s first thought was to Diana’s sons, Harry and William, who were understandably devastated. She had been trained to treat the tragedy as a private matter for the family, with dignity and public stoicism befitting the monarch of the realm, a decision supported by her husband Prince Phillip (Cromwell) and the Queen Mother (Syms). However, Blair, who was the first to publicly speak about the tragedy, was disturbed to find that there was increasing sentiment that the British people wanted – needed – to hear their monarch speak on the issue, whereas the Royal family were loathe to do so, resisting more the harder he pushed. Prince Charles (Jennings), the ex-husband of Diana, was somewhat weak but still understood what was happening politically. Nonetheless, the family stayed in Balmoral in seclusion until Blair had to demand that the Queen return to London to be with her subjects. There she would at last be forced to address the issue and allow her subjects to publically grieve with her, one of the most extraordinary turn of events in recent British history. 

There are some terrific performances here, particularly Mirren who once again turns in an Oscar-caliber performance as Elizabeth. She’s been nominated twice for a Supporting Actress (in 1995 and again in 2002) but this would be the movie that finally got her the statuette. She portrays Elizabeth as a stoic, highly private person who is slow to realize that the world has changed and her role as monarch needed to change with it. She captures the queen’s mannerisms nicely, and breathes life into a personage that is somewhat two-dimensional, at least here in America. In the end, she adapts to her new role with admirable graciousness which seems to be in character with the woman Mirren was portraying. 

Cromwell does a terrific job as Phillip, playing him as a cantankerous and stuffy aristocrat whose belief in the rightness of his cause blinds him to the damage he is doing to his own position. In many ways his portrayal is exactly the way most Americans see the aristocracy of Europe as somewhat prissy, arrogant and bone-headed, refusing to enter the 21st century even as time has passed their sort by. Whether or not this is accurate is subject to debate; however, many Americans share this view which has been reinforced often in films and television.

Sheen is sympathetic as Blair, who is at first in awe of the Royals, then grows frustrated by them and at last comes to admire them. Blair – who would have his own fall from grace later in his career – was then the fair-haired boy of British politics (the Hugh Grant character in Love Actually was modeled on him somewhat) and his actions during the crisis of Diana’s death cemented him in the hearts of the British people for years. Sheen captures Blair’s political savvy and his somewhat awkward self-consciousness in the presence of the Royals. Much of the movie is seen through his eyes, and quite frankly it’s an effective way of acting as an audience surrogate.

Frears gives us what feels like a real glimpse into the royal household, albeit one that is largely conjecture. For example, there is a sequence involving Elizabeth’s encounter with a magnificent buck in the countryside at Balmoral which follows her most emotional scene of the movie. It is lit in almost a heavenly manner, and one gets the feeling that there is more to it than meets the eye. Obviously, there’s no way of knowing if anything of the sort ever happened, and if it did, well, the Queen isn’t talking. Then again, perhaps this movie is talking for her. Mirren’s performance elevates it from what could have been movie-of-the-week territory to something more splendid.

WHY RENT THIS: A rare glimpse into the Royal household, even if much of it is conjecture. An Oscar-winning career-defining performance by Mirren, as well as solid performances by Cromwell and Sheen.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: A little bit on the slow side, pacing-wise.

FAMILY MATTERS: There’s a little bit of strong language and a disturbing image of a dead buck.

TRIVIAL PURSUITS: Mirren had so inhabited the role of the Queen that by the end of the shoot, slouching crew members would often stand at attention and hold their hands respectfully behind their backs when addressing Mirren.

NOTABLE DVD FEATURES: While commentary tracks are standard with nearly every DVD and Blu-Ray these days, there is one here by monarchy expert and British historian Robert Lacey that provides a great deal of illumination not only to the traditions of the royal family but also to what happened during tht week in particular.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $123.4M on an unreported production budget; the movie was a blockbuster.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

TOMORROW: Source Code