Rambo, 2/5

Rated R. Click here to view the trailer.

You’re either a Rocky man, or a Rambo man. I’ve always considered myself a Rocky man and the new film Rambo confirms it. Rocky Balboa (Rocky VI) was a surprisingly well-done and well-acted comeback story that made your heart swell. Rambo, the fourth in the series that began 25 years ago with First Blood, is a bloody gorefest with more dead Burmese rebels than you can shake a severed leg at. It makes your heart swell, but only because 50-cal rounds are bursting through it. Heck, the MPAA rated it R because of "strong graphic bloody violence, sexual assaults and grisly images." Judging from this movie alone, its star, director and writer, Sly Stallone, has some serious issue. I'm guessing his daddy never hugged him.

John Rambo is an aging-but-still-ripped ex-Green Beret who, after fighting injustice in the U.S., Vietnam and Afghanistan (back when the Afghani rebels were still the good guys), has forgone the stereotypical retirement villa in Boca and instead has settled into the quiet, secluded life of a cobra wrangler/blacksmith in the jungles of Thailand. There’s a brutal (real life) civil war up stream in Burma (actually, it's called Myanmar now, but who's keeping track?). But, his killing days over, Rambo keeps his boat well south of the fighting and is content to scowl silently as he spends his days fishing with his bow and arrow.

He reluctantly agrees to use his boat (complete with its impossibly tiny, hand-forged propeller) to drop off some ill-prepared, inept NON-BAPTIST missionaries in the war zone, but only after Pretty Blond (Julie Benz) begs him and gives him her cross necklace. Aww. Rambo done gone and got religion! Too bad he has to get back to snake wrangling (“I don’t need any more cobras! I want pythons! I have enough cobras!”) and can’t play missionary.

All is going hunky dory until - GASP! - the genocidal Burmese guerrillas attack Pretty Blond & Co. and then the movie turns into Viscera City. Heads are shot (with bullets, bazookas AND hand-made arrows), torsos blown apart and limbs fly like confetti while buckets of blood explode towards the camera in qualities that put Kill Bill to shame. Remember the scenes in Saving Private Ryan where the D-Day soldiers are getting mowed down as they storm the beaches at Normandy? You ain’t seen nothing yet. In the words of Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn’t help but wonder: is it possible this movie is more gruesome than dating in New York - umm... I meant "more gruesome than actual genocidal civil war"?

The baddies take Pretty Blond’s God Squad hostage. After they aren’t heard from, their pastor from Colorado flies to Thailand and hires Rambo to ferry a group of ethnically diverse mercenaries to rescue PB. (I wanted to know why the big pansy didn’t go on the trip in the first place. It's called "leadership," Rev!) One ‘Nam flashback later, Rambo agrees and tags along on the rescue, but only after forging his own special Ultimate Machete of Justice and Pain (at least that’s what I called it... see the poster above). Hilarity ensues.

I won’t spoil the ending by telling you whether or not Rambo succeeds in rescuing Pretty Blond and personally gutting the pedophile guerrilla General. Yes, I will. He does. I’d love to be at the “afterglow” service when the mission team and PB get back to Colorado. Thankfully, Stallone spared us and did not write a May-December romance between him and Pretty Blond, although there is a vague feeling that he wanted too and decided Rambo was just too tough for love. Or is he? The ending credits show Rambo lumbering down the driveway to say hi to his estranged father in New Mexico. I hope I didn't ruin anything for you.

Here are two questions you can ponder:

1. Is it against the Geneva Convention to physically rip a man’s trachea from his throat with your bare hands?
2. After Rambo single-handedly disembowels an saws an entire regiment of the army in half with the .50 cal. and saves one small village, what is the fate of the rest of the nation which is now facing the rest of the army, only this time sans a geriatric superhero?
   

No one has ever accused Stallone of being cerebral, but after the touching and engaging Rocky Balboa, Rambo and its mindless fight-violence-with-violence ethic (not to mention its mindless dialog) feels utterly... well, useless. Stallone supposedly hopes the film will generate awareness of the brutal carnage that truly is going on in Burma. Either he has no sense of irony or he is going senile in his old age.

Atonement, 4/5

Rated R. Click to view the trailer.

Atonement just won the Golden Globe for best drama. Good for it. I can honestly say it deserved it. However, I can also honestly say it isn’t a film I need to see again any time soon.

Based on the beautifully written novel of the same name by Ian McEwan, Atonement hinges upon three key misunderstandings on the part of young, confused, would-be writer Briony Tallis (played so well it’s creepy by Saoirse Ronan). Her confused perception (dramatization) of reality threatens to break apart her older sister, Cecilia (Keira Knightly) and the family’s groundskeeper, Robbie (James McAvoy). The audience is forced to ask a question. Is it truly possible to atone for a sin? Is regret enough? Toss in a bar tending chocolate magnate (“here, try my choc-tail”), a red-haired Lolita, the evacuation at Dunkirk during WWII, and the mother of all plot twists, and you’ve got yourself a movie.

I hate to pigeon-hole Ms. Knightly into typecasting, but she was born to play pre-war, headstrong, rich British women. It blows me away that she is only 22 years old. I have significantly less of a crush on James McAvoy, but I must say the man has amazing eyes and can act.


Each actor does a superb job in their role and the film is so well done and well written that I can’t figure out why I don’t like it. I had minor problems following the timeline of the movie, and director Joe Wright chose to shoot with a handheld camera at odd times, but those are only minor quibbles. Also, the audience (and I) laughed at moment’s I’m not sure were supposed to be funny (“choc-tail” being one of them). The movie also feels a tad long, clocking in at 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Quibbles aside, Atonement is a very well-put-together piece of work. In fact, it feels very Shakespearean. Briony’s writing ambition translates into a motif (from the opening credits to the subtitles telling us the scene and date to the very font used in the movie's poster above) that I only appreciate now in retrospect. The confusing timeline is probably a necessity as we see the pivotal events between Cecilia and Robbie from two points of view. They also make more sense when we hit the plot twist.

Ah, the plot twist. My gut tells me this is the movie’s weakness. If not the twist itself, then the way it is handled. From what I’ve been told of the way it is address in the book (I’m only one third of the way through it myself), it works much better there. It isn’t quite as gimmicky as an M. Night Shamma-lamma-ding-dong movie, but the twist near the end hit me just as hard as learning Bruce Willis was a ghost in The Sixth Sense. Instead of being blown away, however, I was pissed off. “What the hell?” were my exact words, I believe. It makes it a far better movie from a literary sense, yeah, I get. Still. What the hell?

If you’re into dramas, you can’t do better than Atonement. If you’re not, at least you get to ogle Keira Knightly in a wet, clingy slip for a few seconds. That's worth something.

Walk Hard, 2/5

Rated R. Click to view the trailer.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, is Judd Apatow’s version of the Scary Movie series, and this parody of Walk the Line and Ray (and a few other bio pics). Is only slightly better than the Scary Movies.

Dewey Cox (the lovable-as-usual John. C. Reilly) stumbles through the lives of Johnny Cash and Ray Charles, fathering dozens of children and dabbling in various illegal substances along the way. Reilly is pretty much the only thing that salvages the movie. Honestly, is there anything he hasn’t made better? (Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, A Prairie Home Companion, The Aviator, Boogie Nights, Chicago, The Perfect Storm, The Thin Red Line, etc). He marries Kristin Wiig’s Edith at 14 but ultimately leaves her for the sluttified Jenna Fisher. Personally, I prefer her slightly more demure if frumpy character from The Office. The four young gentlemen behind me in the theater apparently disagreed, vocally approving of her scantily clad-“ness” and decolletage so I guess that was the goal.

Surprisingly, the songs are pretty strong. Although the songs are chock full of double (and maybe even triple) entendres, they do sound like songs The Man in Black might have actually sung (Especially “Guilty as Charged”). Most of them (I liked “Let’s Duet”) are clever enough, so I’ll give them a pass.

The best part of the movie is spotting cameos: Is that Harold Ramis? Dude! It’s Frankie Muniz! Is he old enough to be in a rated-R movie? Jack White makes an awesome Elvis (although he was actually channeling Johnny Bravo more than the King)! How’d they get Eddie Vedder, Jewel, Ghostface Killah, Jackson Browne and Lyle Lovett? Come on, does Jonah Hill have to be in ALL Apatow’s movies? Is that really Justin Long? Who knew he, Paul Rudd , Jack Black and Jason Schwartzman made such a great Fab Four! They (especially Paul Rudd as John Lennon) were the highlight for me. I would kill for a Beatles documentary starring these four.

If you must see it, Walk Hard is better off as a DVD viewing, if only because the male frontal nudity would be much smaller and much less in your face. Only slightly better executed than the Scary Movie series and the like, it only reminds you how much better Ray and Walk the Line were. It would have been significantly better if the same cast got together made a straight-faced fictional biopic (but not parody).

Note to casting directors: I can handle a lot of SNL stars making the jump to movie. Kristen Wiig, Chris Parnell (both in this movie) are fine by me and then there's the gold standard of cross overs, Will Ferrell. However, Tim Meadows just can't hack it on the silver screen. Sorry Tim. Go back to Rockefeller Center. I'm sorry.

Juno, 5/5

Rated PG-13. Click for the trailer.

Between Juno and the DVD of Knocked Up, I've seen more than my fair share of women peeing lately. That awkward moment out of the way, I loved Juno. It is a heart-warming, funny, earnest and pitch perfect gem of a movie. Seeing this movie just 24 hours after enduring Bee Movie just emphasizes how good it really is.

If you've even seen a poster, you know the story. 16-year-old Juno, played by Ellen Page, gets pregnant and hilarity, awkwardness, dirty looks and heart warming ensues. This isn't just a teenage version of Knocked Up (although that film was sweet and touching in it's own way). It's smart, contains substantially less profanity, and feels like it really could happen.

The superb cast rounded out by Michael Cera (Paul, the father of Juno's child), J.K. Simmons (Juno's father) and Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman as the prospective adoptive parents, make this movie work.

Ellen Page is quirky but adorable. Judging by the way she talks and acts in real life, she was born for this role. She makes is it easy to see why Paulie (and the dumb jock who makes fun of her) are both smitten, and she delivers more razor-sharp one-liners (check out the video below for a taste) than you can shake a stick at. (Wow, two cliches in one clause... I'm on a roll!)

No one could play the geeky cross country runner Paulie Bleeker like Cera, who plays a slightly more mature if more shy version of George Michael Bluth from Arrested Development. He plays the awkward but earnest guy better than anyone I can imagine, and that includes my own perception of myself sometimes. Whether it's in Arrested Development, Super Bad or Juno, he nails it. I fear he is going to be typecast, but that's just a risk we're all going to have to take.

The same high praise goes for Mr. Simmons who hits a home run just as he did Thank You for Smoking and the Spider-Man Movies. I could sit and just watch film of him reading the newspaper out loud and thoroughly enjoy it.

As much as I love him, Jason Bateman (also of Arrested Development) does a fantastic job of behaving like a massive tool and although Jennifer Garner's character gets on your nerves at the beginning, you grow to like her and want her to be happy.

The writer, Diablo Cody (seriously, Diablo?), does a marvelous job of "keeping it real" without succumbing to cliches. (SPOILERS AHEAD.) Juno's father and step-mother, although not exactly thrilled with the news ("I was hoping she was expelled, maybe a DUI. Anything but this.") They are both very supportive and loving. It would have been so easy to cut the step-mother out the stereotypical "wicked" cloth, but she supports and defends Juno to a fault. Juno's best friend, a picture-perfect cheerleader, also should have been a two-timing witch according to typical movie formulas but she is a genuine, helpful friend. We expect Juno, strong young woman that she is, to go it alone without any support, but instead she has a pretty solid support structure. Paulie is supposed to get angry with Juno at some point in the movie only to rush in during the delivery help Juno because her step-mother and father are tied up in traffic but he doesn't and they don't. Cody gets bonus points for giving Juno a hamburger phone.

I hate to keep bringing up Knocked Up, but Juno and it both bring about a discussion of abortion. In KU, Allison decides to keep the baby because she sees the heartbeat and maybe perhaps as an act of rebellion against her mother (I just watched Judd Apatow's commentary). Juno actually takes steps toward abortion but is put off by the depressing decor (and clientele) of the clinic (honestly, is that the best word?) and the knowledge that the little "sea monkey" inside her had fingernails. The knowledge that a fetus has a beating heart would be enough for me but wow, the fingernail thing really gets you for some reason or another. (Anatomically, I'm not sure if that's true about the un-born baby having fingernails. It seems to me that would be one of the last things to develop.) Judd Apatow said he isn't necessarily for or against abortion (or "schma-schmortion"), just that there wouldn't be a movie unless she kept the baby. I don't know Ms. Cody's personal feelings either, but I can't help but pray these two movies, in their own, weird ways, convince at least one woman to save the life inside her. Jamie Lynn Spears was photographed leaving Juno the day before she dropped her bombshell on the world (I'm extremely embarrassed I know that) and you can't help but wonder if that was a tipping point for debate about keeping the baby.

The credits and soundtrack both have a Napoleon Dynamite feel which isn't surprising considering they're both Fox Searchlight Films (as are Garden State, Little Miss Sunshine, Thank You For Smoking, Waitress, The Darjeeling Limited and The Namesake). God bless you, Fox Searchlight.

Also, sit down and watch these hilarious PSA's with Cera and Bateman.

Bee Movie ,.5/5

Rated PG. Click to view the trailer.

The "Bee" in Bee Movie (we're working with phonetics here, people) could stand for blah, bland, banal, boring or barf. Then again, it also stands for (b)lame, (b)crap, (b)unimaginative, (b)weak and (b)retarded.

I genuinely like Jerry Seinfeld so even through Bee Movie didn't sound the most cerebral of films, I went into it optimistic. I can't say I'd rather be stung by a bee, but I probably would opt for a single mosquito bite than be forced to pay $3 at the (3) Dollar Theater to see this again. Jer, you let me down. You too, Matthew Broderick. Ferris Bueller ought to know better.

Rotten Tomatoes has Bee Movie listed as 53 percent fresh, which is not good. But with jokes like, "She's bee-utiful" and "none of your bees-wax," I'm flat out impressed they're ranking the double digits. The movies is just so... I don't know, blah. It's everything Shrek, Robots or any Pixar film is not. It's dull, both as in not exciting and as in not sharp. That's probably the best way to describe it: dull. The animation is dull too. Imagine yourself as a child and your watching those old, crappy, generic, non-Hanna-Barbara/Looney Toons cartoons, you know, the ones with the non-Porky the Pig? That's Bee Movie, accept the colors haven't faded and the audio isn't blown out.

I won't even both with the plot, other than to say it's dull. The movie gets minor bonus points for including Sting (HA! GET IT? STING? HOLY CRAP, THAT'S HILARIOUS BECAUSE HIS NAME IS STING AND BEE'S STING! WHY AREN'T YOU LAUGHING?) and Ray Liota, but it's far too little to salvage this train wreck.

Go rent A Bug's Life and thank me in the morning.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, 3/5

Rated PG. Click to view the trailer.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets is nothing but a silly re-hash of a knockoff (of The Da Vinci Code). Roger Ebert describes the hole-ridden, fantastical plot as "not only playing tennis with out the net, but also without the ball and rackets."

He's right, but who cares? No one is going to see NT2 unless they've seen and enjoyed the original and that automatically makes them a perfect candidate to enjoy this film, despite its many and obvious faults.

Director Jon Turteltaub and the cast of the original reunite with their various expertise to sift through clues and dodge the aforementioned plot (if not pot) holes. These include Nicolas Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates; Jon Voight as Ben's father, Patrick Henry Gates; Diane Kruger as the sexy Library of Congress staffer, Abigal; Justin Bartha as the scene-stealing smartmouth assistant, Riley; and Harvey Keitel as the trusting FBI agent. There's also a minor character played by Armando Riesco. He nor his character are amazing, but it's fun to remember him firing flaming arrows at Zach Braff and Natalie Portman in Garden State. With a new national treasure to find, it stands to reason we must get new characters and we do. They include Ed Harris, who surprisingly is a worthless excuse for a villain and some generic guy to play the President of the United States. How do we know he is the commander in chief? He wears an ugly blue blazer that tells us so. There's also Ben's mom, Emily (Helen Mirren), who just happens to be a scholar of pre-Columbian Aztec languages (hmm... that might come in handy later). She also shows an alarming amount of cleavage for a 62-year-old.

On to the plot, or what I can remember of the plot. Gates' great-grandfather is fingered post-post-post-post-posthumously as the mastermind of the Lincoln assassination. To prove otherwise, Ben flies a miniature helicopter around Paris, breaks into the Queen's office in Buckingham Palace, pimps his wife (I think she's his wife) out to break into the Oval Office, kidnaps the president (in the blue blazer), discusses colonial architecture with his captive (the prez studied architectural history as an undergrad, dontcha know), releases him (don't worry, he's picked up by a trucker), breaks into the Library of Congress, escapes with literally the entire FBI on his tail. Somewhere in there are two planks hidden in desks written in an ancient language (I've got a C-note that says its pre-Colombian Aztec) that presumably will tell us that Cibola, the fabled "City of Gold" is hidden in the hollowed out base of Mount Rushmore.

Along the way there are gun shots, reconciliations, knowing glances, pithy one-liners from Riley, tired, determined stares from Cage, underground floods and skeptics that just keep getting proved wrong.

\NT2 is just as stupid and unbelievable as the first, but is also just as fun. Even though I only gave it 3/5, I recommend it. It's not going win at Cannes and I won't be buying or even renting the DVD, but it's a universally fun movie that was well worth the price of matinee ticket.