e-ramblings

Genre: Comedy 

Director: Eric Breviq 

Writers: Jeffrey Ventimilia, Joshua Sternin and Brad Copeland, based on characters created by Hanna-Barbera Prods.

Cast: Dan Aykroyd (voice), Justin Timberlake (voice), Anna Faris, Tom Cavanagh, T.J. Miller, Andrew Daly, Nate Corddry

Running Length: 80 minutes

Synopsis: Resident of Jellystone Park and “pic-a-nic” basket stealing bear, Yogi (voice of Dan Aykroyd), together with his younger companion Boo Boo (voice of Justin Timberlake, believe it or not), have been the bane of Jellystone Park’s head ranger, Ranger Smith (Tom Cavanagh). However, when evil Mayor Brown (Andrew Daly) schemes to sell the park to loggers to cover up his misappropriation of city funds, the bears, Ranger Smith and visiting documentary filmmaker Rachel (Anna Faris) must band together to prevent the unimaginable from happening.

Review: Let’s just get this out of the way - if you’re reading this review of Yogi Bear, you’re not the target audience of the movie. This film seems solely intended for viewers below the age of 10, and my guess is that Yogi Bear would be a perfectly fine for these little tots. However, Yogi Bear offers so little for anyone else that any form of recommendation seems a little tenuous. This is not to say that Yogi Bear is a bad movie, just that it’s so mind numbingly bland in every aspect that one wonders what gave this project the green light. 

While Yogi Bear is perfectly fine as a cartoon 50 years ago, the 21st Century update renders Yogi and Boo Boo in computer animation while the rest of the film is live action (although there really isn’t much action to speak of, save one sequence). This pairing does make the computer animation stick out even more, and unfortunately the “real” actors simply don’t put in enough effort to bridge the animation-live action gap. This results in an odd, lifeless mess that makes it painfully clear that each and every scene is done in front of a blue screen. It’s likely that even younger viewers would not be able to suspend enough disbelief to make this work.  

The film’s storyline seems to have been built on the same premise as the ten-minute shorts that used to make up the Yogi Bear cartoon, and it’s little wonder that when stretched out to eight times its original length, the plot of the movie is so wafer-thin and predictable. There are absolutely no surprises to be had, and everything is telegraphed so far in advance that one can almost predict every turn of the plot, including the denouement, 10 minutes after the movie starts. It doesn’t help that the so-called villains are the most two-dimensional and improbable I’ve seen in years, even for children’s films. 

Of course, no one really expects Yogi Bear to be a masterpiece, but the hope that this is more than a 3D money grab for the holiday season is totally dashed long before the end credits roll. Yes, there are some decent (but gimmicky) 3D sequences, and there are a couple of scenes that border on being entertaining, but really, not enough to justify the price of admission (especially in 3D). Justin Timberlake also should be lauded for a spot-on voice characterization of Boo Boo, virtually identical to Don Messick (Dan Aykroyd doesn’t fare as well as Yogi’s “new” voice). The only thing to be thankful for, if you eventually do end up in a cinema watching this movie (hopefully not of your own volition), is that it’s a mercifully short one.   

Rating: * 1/2 (out of four stars)

Genre: Horror

Director: Tod Williams

Writer: Michael R. Perry

Cast: Sprague Grayden, Brian Boland, Molly Ehpraim, Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat

Running Length: 91 minutes

Synopsis: Events in Paranormal Activity 2 take place between one and two months before those that were featured in Paranormal Activity. Instead of a couple, the cast has expanded to include a whole family. Kristi (Sprague Grayden) is the sister of Katie (Katie Featherstone, of the first film), and is married to Dan (Brian Boland), his second marriage after the death of his wife. Dan has a teenage daughter Ali (Molly Ehpraim), and the couple has a new baby boy, Hunter. However, things start to go bump in the night when Hunter turns one…

Review: The phenomenal box office success of the first Paranormal Activity all but assured the birth of this sequel (it's actually both a prequel AND a sequel), but the important question is - apart from a money grab, was there any other compelling reason Paranormal Activity 2 should be made? The answer is no, and it's quite clear as this film unfolds.

Audiences who have watched the first movie already know how this second movie is going to develop, and thus the creepiness of the first film is almost entirely obliterated. Whilst Paranormal Activity 2 has a good number of cheap "boo!" scares, it never feels as spontaneous as its predecessor. Put in another way, this movie is almost spiritually (pun not intended) identical to the first film, which is not a good thing if the only way the movie can scare its audience is by catching them off guard.

With Paranormal Activity 2, the decision was made to integrate footage from a number of fixed CCTV cameras. This reduces the contrived nature of the first film where the leads seem to be carrying their camera everywhere they went, but this artifice does not go away completely. There are still a handful of scenes which require a great suspension of disbelief: why would anyone not in a reality TV show bring along a camera wherever they went? How does a teenage girl manage to do her online research so well that she could pinpoint exactly what’s wrong in the house, and yet not manage to convince anyone in her family to get out of the house right away?

Credit should be given where it's due, however, and at least the producers and writers (the director of the first Paranormal Activity, Oren Peli, takes a back seat and is merely credited as a writer on the second film) made an effort to integrate the events into the chronology of the first film's events. This also allows the two leads in Paranormal Activity to return as supporting characters, and also sets in place, unsurprisingly, the possibility of a third movie.

Is Paranormal Activity 2 a true horror movie? I would have to say “not really” – much as there are many shocking moments, truly scary scenes are virtually nonexistent. The audience is fully prepared to be shocked, and there just isn’t anything new enough to pull the rug out from beneath the audience’s feet. The movie never fills one with dread, and the entire atmosphere feels watered down from the first film. It’s difficult to say if the Paranormal Activity movies can become a franchise since it’s essentially a one-trick pony, but with its first weekend box office in the USA being a runaway success, Paranormal Activity 3 is surely not far behind. Taken on its own, Paranormal Activity 2 still entertains, but as a horror film it’s a decidedly middling one. 

Rating: * ½ (out of four stars)

Genre: Musical

Director:  Rob Marshall

Writers: Michael Tolkin and Anthony Mingella

Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Kate Hudson, Sophia Loren, Fergie

Running Length: 115 minutes

Synopsis: Set in Italy in the 60s, Nine details a week (give or take) in the life of famous Italian film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) who is about to embark on his ninth film project, titled Italia. There is a slight problem – Guido is actually suffering from writer’s block, and despite the production being in place and almost ready to go, not a single line has been written for the screenplay. As he awaits the arrival of his muse, Claudia (Nicole Kidman), who has agreed to appear in Italia, Guido tries to escape the paparazzi and checks into a spa-hotel. Unfortunately, a bevy of women and problems follow – his mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz) shows up, as does his wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard). His marriage with Luisa is on the rocks due to Guido’s philandering, but Guido is desperate to try and keep the relationship alive. Also present is his friend and costume designer Lilli (Judi Dench), who tries to offer her advice to little avail, and American journalist Stephanie (Kate Hudson) who expresses her interest in Guido. Guido also has flashbacks to his childhood, where he meets his mother (Sophia Loren) and observes the erotic dance of Saraghina (Fergie), a prostitute. As the days wear on it soon becomes apparent that Guido is headed towards a breakdown and that the production of Italia may grind to a halt.

Review: It may be Rob Marshall’s second musical-to-movie adaptation (the first being the Academy Award-winning Chicago), but Nine is testament to the phrase “lightning doesn’t strike twice”. Perhaps it’s because Nine the musical is itself adapted from Federico Fellini’s 8½, and like the game of “Telephone”, too much was lost the third time round.

And whilst all the ten songs featured in Nine are big production numbers, the singing is barely passable for most and some of the numbers lean a little too much towards burlesque, actually coming across as being quite sleazy. The songs are not memorable either, and apart from Fergie’s strong performance on “Be Italian” and the totally anachronistic but quite enjoyable performance from Kate Hudson in “Cinema Italiano”, the rest of the songs simply meld into one large burlesque blur.

It doesn’t help that Daniel Day-Lewis is slightly miscast for this role, and despite his totally decent acting, Guido is a very unlikeable protagonist that not many audiences will be able to root for. Coupled with the fact that the women save one – Marion Cotillard has the only meaty female role and does a good job in portraying Guido’s long suffering wife – are one-dimensional walk on roles, seemingly only there to up the glam and sexiness factors, the whole film is thus comprised of famous faces with barely passable singing voices playing unengaging characters. That is as far from a winning formula as it could possibly be, and the result is clear. Watching Nine is akin to watching paint dry – a terribly soporific experience, and even the song and dance numbers only help to alleviate the tedium momentarily.

Rating:  * ½ (out of four stars)

Genre: Action Thriller

Director:  F. Gary Gray

Writer: Kurt Wimmer

Cast: Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler, Colm Meaney, Bruce McGill, Leslie Bibb

Running Length: 108 minutes

Synopsis: Engineer Clyde Shelton’s (Gerard Butler) wife and young daughter are brutally raped and murdered before his eyes when burglars break into their home. However, the assistant DA assigned to the case, Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), decides to preserve his 96% conviction rate and makes a deal with one of the two burglars – testify against his partner in crime and he gets a much reduced sentence. Clyde is enraged at this miscarriage of justice, but he patiently plots for the next ten years, setting up an epic revenge on everyone involved – be it the burglars, the judge, the DA and Nick himself. Surprisingly, even though Clyde is quickly incarcerated, the revenge killings continue unabated…

Review: Verisimilitude has never been a very important criterion for rating movies in my book, but I draw the line when suspension of disbelief becomes impossible, and the sheer stupidity of the script overshadows everything else that make up the movie. Law Abiding Citizen is one such film.

Law Abiding Citizen starts out quite well, and even though the “justice kills” are quite graphic and feel almost at home with the Final Destination series, there’s some (admittedly twisted) pleasure in seeing the “bad guys” get their comeuppance in these convoluted, unorthodox ways.

However, these machinations become increasingly preposterous, and it is simply impossible to believe that a single man, even if not incarcerated, could have been capable of setting everything up with such precision. It is also frustrating to see a character like Shelton, who is supposed to be extremely intelligent, behave stupidly just to advance the plot.

The denouement, in particular, feels very unsatisfactory because it hinges on Shelton being particularly dumb, and I for one found it impossible to accept the turn of events (no spoilers for what happens, even though a scene in the trailer actually gives part of the conclusion away).

The exchanges between Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler are also rather insipid, and Jamie Foxx’s character seems to be a cop first then a DA, probably as an attempt to beef up the action sequences in the film. However, this leaves Law Abiding Citizen in a state of limbo, as the action sequences still aren’t all that exciting, and yet the supposed intellectual exchanges aren’t very interesting either. This is a movie that would have probably been better if it tried to do less, but as it is, Law Abiding Citizen simply isn’t a very compelling movie in any way.

Rating: * ½ (out of four stars)