Movie Review - Planes

Director: Klay Hall
Starring: Dane Cook, Brad Garrett, Stacy Keach, Teri Hatcher
John Cleese, Carlos Alazraqui, Priyanka Chopra, Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Year: 2013

With the success of Cars, it was inevitable that there would be ripoffs.  It was a good movie, if you have kids to share it with, and I guess some people might call it good entirely on its own.  It's got nice music, fun characters, and really cool visuals.  But the visuals are about all that Planes shares.  You can't just copy a hit, even with permission, and expect the same results.  Cars 2 didn't even enjoy the same success and it boasted the same cars and the same voices.  I guess some surprisingly good children's movies are just untouchable, as silly as that is to say about an animated film.  But this one wasn't as good as that one, not by a long shot.

Dusty is a crop duster.  He's been flying all his life, logging hours & hours, miles & miles, but he's never really gone anywhere.  He dreams of becoming a racing plane, the fastest craft in the country.  And when he enters a time trial, he just might have a shot.  An old flier named Skipper teaches Dusty what he knows, and the surprisingly fast duster barely makes it into the race.  But he's in way over his head, racing alongside veterans, some who are willing to impart some wisdom, some who are not.  Dusty tries his best, becoming a fan favorite, but will his desire to win be enough, or will he fall just short of greatness?

Top Gun Junior anyone?  It was like a movie for kids that was supposed to be as cool as Maverick and Goose.  And actually, Anthony Edwards and Val Kilmer made an appearance, playing two fighter planes.  But that wasn't enough to save the film.  It just wasn't great.  The visuals were amazing, animated air acrobatics, scene after beautiful scene of a race around the world.  But the rest was pretty crappy.  Dane Cook was completely awful & unemotional as Dusty, delivering every line with a fervor that must have taken him mere seconds to spew up.  The side characters were pretty bad too, including a Mater wannabe named Chug, although I actually liked the British plane voiced by John Cleese.  I ended up just barely liking the film as a whole, due mostly to the visuals and cool animated locales.  The rest of the movie actually took away from my enjoyment, creating a project that was doomed from the start, a copycat that didn't try very hard to be anything but mediocre.

My rating: ☆ ☆ ☆

Movie Trailer - Home

Director: Tim Johnson
Starring: Rihanna, Jim Parsons, Steve Martin, Jennifer Lopez
Release: March 27th, 2015

I don't think I'd let my kids watch this, let alone watch it with them.  And not because there's something wrong in it but because there's something wrong with it.  It can't be just me; this looks like the worst animated movie in the history of cinema, right?  It doesn't come out for a long while; maybe they'll have decided to cancel it by then.

Movie Review - For Your Consideration

Director: Christopher Guest
Starring: Catherine O'Hara, Harry Shearer, Parker Posey, Eugene Levy
Christopher Guest, Christopher Moynihan, Jennifer Coolidge, Fred Willard
Year: 2006

Christopher Guest is the king of the mockumentary.  His is a comedic style that can be duplicated but can't be outdone.  Speaking to the camera as if they were being interviewed, the actors in his films come across as caricatures more than characters, mocking a genre, an industry, and humanity in general.  You know a Guest film the moment you see one: Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and most recently For Your Consideration.  It is the last film he directed, and it's not truly a mockumentary, but it still gives you a fix if you're looking for hilarity in an offbeat way.  I've missed Christopher Guest and his motley crew these past eight years, and I'm hoping for a return to the screen, because yeah this one was alright, but I want more; more humor, more of the old style, and more of what I love.

What we have here is a film within a film.  A group of partly washed up, partly emerging actors have come together to form the cast of a new project entitled Home for Purim.  It's a heart-rending drama about a Jewish family from the deep south who have all come home to see their poor dying mother.  As we watch the movie come together, we begin to meet the people who will make it come to life.  A director who ignores the script, producers who have literally no clue, agents who are sleazy beyond belief, actors who are just trying to make a name for themselves, and the Hollywood media circus that muddles it all up.  When the film begins to get a little Oscar buzz, the cast and crew go wild with excitement, hoping for a miracle that will win them all the fame they've been searching for.

I remember watching this film when it first came out and feeling very disappointed.  It wasn't the mockumentary style that I wanted, it was a little odd, and it just wasn't as funny as I'd come to expect.  Yes the old crew was back together, yes Guest could still direct, but the film as a whole felt a little like a flop.  Coming back to it a second time changed my mind a little, but not a ton.  It's just not as hilarious as his other films.  It has much more of a quiet humor, quick lines thrown out that only seem funny after you think about them for a few minutes.  The story becomes almost an expose or a moral and less of a comedic romp with great original music, which is of course what we love about Guest films.  This is by no means his best work, but it's also not a disaster.  Watch it for a few chuckles and a blatant point about the idiocy of Hollywood, but don't expect the genius of Guffman.

My rating: ☆ ☆ ☆