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The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Magically Likeable

One of these guys already saw wardrobe that morning, the other just showed up to set. Guess which is which.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Summertime is a wonderful season for hiding from the baking, burning heat inside a cool, dark theater and being transported to endless imaginative worlds. Sometimes these worlds can be overwhelmingly complex and force you to think deeply about everything going on, and those create a very particular kind of enjoyment, but the season of the sun seems to lean more towards movies that allow you to put your brain on cruise control, sit back, sip your Coke and try not to smile. This recent cinematic offering is definitely one of those.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice follows the story of a young man, Dave, who finds out at too young an age that he is chosen by destiny to become an all-powerful sorcerer for the side of good in a millennia-long battle for the safety of the world. His mentor, Balthazar, does his best to prepare him for the upcoming battles, while also keeping Dave’s focus off the one thing impossible to resist, love.

This popcorn presentation is brought to us from the minds at Disney who seem hell-bent on plunging the depths of the Mouse House catalog for anything and everything that could be transformed into a full-length feature film. The title of the film is taken from the famous scene in Fantasia where Mickey Mouse enchants all the mops, brooms and assorted cleaning products to do his chores for him. That moment is directly lifted up and dropped into this live-action semi-adaptation, and actually fits surprisingly well, but the rest of the story is completely fresh, at least where previous Disney stories are concerned. I can’t blame Disney for their addiction to recycling, it certainly worked well with their multi-million dollar Pirates franchise, but I don’t see this one landing as well with audiences and certainly very little in terms of continuing sequels.

Now, before I get into where the movie takes its many missteps, let me engage you on why I still gave it a fairly high ranking. Jay Baruchel is truly riding the roller-coaster of success right now and while some may complain that he is typecast and plays virtually the same person in each film, the same can be said of Steve Carell and many others. If they play the part well, let them play on. Baruchel epitomizes the adorably awkward geek who never sees himself as cool as the people around him do. The rest of the story notwithstanding, it is always enjoyable for me to watch characters like these grow and step into their confidence and full potential. It’s a classic and well-used storyline for sure, but that’s because people respond to it consistently. He holds the heart of the film tenderly in his charmingly goofy expressions and timing. On the other hand, Nicholas Cage delivers what we’ve come to expect from him, a quirky, oddity of a person, yet performed with the commitment and dedication that can almost only come from someone equally quirky and odd in real life. Cage has made a long and prolific career from taking roles almost no one saw as playable and inserting a real person where only a caricature was found before. That being said, if you weren’t a fan of him before, he doesn’t add anything here that will sweep you to the other side.

With the good stuff resting comfortably above, here are some of the downsides to this spellbound selection. Numerous plot holes are completely ignored as the movie races to keep up with a fairly energetic pace. This actually pales in comparison to the story points and moments of character development that could’ve been easily achieved if the writing was just that much tighter. In scene after scene I felt there were set-ups that were not paid off and you just feel the air slip out of scenes that had real potential. The ending makes painfully little sense when weighed against all the information given throughout the film and you once again feel things really needed to play out a different way to achieve full redemption. I’m not going to say the version playing out in my head would’ve worked better, you never really know, but it certainly made more sense to me.

The End of the Page Recommendation: If you are a real fan of either of the two main cast members, this should give you a smile somewhere along the way, but keep some change in your pocket and catch the matinee (or even wait until DVD).

What did you think? Feel any comparison’s to National Treasure? Where does it rank on you Cage scale?

How to Train Your Dragon: Dreamworks Slays, But Only Slightly.

It’s OK. Relax, boy. They said ‘The Hills’ is being canceled.
Rating: 7 out of 10

In the last decade we have been increasingly spoiled by legendary quality in the animated film world. Pixar exploded onto the scene and suddenly changed our Sunday afternoon trip to the movies with our little ones from a chore to a joy. Parents all over the country were now dragging kids along to see cartoons the kids hadn’t even asked about yet. “Trust me, son. You haven’t seen Toy Story 1 or 2 yet, but you’ll pick it up quickly. Now stop running around or we’ll lose our place in line.” Those wonderment wizards behind the screen also took notice of the change in demographic and began to layer their fare with subtle and intelligent adult humor, making it possible (and now possibly common) to see a grown man or adult couple walking into one of these movies without a single child in tow. I applaud this shift in content because I believe it helps remind us all to be a kid ourselves time and again.

How to Train Your Dragon is the newest effort from Dreamworks Animation, the studio once saved from going under by their imaginary friend Shrek. This tale, based on a popular children’s book of the same title by Cressida Cowell, surrounds a scrawny, accident-ridden viking named Hiccup (voiced expertly by Jay Baruchel) who stumbles upon a legendary dragon that no one has laid eyes on and lived. Finding he doesn’t have the heart to kill the dragon, he becomes the proud owner of a dangerous new pet and a planet-sized secret. Oh, his dad is chief of the village as well and their main chore in life is killing dragons. It’s like sprinkles on top.

While this colorful concoction doesn’t match up with headliners like Shrek, Kung-Fu Panda and Monsters vs. Aliens, it provides enough chuckles and consistent story flow to find itself placed above other Dreamworks outings like Flushed Away, Over the Hedge and Shark Tale. The main character of Hiccup is endearing in his self-deprecation and feels perfectly suited to the delivery of Baruchel. Also, if the animation studios have learned anything, it is to make any animal or magically living item into the most adorable thing imaginable. Dreamworks went for the gold here with their rendering of the dragon we all come to know as Toothless. They instilled him with a number of feline qualities, making him instantly loved by all cat owners in the crowd. They also have perfected the shifting of eye sizes (small for suspicion and huge for sugary-sweet cuteness) to the point where it almost feels like manipulation. I could have railed against being used like that, but I had already melted into my seat and mixed into the popcorn box below.

Other voice talents that held up their ends are Gerard Butler as Hiccup’s overly heroic Dad, Stoick, America Ferrera as the young competitor/love interest named Astrid, Jonah Hill as Snotlout (who to me sounded and looked on screen a lot like Jack Black), Kristen Wiig as Ruffnut, one half of a brother/sister twin pairing, and lastly Christopher Mintz-Plasse as the role-playiing stats nerd, Fishlegs.

The End of the Page Recommendation: How to Train Your Dragon provides enough chuckles to make it worthwhile, but the big screen is not totally necessary. Matinee pricing should be a safe bet. Oh, 2D is fine as well (skip shelling out the extra cash for 3D on this outing).

Tropic Thunder: Riders on the Storm of Absurdity

One of these things is not like the other, err..well, it is, but it’s not. (hint: one of them is British)

When the whole world is ranting and raving over the dark, brooding charisma of a vigilante crime fighter, where could we possibly turn to finally end the majestic run of the bat? Well, look no further than the most politically incorrect big-budget comedy in years. I guess five weeks of the gloom and doom of Batman finally did get us wondering, “Why so serious?”. Tropic Thunder rolled through the digital clouds this weekend and into theaters nationwide. It barely cleared the opening weekend take of recent R-rated comedic kin, Pineapple Express, but since Tropic Thunder was made for a ton more money people are wandering around claiming it was a letdown. Look, it took the #1 spot away from The Dark Knight, which had held it for five weeks, and claimed the spot for itself. No matter what amount of money it took in, this was still a success in its own right.

But let’s not focus on money, since it is the root of all evil (but I’ve been trained to handle it, so feel free to rid yourself of any and all unnecessary evil and send your spare money to me). The real success story for this film is the writing, the acting and the sheer brilliance of stupidity skipping and frolicking its way through the jungle. Jumping off the launching point with the fake trailers created for the fake actors in the movie, you already know you are in for something different, something that pushes the envelope of political and social commentary and satire. Tropic Thunder takes unabashed shots at Hollywood, not only for its reputation for prima-donna actors and bumbling directors, but also at its own tendency to turn any poignant social commentary into cannon fodder for the Oscar season. Critics want to brand the movie as insensitive to any number of groups, but what they refuse to see is the lambasting of Hollywood and its own culture as the root of the satire.

Intelligent writing will get your foot in the door, but it’s the actors who are going to have to walk through it. Performances from left to right were all above par and some were down right sensational. Robert Downey Jr. got a helping hand from the instant buzz created the moment people heard he was going to play his character in blackface, but once again the satire of the film keeps it from coming off as incredibly racist. Also lending a hand is Brandon T. Jackson, playing his rapper/actor crossover character Alpa Chino, who comically tries his hardest to correct the historic stereotypes Downey uses to embody his African American roots. Dropped into the lap of a less dedicated actor, the blackface would have completely failed and indeed come off as racist, but Downey confidently walks through the film totally unashamed, which allows the audience to feel unashamed at laughing at him. Ben Stiller, who also took the directing helm for this wartime parody, equally dove into the deep end of the pool with his action hero’s level of total obliviousness to the world around him. Feeling a little like the reverse of the situation in Hot Fuzz, where one man was sane and the entire town was mentally inept, Stiller provides a good deal of the less subtle humor. The only negative twitch I had here was the suspension of disbelief is stretched incredibly thin with Stiller. I could buy the totally out-of-touch actor persona, but once dropped in the legit war zone, it’s a little tough to buy Stiller continuing to live in his action film dream world. Jack Black comes through in the end of the film with his physical comedy king character, but he felt wildly underused for most of the film. Surprisingly, driving the plot and the story along was Jay Baruchel, who was the only mentally stable person in the entire film and he turned in a great performance.

Peeking around the corner of the frame, the cameos in the film are almost overwhelming. Steve Coogan, who should have had a much bigger role, was relegated to mere minutes of screen time, yet he made the most of them. Matthew McConaughey helps paint Hollywood agents in their bleakest light to date, while Bill Hader appears under the veil of the lowly studio-head assistant. Danny McBride, who is having the year of his life right now, steals scenes left and right as the pyrotechnics expert alongside Nick Nolte as the grizzled true life persona of Ben Stiller’s lead role. Saving the most notable cameo for last, Tom Cruise makes a triumphant return to the big screen as an overweight, unbelievably hairy, booty smackin’, cuss tossing Hollywood Studio exec. The hidden genius in this role is every moment he is talking smack about over-pampered actors and how they need to be treated, you know he’s poking fun at himself. Word on the street is Tom recently dropped out of his next action/spy thriller in turn for another comedy after hearing the positive buzz about his Tropic turn. If his career makes a dramatic upturn in the coming months, Tom honestly owes Ben Stiller a crisp million dollar check.

Topping off the whole experience is the great cinematography from John Toll and a wonderfully worked soundtrack, which brings the audience back to the time of epic war movies, but equally reminds us we are watching a send up of that very time period. I can’t say this is going to take in tons of money since the humor might be missed by people not familiar with the inner workings and insanity of the entertainment industry, but I hope there is enough kicks to the balls and fart jokes to keep the rest of the world happy.

Recommendation: It’s worth a look see. Save a couple bucks with the matinée ticket if you can, but check it out in the theater. The jungle, the explosions, the ridiculous trailers all work better in that environment.

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