September Movie Reviews
Hamlet 2
By David Vicari
The advertisements for Hamlet 2 state that the film is “from the co-writer of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut and Team America: World Police.” Read that carefully, for it says “co-writer,” and that scribe would be Pam Brady – NOT South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. In fact, Parker and Stone have nothing to do with Hamlet 2, but actually hiring them to come in and pen the final draft of this script probably would have been a good idea. There are a few mild – very mild – scattered laughs to be had in Hamlet 2, but that’s about it. This “comedy” by director Andrew Fleming (The Craft, Threesome) is a gigantic failure.
Steve Coogan plays Dana Marschz, a no-talent actor turned high school drama teacher. When the school’s arts program is suspended, he decides to write his own original play and put it on himself – with the help of his inner city students. The play he concocts is a sequel to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, despite the fact that all the characters die at the end of the original play.
First off, Coogan’s character is an obnoxious idiot and doesn’t, in any way, come off as a misunderstood genius. I definitely didn’t root for the hero because I couldn’t stand him. He deserves to fail miserably.
We get snippets of the Hamlet 2 play when it is performed late in the film, but never see how it is supposed to string together as a whole. That’s because it is just a bunch of half-baked, scatter-shot ideas thrown together by a bunch of smug filmmakers who think they are going to shock and amuse filmgoers by degrading great literature. Maybe they would have succeeded if the jokes were funny and intelligent.
I guess we are supposed to snicker at the fact that actress Elizabeth Shue (The Karate Kid, Leaving Las Vegas) is playing herself. For me, the gag that she has quit acting and is now a nurse goes absolutely nowhere.
The musical number “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” is the funniest thing in the movie…and that is the idea this film should have focused on. Forget about the whole Hamlet sequel aspect. Instead, Marschz could have written and produced an irreverent musical comedy about the Second Coming, where Jesus has to revamp his image for modern consumption. That would have been a bold, funny idea rather that the mess that is Hamlet 2.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
By David Vicari
I’m a Star Wars fan. The original trilogy is my childhood and, yes, I even enjoy the prequels. But that is where my obsession ends – with the movies. That is the real and only Star Wars for me. I cheerfully ignore the countless books chronicling the further or little known adventures of these characters. I could care less that Boba Fett was the best man at Dengar’s wedding. Another thing I didn’t really get into was the Cartoon Network’s Clone Wars series, which are tales that take place in between Episodes II (Attack of the Clones) and III (Revenge of the Sith). Now we have Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the computer animated feature derived from that show, and it’s pretty much a big bore. Tucked somewhere in between the seemingly endless battle scenes, there is a slight plot concerning Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker (voice of Matt Lanter) and his new Padawan Learner, Ahsoka (Ashley Eckstein), searching for Jabba the Hutt’s Sith-napped son. That’s about it for story. As for the animation, it looks stiff, especially with the movements of the human characters. Hell, I think I’m going to retrieve a carton of Chinese food out of the fridge and go watch The Empire Strikes Back.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
By Fritz Esker
Writer/director Woody Allen continues to plug away at the pace of about a film a year, and his latest effort is a tale of two Americans (Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall) spending a summer in Barcelona. They are propositioned by a Spanish painter (Javier Bardem) and things are further complicated when the painter’s volatile ex-wife (Penelope Cruz) enters the picture. All of the performances here are very good. In particular, Bardem is great in a role that couldn’t be more different than his turn as a psychopath in No Country for Old Men. And since she’s able to deliver most of her lines in her native Spanish, Cruz is a lot more convincing than she is acting in English. However, the film has two major flaws. The first is one of the worst voice-over narrations in recent years, featuring an omniscient narrator who’s more like a play-by-play sports announcer, telling the audience things that are already transparently obvious onscreen. Secondly, for a film about the nature of love, it has very little emotional pull. While some of the film’s ideas are interesting, it often feels like reading someone’s PhD dissertation on love.
Tropic Thunder
By Fritz Esker
Tropic Thunder is a hit-or-miss comedy about actors (Ben Stiller, Robert Downey, Jr., and Jack Black among them) dropped into the jungles of Vietnam to shoot a war film guerilla style. Naturally, things soon go awry. Stiller gets a lot of laughs as a slumming action star whose recent efforts to get an Oscar by playing a mentally disabled man have failed miserably. Downey manages to pull off the role of an Australian bad boy actor (think Russell Crowe) who dyes his skin black in order to play the role of an African-American sergeant. Handled the wrong way, that role could have been disastrous, but Downey does it well. While there are laughs, some dead stretches occur and the film, like Pineapple Express, sometimes focuses too much on action over comedy. Also, much has been made of Tom Cruise’s supporting role as a foul-mouthed studio executive, but Cruise is actually not that funny. Yes, he’s in a ton of makeup and he curses a lot, but if it were any other actor, no one would be talking about it. It’s stunt casting and it slows the film down whenever Cruise is onscreen. Overall, Tropic Thunder is uneven, but amusing. It’s the kind of film that makes for a decent matinee or a Netflix rental.
Baghead
By David Vicari
New Orleans natives Jay and Mark Duplass follow up their 2005 mumblecore comedy The Puffy Chair with this quirky hybrid horror movie/romantic comedy/drama. Four struggling actors (Ross Partridge, Steve Zissis, Greta Gerwig, and Elise Muller) decide to go to a cabin in the woods for the weekend and write a budget-minded screenplay tailor-made for themselves to star in. The first night there, one of the girls has a dream about a stalker who wears a paper bag over his head. Or was it a dream? Strange things begin to happen from there on. Baghead actually has more effecting scares and mounting tension than most straight horror movies. Although it wasn’t very good, the 1986 slasher flick April Fool’s Day added a somewhat refreshing spin to that genre by injecting it with humor and a lighter tone. Baghead turns both the mad slasher film and the romantic comedy on their ears. When it’s all said and done, the movie is a shaggy dog joke, and that may frustrate some viewers, but I found it to be a breath of fresh air.