Pixar Meets James Bond in Cars 2

In the second season of Flight of the Conchords, the oddball HBO comedy about a pair of eccentric New Zealand folk musicians trying unsuccessfully to make it big in New York City, band manager Murray introduces New Zealand’s childlike Prime Minister, who is a little behind the times on most pop cultural matters. One of the first things he does is express his disappointment at not having seen the end of Cars, which was playing on the plane on his way over. These characters may all be hunks of metal, but you really do get invested in them. At least I do. I’ve been looking forward to Cars 2 all year.

At its heart, this sequel, like the original and like so many Pixar flicks, is primarily a buddy movie. Everything hangs on the friendship between humbled hotshot racecar Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and open-hearted redneck tow truck Mater (Larry the Cable Guy). Lightning is smooth and cool, while Mater is a first-class countrified goofball. He’s also my favorite character, so I was delighted to see that he is basically the central character this time around. While Lightning has more big races to win, Mater is the one who fuels the conflict and has the most exciting job to do.

The movie puts us right in the middle of the action with a car we’ve never met, sophisticated Aston Martin Finn McMissile (Michael Caine). It’s a dizzying opener indicative of many of the scenes to follow, with a lot happening at once, to the point of mild confusion. In the first movie, the racing scenes are chaotic, but they’re balanced out by the stretches of time in sleepy Radiator Springs. While we do spend a few minutes in that town and revisit the residents (with the exception of Paul Newman’s Doc Hudson, whose character died along with the actor who portrayed him), we mostly see them away from Radiator Springs, criss-crossing the globe along with their hometown hero.

Lightning’s international tour comes about because Mater locks heads with egotistical Italian speed demon Francesco Bernoulli (John Turturro) over his derisive comments about Lightning on a call-in TV show. Their on-the-air showdown prompts Lightning to intervene and pledge his intention to forego a relaxing summer vacation in favor of a jet-setting, high-pressure one. Once they arrive at the site of the first race, overwhelmed Mater can scarcely contain his excitement, especially once he believes he has scored a date with a hot car, Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer). His exuberance embarrasses Lightning and causes him some serious trouble, leading to a falling-out. For most of the movie, then, Mater is off on his own, trying to find a sense of purpose in a world where he always seems to be doing the wrong thing.

Little does he realize that thanks to Holley, he has now become entangled in a web of international espionage. After mistakenly identifying him as a fellow spy, she and Finn continue to work with Mater and issue instructions to him, but the movie is half-over before Mater really begins to understand what is going on. They think his dopeyness is a cover, an act to throw people off, rather like the signature schtick of expert detective Columbo as played by the late great Peter Falk. It’s not. However, there is one thing he really knows, and that is engines. Hence, he picks up on details that others would miss, and this knowledge proves very useful even if he is in completely over his head as a spy. What’s more, even though he’s just being himself, his bumpkin mannerisms do throw most people off, and that sometimes works to his advantage as well. But can he, Finn and Holley put a stop to the dangerous shenanigans that are threatening the well-being of cars around the world?

Cars 2, directed by John Lasseter and Brad Lewis, is an entertaining and eye-popping movie. Part buddy comedy and part James Bond spoof, it revels in complex action sequences and sly visual jokes. I love the way the movie presents visions of Japan, Italy and England that are rich in recognizable detail but skewered to fit this vehicular world. The high-tech zaniness of Tokyo is discombobulating but amusing, particularly during a sequence in which Mater uses the restroom and is confronted with a trippy talking computer. I loved the sunny brilliance of the Italian cityscape, though I didn’t catch which city it was. It’s in Italy that we actually have a chance to slow down for a bit as Lightning and his friends get the royal welcome from a relative of his pit crew. Then, of course, there’s London, which has been featured in so many Disney movies. Big Ben(tley) is the starting point of a pretty thrilling sequence, and Vanessa Redgrave lends her voice to an endearing vehicular version of Queen Elizabeth II.

When I heard that Pixar was planning a sequel to Toy Story, I was skeptical, but it ended up impressing me just as much as the first movie (and the third reduced me to a blubbering puddle of goo). While I enjoyed the movie, I don’t think that Cars 2 is quite that kind of home run. The first movie is so much about hometown pride and a group of eccentric characters teaching the arrogant but lonely Lightning that there’s more to life than winning races. While Mater is even more prominent in this movie than in the first, the rest of the characters take a backseat, appearing in only a few scenes and not adding that much to the overall story. Meanwhile, aside from Finn, Holley and Francesco, I found the new characters hard to latch onto. Despite the core friendship between Lightning and Mater, the movie feels most concerned with being a send-up of spy films, and as such, it is less focused on character than on explosive displays. Some of these scenes are a lot of fun, but sometimes the movie seems to get a bit bogged down. There’s also the thread of big oil versus alternative fuel running through the sequel, and the ultimate point seems to push going green, but the message is a bit convoluted.

One thing that Pixar fans have come to depend on is end-credits fun, and Cars 2 doesn’t disappoint in that respect. While I think I laughed more at the credits for Cars, I did enjoy the flat, retro-style vignettes showing a series of postcards involving various characters. I also liked the end-credits songs, particularly Brad Paisley’s Nobody’s Fool, a touching song from the perspective of Mater as he realizes how the world perceives him and struggles to come to terms with that identity.

Meanwhile, like the other Pixar movies, this one includes a short before the main feature. While most tend to be wordless and feature characters exclusive to that short, this time around we get to check up on the Toy Story gang in the cute Hawaiian Vacation, which finds Woody, Buzz and the whole gang trying to create an idyllic beach retreat for Ken and Barbie after their plan to stow away in Bonnie’s backpack fails to land them passage on her trip to Hawaii. In just a few minutes, each character gets a moment or two in the spotlight. In fact, I would say the short does a more effective job of highlighting Woody’s posse than the feature does of highlighting most of the Radiator Springs residents. They do have their moments, but most of them end up getting a bit lost in the shuffle.

In the end, then, I like Cars 2, but it felt a little too glitzy to me and lacking just a bit in the character department. I’ve heard some comments that this one was all about the money and that it was a disgrace to the Pixar name, and I can’t agree with that. Nonetheless, after two years of sequels, I am really looking forward to the next original Pixar movie.

The Third Time Doesn't Charm Much With Little Fockers

I got home from a long trip the other day, and yesterday a friend of mine called me up to welcome me back and see if I wanted to go to the movies. We have two major movie theaters here in town, one of which is a dollar theater. The nice thing about the dollar theater, of course, is that it’s cheap. The not-so-nice part is that there are a lot fewer movies to choose from, so you’re more likely to end up watching something you’d rather not pay full price for anyway. Last night’s movie was Little Fockers, the third installment in the Meet the Parents series starring Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro.

It took me until last year to finally see Meet the Parents, and I never did see the sequel, Meet the Fockers. I didn’t really need to, though; this movie filled in the gaps sufficiently, which mainly involve Greg’s (Stiller) touchy-feely parents, stay-at-home dad Bernie (Dustin Hoffman) and television sex therapist Roz (Barbra Streisand). Greg is a nurse and a devoted family man. He’s a very decent guy, which begins to really hit home for his intimidating father-in-law, Jack Byrnes (DeNiro), after his other son-in-law cheats on his wife and takes off. A mild heart attack leaves this towering giant of a patriarch shaken and determined to see Greg carry on as family protector if anything should happen to him.

As in the first movie, Stiller and DeNiro have a great dynamic. Both of them are likable, but it’s easy to see how they drive each other crazy. While the first movie is very heavy on the slapstick and requires Greg to do several incredibly stupid things, in this movie, the disasters that happen really aren’t his fault. Some cringe-worthy moments do occur, but I felt like I was able to root for him more in this movie since he really is in the right most of the time, and he’s trying very hard to do well by his wife, his children and his in-laws. Meanwhile, Jack’s behavior in this movie is pretty reasonable as well. He’s looking out for his family too, and his limited point of view, along with a generally suspicious outlook, causes him to come to unfortunate but understandable conclusions. The wives, Dina Byrnes and Pam Focker (Blythe Danner and Teri Polo), have minimal roles, just playing it straight and supportive as their husbands lose their heads.

The plot of the movie is driven by miscommunication and one extremely over-the-top new character. The in-laws have come to town for the fifth birthday party of the Focker twins, precocious Samantha (Daisy Tahan) and dopey Henry (Colin Baiocchi). It’s not for a few days, though, so that’s plenty of time for trouble to develop. Most of that trouble involves Greg’s involvement with a perky drug rep named Andi Garcia (Jessica Alba). For some reason, she is really eager for him to be one to give a speech about her company’s new drug at an upcoming convention. And he could use the money, especially since he is in the process of trying to get his kids into an exclusive private school. But he doesn’t want Jack to know about the convention, since he wants him to think he is totally financially secure, and leaving the father-in-law out of the loop on this little detail leads to big problems later on. It doesn’t help, either, that Pam’s ex, guileless golden boy Kevin (Owen Wilson), returns to town just before the party after Greg’s advice about how to propose to his supermodel girlfriend backfires on him.

Basically, I like the main characters in the movie, except for Andi, who seems to ooze phoniness and spends the entire movie flinging herself relentlessly at a married man. I’m really not sure why. I kept looking for some sinister motivation, but it seems the only explanation for her behavior is that she has a mad crush on Greg and won’t let anything stand in the way of her having her way with him. While Greg thinks she’s a knockout, it’s a mark of his character that he is never tempted to give in to her advances. But that can’t stop her from putting him in a couple of very compromising positions. I found myself cringing most of the time when she was on screen, and her totally unprofessional behavior made me wonder how she managed to hang onto her job.

Aside from her, what really annoyed me about the movie was the gross-out humor. There’s the tedious tittering over Greg’s full name, with his birth name of Gaylord coming up several times at awkward moments, particularly with Prudence (Laura Dern), the spacey director of the school he wants his children to attend. There’s the fact that the drug he’s supposed to be hawking is basically Viagara for heart patients, so you can imagine the eye-rolling jokes there, especially the piercingly uncomfortable moment highlighted in the previews in which Greg must administer a shot to counteract the drug’s effects after Jack takes some on the sly. And given the profession of Greg’s mother, almost everything she says has some sort of sexual connotation, and that gets old fast. Finally, along with all the lewd humor, there are disgusting moments like Henry barfing all over his father or Greg taking a chunk out of his hand while carving a turkey, which, if I’m remembering right, pretty much happened in the first movie and was unpleasant enough then.

The first two movies did really well at the box office, and at this point the third movie just feels like the cast and writers trying to stretch the series out beyond its natural end point. The movie concludes in such a way that it seems to be baiting us for yet another sequel, and at this point I can’t help thinking it’s a little excessive. DeNiro and Stiller do make a great team, and Little Fockers has its moments of humor and sweetness. But I think this is a franchise that has run its course.

Robert DeNiro Turns Ben Stiller Into a Bumbling Buffoon in Meet the Parents

When I was taking guitar lessons, one of the songs I played was Puff the Magic Dragon, which prompted my teacher to ask if I’ve ever seen Meet the Parents. He explained that the song’s marijuana-related interpretation was discussed in the movie, which he deemed hilarious, so when a friend decided to give away her VHS collection and Meet the Parents was on the list, I put in my request. Last night I finally got to see whether I agreed with his assessment.

Ben Stiller plays Greg Focker, a low-key, likable guy who works as a nurse, a profession he enjoys because it allows him to have such close contact with patients. He’s been dating Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo), a sweet-natured kindergarten teacher, and he’s cooked up an adorable marriage proposal that gets her students in on the big moment. But before he can pop the question, Pam gets a call from her sister Deborah informing her of her engagement, which was preceded by her fiance’s asking her father for permission. Hence, Greg decides that he needs to ask permission as well.

He gets his chance two weeks later, when he accompanies Pam home for the weekend for Deborah’s wedding. After a fairly congenial initial meeting, Greg and Pam’s father, Jack (Robert DeNiro), get off on the wrong foot when Pam lets it slip that Greg hates cats. Then, on the way to the store, Greg cracks a joke about Puff the Magic Dragon that offends Jack and makes him suspect that his daughter’s boyfriend is a pothead. What follows is a weekend of increasing disaster as keyed-up Greg manages to make just about every possible mis-step.

My parents aren’t especially big fans of Ben Stiller, but I usually find his performances pretty enjoyable. Here, he’s easy to sympathize with; he certainly sells us on the awkwardness of the situation. On the other hand, Greg does some incredibly stupid things, like lying to Jack throughout the weekend even though he knows how deeply this man values honesty and how skilled he is at knowing when someone is lying. Most of his stupidest moves involve Jack’s beloved, talented cat, Mr. Jinx, a thorn in his side from the moment they meet. It doesn’t help that not only Jack but Deborah’s fiance and his father all find it hilarious that he is a nurse. At least Pam’s mom (Blythe Danner) is pretty accepting of Greg, but she doesn’t have the forceful personality of those around her.

As amusing as Stiller is in his role, it’s DeNiro who steals the show with his understated but intimidating performance as a man who is deeply devoted to his daughter and incredibly suspicious of anyone who wants to sweep her off her feet. The dynamic between him and Greg is intense, with the latter constantly feeling threatened despite Jack’s frequent friendly overtures. By the end of the weekend, I found myself more sympathetic toward Jack than Greg, since Greg is such a walking disaster who manages to wreak incredible havoc on this man’s home in a couple of short days.

This movie, like the recently released Dinner for Schmucks and dozens of similar movies, is largely dependent upon mass destruction. A broken vase here, a broken nose there, and before you know it you’re watching a sewage-filled backyard go up in flames. It all gets to feel a bit excessive, especially since you can see most of the disasters coming from a mile away. Still, many of the gags are funny, and DeNiro and Stiller are great together. I also got a kick out of Owen Wilson, who so often appears in movies alongside Stiller, as Pam’s wealthy, affable ex-fiance Kevin, who is such an earnest Christian that he has decided to take up carpentry, for which he has an exceptional talent. While Kevin may be a bit over-the-top, I found nothing unlikable about him, and I would be curious to see how he might be integrated into the second and third movies in the series.

Meet the Parents is a less offensive movie than I might have expected from Jay Roach, who also directed the Austin Powers series. While there is some innuendo, it’s certainly not at an Austin level, and there’s little profanity, since this weekend is all about making a good impression on a fairly conservative family - though the characters do have way too much fun with Greg’s last name. What it does have in spades is cringe-worthy scenes involving the obliteration of personal property, so if you find that sort of thing gets old really fast, this movie might not be for you. But alongside the mishaps is the story of two young people who are deeply committed to one another and two parents who have very different approaches but both want to see their daughter happy. For that, I’m willing to wade through a little sludge.

Robin Williams Brings Sage Serenity to Madcap Museum Comedy

When we were very young, my family went to a museum and were greeted inside by a massive Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was only a model, of course, but that didn't stop my brother from being so freaked out that he ran screaming from the building. I can only imagine what his reaction would have been had he found himself face to face with the suddenly animated T-Rex in Night at the Museum.

I first saw previews for this Ben Stiller blockbuster back in June, and while it wasn't at the top of my must-see list, I was still pretty intrigued. A-list cast, PG rating, havoc in a museum... What's not to love? But I didn't catch the movie until it played on my family's return flight from California last month. They weren't the most ideal viewing conditions, squinting into the small screen with a cloudy head brought on by motion sickness medication, but I focused as best I could and managed to get the gist of it pretty well.

Larry Daley is the typical Stiller schmuck. His career history is shoddy at best, to the point that his own son, Nick (Jake Cherry), who lives primarily with his mother, looks down on him, so when he manages to land a job as a night watchman at the Museum of Natural History, he keeps it despite the very strange occurrences that plague him his first night on the job, and of which the mysterious trio who hired him (Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Bill Cobbs) gave him little warning.

The trouble? Everything in the museum comes to life at night. The T-Rex bounds down the hallways, wanting to play catch. Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams) distributes sage advice and makes eyes at Sacajawea (Mizuo Peck). Ornery cowboy Jedediah (Owen Wilson) and ferocious Attila the Hun (Patrick Gallagher) provide numerous headaches, and an ill-tempered monkey launches himself upon Larry whenever he has the chance. How is this happening? Is there a way to make it stop? Is it worth risking life and limb for a measly ten bucks an hour?

It isn't long before we discover the esteemed elder statesmen have a trick or two up their sleeves, but it's long enough that Larry has formed an attachment to some of his unconventional charges and is concerned enough about their welfare to launch an offensive against the threesome's nefarious plans, which means several overloaded action sequences packed with special effects and more jokes involving the bodily functions of monkeys than should be allowed in one movie.

It's a feast for the eyes, albeit a very chaotic one, as characters from dioramas spanning the centuries clash or cooperate with one another. There's little to cause great offense, aside from the aforementioned potty humor, which one comes to expect from Stiller but which is toned down considerably here. He's a likable guy - much more likable, incidentally, than his sanctimonious son - and though the love interest angle takes a major backseat to the rest of the action, Rebecca (Carla Gugino), the apple of his eye, seems like a decent potential match.

The cast stand-outs, however, are the devious, hilarious trio played by Van Dyke, Rooney and Cobbs - of whom the former two are among my favorite actors, though I haven't seen much of either of them lately - and Williams in a surprisingly serene role. He's the voice of reason in all the madness that is the museum, without whom Larry (whom he insists on calling "Lawrence") would be hopelessly lost. And yet he's only emulating the real Teddy, so toward the end we see this strong mentorly figure steeped in vulnerability, and it's really quite touching.

Williams really is the factor that pushes this movie beyond pure silliness; that sobering touch improves the film a great deal. Night at the Museum is still a puffy piece of entertainment, and there's nothing wrong with that, but thanks to a little help from an esteemed former president, it's just a little bit more.

"Nothing Improves a Movie Like Low Expectations."

If you scroll through my movie reviews, you will likely notice that almost all of them bear a four- or five-star rating. There are two major reasons for this. The first is that I try to look for the good in things. I’m willing to overlook a lot of bad stuff if I ultimately enjoyed the movie more than I hated it. The other reason is that I rarely watch movies that I think I won’t like. Once in a while, though, I figure I might as well increase my credibility by going to a movie that I’m sure will earn a miserable review from me. So I didn’t complain much when my friend suggested going to see Wedding Crashers, a film I had pinned as one of the most disgusting of the summer. “But what if you like it?” my brother queried just before I left. “Well,” I replied, “I shall be very disappointed.”

Pile on the disappointment.

The film opens with John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughn) hard at work at their job, pretty much the only time this happens in the movie. Right off the bat it is easy to see that the two are good buddies. It also seems that their success in their career is based upon their immense capacity to irritate whoever they are advising. John hangs back a bit, only inserting occasional comments, but Jeremy talks with the speed of the Micro Machine Man, and each thing he says makes less sense than whatever came before. His motor-mouth tendencies come up several times in the film, causing several tirades that are somewhat amusing but more obnoxious. His frenetic energy makes him the more annoying of the two, though I’ve yet to see a movie in which I don’t find Wilson irritating. It’s harder to pinpoint just why, but I think it has to do with an overall aura of ditziness. Actually, for the most part he came across more intelligently here than he usually does, and there was an undeniable sweetness to his character. And while I didn’t like Vaughn’s character much, I had to admire his loyalty and feel sorry for him when John was too head over heels to be sensitive to his friend’s needs.

The premise of two guys crashing weddings in order to hook up with vulnerable young women is a pretty crude one, but the extensive montage scene showing how they achieve those goals is amusing and ingenious without being offensive, at least until the last minute or so. This is where the men’s real talents come to the forefront, and they manage to ingratiate themselves to a wide variety of guests, becoming the life of the party whether the wedding is Jewish, Indian or Greek. They show such congeniality, restraint and charisma during these receptions, it’s a shame such talents are reserved for ultimately unscrupulous activities. I couldn’t help but think of all the great things they could be doing if they focused their skills more appropriately.

The real conflict begins after the exhausting but exhilarating summer wedding season is over and they are settling back into a more relaxed lifestyle. But the wedding of prominent Secretary Cleary’s (Christopher Walken) daughter draws them out of their off-season leisure, and the high stakes and change of pace seem to impinge upon their decorum, at least at the wedding. Their barely whispered discussions in the church pew are jarring and most unseemly for the setting, though I couldn’t help but be amused by their wager over which biblical lesson the bride’s sister would read. The movie as a whole makes some interesting observations about the traditions involved in weddings – and the frequent insincerity of the guests. There’s a certain cynicism to it, but at the same time you walk out of the movie with the feeling that marriage is an institution to be respected.

John and Jeremy both lay eyes early on their quarry. Both make a connection by the reception. Jeremy achieves his ultimate goal but finds his plan has backfired. Gloria (Isla Fisher), sister of the bride, is smitten with him – is in fact obsessed with him to a psychotic degree. Worse, he cannot beat a hasty retreat because John has forged an emotional bond with Claire (Rachel McAdams), also a sister of the bride, and he wants some extra time to get to know her better. She has ceased to become one-night stand material; John, perhaps for the first time in his life, is in love. What follows is a weekend with the rather deranged family in which John sneaks in as much time with Claire as he can, Jeremy endures any number of dangerous and uncomfortable situations in the name of not abandoning his friend, and Claire’s boyfriend Sack (Bradley Cooper) hires a detective to see what these two newcomers are up to.

Probably my favorite character in the whole shebang is Secretary Clearly. Walken has a knack for creating compelling supporting characters, and he makes the senator a consummate politician and sportsman, but above all a completely devoted father. His scenes with McAdams are especially touching. He’s stuck with a tipsy wife (Jane Seymour) who confides that she has been unfaithful to him for most of their marriage. She seems severely unbalanced and spends most of her on-screen time trying to seduce John. Perhaps even more disturbing is Grandma Mary (Ellen Albertini Dow, as vitriolic here as she was sweet in The Wedding Singer), who is uncouth and vocally homophobic and, as my friend pointed out, really could have been excised from the film entirely with no detriment to the plot. They probably could have done away with Todd (Keir O’Donnell), the brooding black sheep of the Cleary family, altogether. He is a leering, unkempt presence, and though I initially wanted to feel sorry for this unappreciated artist, he was too surly and downright creepy to win points from me. His main purpose, I guess, is to make Jeremy also suffer through seduction from a most unwelcome family member, but he has to put up with so much anyway, this seems most unnecessary. Rounding out the loony bin is Sack, who’s a stereotypical svelte, controlling jerk who takes his girlfriend for granted but sees red if he thinks anyone else might have his eye on her. His cocky attitude and constant bullying make him a guy it’s easy to love to hate.

For the most part, I found Gloria to be utterly obnoxious, but I guess that’s okay because I felt the same way about Jeremy. The two are suited to one another. Claire is an entirely different story. This is McAdams at the most likable I’ve seen her. Too manipulative in Mean Girls, too volatile in The Notebook, here she is just a sweet, idealistic girl who loves her dad and is stuck with a major bummer of a boyfriend who the whole family seems to love. She thinks she loves him, but the more she sees of his vicious behavior towards the two mysterious guests the less sure she is. Cut out all of the gross-out trappings, and Wilson and McAdams create a surprisingly tender romantic comedy.

I had heard enough about this film beforehand that I expected non-stop opportunities for me to wave a hefty bag of popcorn in front of my face in order to shield my eyes from the depravities occurring on screen. What I got was long stretches of film that were hardly offensive at all, with a few extremely tasteless scenes thrown in so the group of guys roaring in the back row of the theater wouldn’t feel as though they had wasted their money. If TBS got its hands on this, strategically removing the most blatantly low-brow parts and smoothing over the raunchy language, it would probably be a perfectly appropriate film. Granted, if I hadn’t been so sure I would hate it, I probably wouldn’t have liked it as much. But however I got there, I arrived at the conclusion that Wedding Crashers is actually a decent movie. Sorry, Epinions, looks like it’s going to be another high rating from bilbopooh.