Wanted, 3.5/5

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

All through my screening of Wanted, I kept a running tally of “ingredient films” that the director and screenwriter used to piece together their final product. It’s starts off with a fairly hefty dose of The Matrix trilogy and the Star Wars saga, a hint of The Fast and the Furious, throws in some Kill Bill, Mission Impossible and Chain Reaction, sprinkles some Bourne trilogy on top for some added zest, garnishes it with a few hints of We Three Kings and Mr. and Mrs. Smith and ends it all with some Office Space to cleanse the palate. There’s also a little bit of Rocky and Saw. That’s just what I could identify and remember in between WHOA! reactions.

But that’s not to say Wanted is derivative or feels recycled. The resulting dish isn’t an instant classic, but it’s fresh, exciting and beats the hell out of the mediocre steak I had for dinner last night.

Fight Club. I forgot to mention Fight Club.

Wanted is meant to be an entertaining, mindless action packed popcorn flick and holy crap does it deliver. Think of as filling a teacup with a firehose; it’s excessive and everyone gets wet, but dad gummit it get’s the job done. The only action scene it is missing – and I do mean the only scene – is a scene where our hero is forced to jump out of an airplane sans parachute. Scratch that. I just remembered he jumps out a train while crossing a canyon.

At one (no several) points we not only see bullets flying in slow-motion ala The Matrix, but we see those bullets penetrate their victim’s heads and see the skin bulging and stretching before eventually giving way to form the exit wound. Yeah.

James McAvoy (Wesley) plays our hero and while he isn’t the heir to Arnold’s throne, he’s a decent action actor. Wesley is a fatherless nobody with a crappy job, crappy girlfriend, crappy best friend and the kind of boss you want to throttle with her own stapler (then again, is there any other kind?) Google his name and you come up empty.

Wesley’s life isn’t going to be boring for long, because Angelina Jolie’s Fox has recruited him as the newest member of the Fraternity. (This where I'm supposed to yammer on about how hot Ms. Jolie is, but she's not even near my Top 100.)Pledging this Frat may not involve romancing a goat or binge drinking, but it certainly won’t be fun. Even though I praised him for his pluck and stick-to-it-iveness, I'm pretty sure Maxwell Smart wouldn't have made the cut.

Morgan Freeman plays the wise head of The Fraternity and he along with the rest of the clan take Wesley under their wing so he can one day face the rogue assassin who threatens the very existence of The Fraternity. “Kill one to save a thousand,” Fox says. Something like that.

What is the Fraternity? Glad you asked.

The simplest answer is that they’re a gang of super assassins. The more complex answer is that they’re a pissed off textile union that can curve bullets by inducing panic attacks. They heal their own wounds in bathtubs of Neosporin, live in a castle in downtown Chicago that doubles (triples) as a hide-out, pork warehouse and linen factory. They divine their next targets by examining the thread count in their Egyptian cotton bed sheets and converting that into – OF COURSE! – binary.

Both answers above are correct, and I didn’t even mention the army of explosive mice. You might think the movie is skewing a wee bit silly but it’s a testament to… something… that Wanted still manages to be a serious, legit action movie.

On the down side, the narration feels out of place and it has a few moments of humor that seem out of place. There’s a challenge to the viewer just before the closing credits that’s mildly unsettling. The editing style takes some getting used to, but the special effects are top notch and every member of the cast does a good if not great job, even if we don’t give a rip about them.

Go see it. It’ll will more than tide you over until July 18 and The Dark Knight.

NOTE: If there is any justice in the movie world, the minds that gave of Alien vs. Predator and Freddie vs. Jason would give us The Matrix vs. The Fraternity. Best. Fight. Ever.

Get Smart, 3.5/5

Rated PG-13. Click here to view the trailer.

As a general rule, I’m opposed to the trend of making classic TV shows into full-length features. Happily, Get Smart, the new Steve Carrell vehicle, is a funny, action packed and entertaining exception to that rule. (Also, it's significantly better than the trailer.)

Carrell is Maxwell Smart, a clumsy geek of an analyst for Control, a top secret, CIA-type government agency. Due mostly to his determination and the Subway Diet, he’s also a surprisingly competent and capable agent.

The plot thickens (first time I’ve ever used that phrase, I swear) as Control’s secret headquarters is attacked and Max is promoted to full field agent (Agent 86), on par with Dwayne ”The Rock” Johnson’s Agent 23. His partner is the reluctant, ultra-capable and oh-so-leggy Anne Hathaway (Agent 99). Together they track down Kaos (Chaos) mastermind played by Terrance Stamp and work to keep him from detonating a nuclear weapon in Los Angeles. Along the way they’re held up by Russian goons and of course, Max’s signature bumbling. Alan Arkin, pitch perfect as always, heads up Control. As the Chief, he isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty and show the young folks how it’s done. We're also treated to a very funny
Bill Murray cameo.

Hathaway’s sexy yet elegant Agent 99 looks out for Max while slowly moving from despising him to falling in love. Stupid lucky Steve Carrell... getting to kiss Anne Hathaway. Grr. There’s an unnecessary love-triangle and plastic surgery back story, but it’s a small price to pay for a mostly fun movie.

It’s a simple plot for a simple movie. There’s nothing magic here, but it has a good natured feeling about it and that gives it a lot of capital to spend. Get Smart was a highlight of my nightly Nick-at-Nite regimen back in the day and if anyone was going to tackle this Don Adams bumbling spy classic, Steve Carrell is the man. I expected him to be in full goofball mode and play the role as a slapstick moron. He doesn’t. Carrell and the screenwriters have done a very commendable job of capturing the tone of the original series, even if they have significantly upped the action value. They've stuck with a winning formula, and I appreciated that.

I wouldn’t call it a great comedy or a great action flick but Get Smart only "missed by that much."

By the way: Ms. Hathaway, if you’re reading, I love you.

Kung Fu Panda, 2.5/5

(Although I originally rated it a 2.5, I've upped it to a 3.5)

Rated PG. Click here to view the trailer.

In keeping with the time honored practice of twisting a movie’s title into a sarcastic statement on the film’s merit (Semi-Pro is semi-funny, Go ahead and Mess with Zohan, Walk Hard stumbles), I humbly offer the following: Kung Fu Panda is Kung Fu Bland-a.

I’m sorry. It was the best I could do.

Despite some top-notch computer animation and some A-list voice actors, Kung Fu Panda just didn’t bring anything new or fun to the table. Think of it as a cartoon version of Beverly Hills Ninja starring Jack Black instead of Chris Farley. And yet, Kung Fu Panda surprisingly plays out like a conventional Kung Fu movie. Yeah, it's kid-friendly. Yeah, it got a decent message. I just wanted more humor out of a Jack Black Kung Fu cartoon. I'm mystified by it's 87 percent Freshness Rating at RottenTomatoes.com. (OK, it did have a clever first two minutes.)

Po (the titular Kung Fu Panda) is a noodle cook (with duck for a father (?) destined to be the Dragon Warrior and save the Valley of Peace from the menace that is Tai Lung the Snow Leopard. Of course, this seems rather far fetched given his rotundity and inability to perform any basic ninja move, but, of course, he grows into quite the formidable opponent once he hits his groove.

Jack Black succeeds in bringing charm and life to Po because, well, he’s pretty much a panda in real life (check out his eyebrow thingy that’s been translated on the panda in the poster above). It wasn’t much a stretch for him. As for The Five, they didn’t fare so well and really are unnecessary to the story. Angelina Jolie is a total waste as Tigress as is Lucy Liu as Viper. Seth Rogen is way out of place as the tiny, fragile Mantis. Had I realized that was Jackie Chan as Monkey, I might have found it amusing but I didn’t and I didn’t. David Cross as Crane was the only major success besides Jack Black, followed closely by Randall Duk Kim as the very elderly turtle Kung Fu master, Oogway.

The best scene of the movie involves Po’s training, a method Shi-fu (a bored-sounding Dustin Hoffman) devised to capitalize on Po’s love of dumplings. As for the climatic battle royale between the Dragon Warrior (zero points for guessing who that is) and Tai Lung, it’s pretty much Po being fat and shouting out catch phrases. “Skiddoosh!”

One of my problems is with the character of Po. Sure, he's fat but he doesn't mind it and neither does anyone else, so what's the point? His kung fu trainer doesn't even try to slim him down, but instead motivates him with more food. He's not dumb, and he's funny. He's not a quitter, doesn't get his feeligs hurt and is loyal to a fault. He's just too darn likeable to ever be an interesting hero.

The bottom line is this is a kid’s movie and kids will probably like it. I left wanting more from a DreamWorks animated effort. Several reviews I’ve read praised Kung Fu Panda for “keeping all it’s jokes within itself” and not relying on pop culture reference and jokes like, say, the Shrek series. The problem with this is that sometimes pop culture references and jokes are funny! I saw zero in-jokes or even satire and Kung Fu Panda is just too bland without them, relying solely on Jack Black’s dialog to liven things up (Skid-doosh!). Sure, Shrek and the like may be too clever by half, but that’s a heck of a lot better than being not clever enough by half. Skid-doosh!