Heavy-Handed FernGully Gets Its Message Across

When he was little, my brother Benjamin loved the movie FernGully. I suspect that now he'd disavow this cartoon that's the tree-hugging-est film since the animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, but at the time he was quite taken with the teeming wildlife, the fish-out-of-water surfer dude, the sibilantly toxic villain and, most especially, the wacky winged sidekick.

My strongest memory of the movie was also Robin Williams' manic performance as Batty Koda, a bat who has been subjected to experimentation at a lab and is consequently deeply mistrustful of humans and has a habit of making random outbursts. Re-watching it recently, I recalled how much more I enjoyed his role as Genie in Aladdin, which hit theaters about half a year after FernGully. While Batty is certainly good for a laugh, his neurotic nature grates after a while, and his truncated rap doesn't hold up nearly as well as Friend Like Me.

Some of his cultural references are painfully dated, as is nearly every word out of the mouth of Zak Young (Jonathan Ward), the clueless tree-marker whom Crysta (Samantha Mathis), the headstrong leader-in-training of the community of fairies in FernGully, accidentally shrinks. Zak rocks out to his walkman, rhapsodizes about "bodacious babes" and makes us suffer through the old "only fools are positive" shtick with Batty. He's straight out of the late '80s, but the laughable is balanced by the lovable. You can't help but like the guy and embrace the wondrous journey he must undertake.

As integral as Zak is to the plot - he is, after all, the representative of humanity, and in a sense the future rests on his shoulders - the main character is Crysta, who is youthful and spunky but possesses the latent potential for an extra-special bond with the world around her. Wizened mystic Magi Lune (Grace Zabriskie) mentors her as best she can, but naive Crysta is not prepared for the horrors of the outside world and the grim knowledge that the fanciful "human tales" painting people as protectors of the forest are not reflected in reality.

It's obvious just from the pessimistic subtitle - "the last rainforest" - that FernGully has a message to get across: Don't clear-cut rainforests! I love trees just about as much as J. R. R. Tolkien and John Denver ever did, so I can't complain about the moral, though its method of delivery is rather heavy-handed, and the simplistic animation accompanying the retelling of legends teeters between dull and slightly creepy. Really creepy is Hexxus, a big brown glob who propels himself along by feeding on poisonous fumes and occasionally morphs into a skeleton. This entity is seriously vile, and Tim Curry seems to relish every moment of it.

On the whole, the tunes sung by characters, which I usually much prefer to generic background songs in these sorts of movies, aren't particularly noteworthy. Batty's solo is annoying, while Hexxus belts out a disgusting diatribe peppered with strange culinary comparisons like acid rain to egg chow mein and a lizard bursts in with a jarringly random ditty about his ravenous hunger. But I love the gorgeous, idealistic A Dream Worth Keeping, written by dream team Alan Silvestri and Jimmy Webb and performed by Sheena Easton, and Raffi's gently peppy Raining Like Magic wonderfully captures the vitality of the ecosystem. Stick around for the credits and you'll be rewarded with Some Other World, an overlooked Elton John gem.

The setting for FernGully seems to be Australia, as we see kangaroos, platypuses and emus, but most of the characters have American accents, with a few British accents thrown in for good measure. I suspect director Bill Croyer and writers Jim Cox and Diana Young were going for more of a mythical last refuge not corresponding to any particular location. Dedicated "to our children and our children's children," the movie aims to make a difference, one tree at a time. For that, I can forgive a lot of retro corniness.

Freddie Highmore Enchants in August Rush

Is it mere coincidence that August Rush, the musical fairy tale directed by Kirsten Sheridan, stars two actors who have previously played unconventional versions of Peter Pan? Maybe. But the echoes seem to be there, with Robin Williams playing Wizard, a ring-leader for lost boys (and girls) living in their own little Neverland in an old theatre, and wide-eyed Freddie Highmore portraying Evan Taylor, who wants nothing more than a mother (and a father, too). This young lad can't soar through the air, but his remarkable gift for finding music all around him is every bit as magical as fairy dust.

When I first saw trailers for August Rush, I was hooked as soon as I spied Highmore, who has replaced the now-grown Haley Joel Osment as my favorite child actor. I thought he was brilliant in Two Brothers, Finding Neverland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and I suspected any film with him in the cast would be of high quality. Besides, the premise of a boy who has never known his parents seeking them out through music was entrancing, and Williams sweetened the deal.

The film did not disappoint. Highmore seems to breathe innocent sincerity, and he is a big part of why this movie works despite the fact that disbelief must be checked at the door. August Rush is primarily about his journey, a trek much like that of Fievel Mousekewitz in An American Tail, except that he doesn't even know his parents' names or what they look like. But he hears them, and he's convinced that if he can just find a way to put the music inside him out in the open, they just might hear him, too.

Initially, Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell) and Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) don't know they're looking for their son. Indeed, Louis, a washed-up rock star, has no idea he fathered a child, while Lyla, a Julliard-trained orchestral musician who delivered Evan after sustaining serious injuries in a car accident, was led to believe he was stillborn. Unfortunate circumstances have kept them separated from each other and from Evan, and though they both feel something important is missing from their lives, it's hard to say just what.

Evan is a musical prodigy who has never picked up an instrument. He's especially fascinated by wind chimes but finds melodious patterns in all the noises around him, and the film is presented in such a way that we are able to tap into his inspiration even before he finds the means with which to express it. It seems a little far-fetched to me that this boy would have gone more than 11 years without access to a guitar, a piano or even a harmonica, but a lot about this movie is far-fetched, and I'm willing to accept it because of the sheer exhilaration that accompanies each of his musical discoveries.

It starts with a guitar, played by the talented, street-smart Arthur (Leon G. Thomas III), who leads Evan into the fold of the eccentric, anti-establishment Wizard, who both nurtures and manipulates children with musical abilities, forcing them to work as street performers and hand the tips over to him. He reminds me of Fagin in Oliver Twist, who I always felt a little sorry for despite his criminal activities. While Wizard facilitates Evan's real immersion in music and gives him the titular pseudonym, he's not quite the kindly mentor the previews led me to believe, but he's not all sinister either.

When an evening choir practice draws him to a church, Evan progresses to piano and organ and soon is writing his own rhapsody, taking into account all the sounds and events that have moved him so profoundly. He takes to each new instrument instantly, without having to take time to develop proficiency, and between Highmore's ecstatic expressions and the combination of music and cinematography, watching and listening is truly a joyful experience.

It's Highmore who really drives the film, but Williams, who seems to be emulating Bono with his get-up, is compelling, while Thomas and Jamie Simone Nash, who plays Hope, a young vocalist Evan befriends, both boast considerable musical skill. Meyers, whose character reminds me of Charlie Pace on LOST, is fine, but Russell is positively luminous, and Terrence Howard conveys a sense of kind concern as Richard Jeffries, a social worker who takes an interest in Evan's welfare.

Rush to the cinema this November for a touching tale of family, love and the power of music. It's a film you're not likely to forget any time soon.

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.

Cute But Chaotic, Happy Feet Can't Out-Pedal Cars

The first I heard of Happy Feet was probably about a year ago, when a friend of mine played me a preview and informed me that this was a movie that made life worth living. At least, he expected it would be, given the fact that the preview filled him with happiness. Buoyed by his enthusiasm, I anticipated the movie with excitement, but its opening passed without me getting to the theater, and days turned into weeks and then months. I still wanted to see it, but in his absence, my passion for the film subsided, and I figured it was another one for the rental queue.

But a couple days ago, I was invited to see it, as it had lingered at our dollar theater and I wasn't the only one who failed to catch it at full price. I confess some of the sense of confusion I felt throughout the film could be attributed to the fact that we got into the movie after it started. How long, I'm not sure; I don't think it could've been more than three or four minutes, but we did miss a bit of set-up. However, we did see when Mumble, the adorable little penguin featured in so much of the film's advertising, discovers he can't sing.

If you saw The March of the Penguins - and Happy Feet almost seems to operate under the assumption that you did - you'll recall that Emperor Penguins find their mates by listening for their unique call. They operate by sound rather than sight, which is what audiences have to do to some extent in this movie, since it's pretty hard to have several penguin characters with unique physical characteristics. We identify the birds mostly by sound, and they assert their individuality through their "heart songs". Their entire culture revolves around music, with chicks learning from the earliest age that singing is a key component to their survival. So Mumble is in trouble, even though he's a fantastic tap dancer. He just doesn't fit the mold.

Mostly, Happy Feet is a typical Rudolph-type story about an outcast who makes good, managing to use the characteristic that causes him to be ostracized as a means by which to do something heroic. But Mumble's quest is meant to have consequences that extend beyond the confines of the movie. The fish are dying. Noah (Hugo Weaving), the crotchety Scottish elder who leads Mumble's group of penguins, blames the little dancer for the food shortage. Our young hero knows that can't be true, and an encounter with a traumatized sea bird convinces him that the explanation must lie far away with the fabled "aliens". So while the story is part coming-of-age tale and part romance (with Gloria, a spunky young penguin with the best singing voice in the colony), it also becomes a plea for ecological awareness that gets a little trippy once Mumble comes face-to-face with these strange creatures, who are actual live-action people. I really think that green message is the reason this film took the Oscar for best animated movie; in terms of overall quality, Cars should have beaten Happy Feet hands-down.

The film boasts an all-star voice cast, which helps with differentiating the characters, though I didn't recognize all of the actors when I heard them. Elijah Wood stars as Mumble once he hits young adulthood, which happens disappointingly quickly; I think the advertising was a bit misleading here, as it seemed to focus primarily on itty bitty Mumble (Elizabeth Daily), leading me to believe the majority of the film featured him as a chick. Of course, he still looks chick-like throughout the rest of the film; though he's larger, he matures more slowly than most of his peers and still hasn't lost his baby fuzz. Moreover, his voice has a very juvenile quality to it. Still, he is an adult, as is Gloria, who I can't take too seriously as the most silky-voiced penguin of them all when she's voiced by Brittany Murphy, whose tonal quality has always screeched "nails on a chalkboard" to me. Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman fare better as maternal Norma Jean and Elvis-like Memphis, and Robin Williams is over-the-top as always in dual roles: spicy Latino Ramon, a sharp-tongued little penguin from a neighboring colony who garnered most of the film's big laughs, and Barry White-esque, tuft-eared Lovelace, who serves as a guru to the smaller penguins until his "talisman," a series of plastic rings from a six-pack of beer, chokes away his vocal abilities. The latter character also serves as the film's narrator in what seems to be a throwback to Morgan Freeman. Also appearing briefly: an elephant seal voiced by Steve Irwin in his last film role. The end of the credits include a dedication to him, which is especially appropriate given the movie's conservationist bent.

I appreciate what the movie is trying to say, both about embracing our unique qualities and finding solutions to our ecological crises. However, I found Happy Feet to be strange, too dark for young children (especially in one scene involving a vicious leopard seal) and probably too political as well, particularly in its portrayal of Noah as a religious fundamentalist whose backward views threaten to doom his colony. Most of all, I found it too chaotic, with characters - especially Ramon and his four buddies - often speaking over top of one another and with half a dozen different songs going at once. It seemed like the list of songs took up half the credits, and personally I found very few of the renditions to be particularly pleasant. Mostly, they gave me a bit of a headache, though I did find the toe-tapping displays to be visually appealing. The animation quality in general was pretty high, though I still wouldn't rank it up there with any of the Disney / Pixar collaborations.

Happy Feet is a cute movie about a penguin trying to find his place in the world. It's also a film about trying to preserve the wild spaces of the Earth from dangerous human interference. In fact, the blatant environmentalist message reminds me of another film in which Williams took part: Ferngully, an animated movie from the early nineties about a rainforest facing obliteration by an evil force using human machinery as his vehicles of destruction. Both films are pretty dark, but Ferngully has an elegant passion that gets lost in the shuffle of Happy Feet's miasmic music marathon. I'm happy I finally got around to seeing Happy Feet. But I'd also be happy not to see it again.

Almost Human: Space-Age Pinocchio Seeks Humanity

From the moment I heard of A.I., I wanted to see it. Science fiction - about a robot, no less. I used to spend hours dreaming of building my own robot, and I even tried to start the project a few times before realizing that this was something way beyond my grasp. There is something very intriguing about the idea of an artificially created being wishing to be real. Short Circuit remains one of my all-time favorite comedies, and Data was always my favorite character in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Robots have always fascinated me. There was also Steven Spielberg. I don't like all Spielberg movies - I hated Saving Private Ryan - but usually they have a great deal of heart and ultimately leave me feeling good. But the main reason for wanting to see A.I. was, I'll admit it, Haley Joel Osment. I finally have an answer to that "Who's your favorite actor?" question, and I can't wait to see what he does in the future. I'm hooked on this guy for life.

So, I was determined to see A.I., even though I heard bad things about it from all directions. I intended to see it in the theater, but it came while I was out of the country. So when I returned, I awaited its arrival in the dollar theater. It came, and my friend and I said we would go see it that week. That was the second week of September, and it never happened. I think perhaps it is good that I did not see it at that time. As much as I wanted to see Castaway, when I found out I was going to England I did not want to watch it until I had arrived safely home. I had no such forewarning about A.I., but if I had seen this film on September 9th or 10th, I think it would have driven me over the edge. Watching it now was eerie enough.

The movie is a joint project of Steven Spielberg and the late Stanley Kubrick, the far less warm and fuzzy director of 2001 and Dr. Strangelove fame. Based on the short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long, it takes place sometimes in the future, after global warming has caused the icecaps to melt and flood many of the world?s major cities. In order to accommodate the needs of a new age, the leading scientists create androids who appear fully human but cannot feel emotion. This changes with the creation of David, an android in the form of a child programmed to love. David is given to a couple, Monica (Frances O'Connor) and Henry (Sam Robards), whose son Martin (Jake Thomas) is in a cryogenic coma while doctors seek a cure for his medical condition. By speaking a series of seven words, Monica imprints herself upon David, causing him to take on the eternal mantra of I Only Have Eyes for You, a song repeated several times throughout the film in another context.

David's obsession with his mother makes him a prime candidate for the Oedipus complex, as do his interactions with Henry and Martin, who recovers from his mysterious disease. I was reminded of Harry Potter briefly, between David's being locked in the closet at one point and the dreadful treatment given him by his "brother." At any rate, David becomes the outsider shortly after Martin's return, and Monica feels forced to dispose of this monster she helped to create. Releasing him into the woods with Teddy (Jack Angel), Martin's outdated supertoy that is reminiscent of Teddy Ruxpin, Monica makes David, a "mecha," promise to avoid people, who are "orga." David is left crestfallen but determined to win his mother's love by seeking out the Blue Fairy and asking to become a real boy.

The journey is dark and depressing, and his only friends throughout most of the journey are the wizened Teddy and Gigolo Joe (Jude Law), a quirky character programmed to be a lady-killer. Others pass through momentarily, including a robot nanny (Clara Bellar), a human child (the little girl from the Disney Scrabble commercial) and the Einstein-like hologram Dr. Know (Robin Williams sounding a lot like his earlier Genie). A cozy-sounding narrator (Ben Kingsley) whose voice begins and ends the movie provides a fairy-tale context, albeit a very dark one.

Osment is haunting as David, turning in a performance no less fine than I expected. He is passionate, he is tormented, and yet he is clearly mechanical. A very unnerving characterization. The other character I most enjoyed was Teddy, the gruff but gentle companion of David throughout the journey. Gigolo Joe was slightly off-putting at first but ultimately I found him pretty entertaining, and the trick he has of providing ambiance is quite nifty. I also enjoyed the manic Dr. Know. But that was about it.

The other characters did not move me, not even Monica. She annoyed me, actually. Something about her did not seem right, did not seem real. She failed to move me, and her dialogue was at times dreadful. (Example: Upon being told by her husband that she must be sure before she lets David imprint on her, she says, "Silly man, of course I'm not sure." Silly man?? Give me a break.) David seemed to show more emotion than she did, and when she did it seemed forced. I just could not bring myself to care about her. Her husband Henry comes across as wishy-washy, stupid, and mean-spirited. Above all, he seems extremely selfish. Her sadistic son Martin is a horror, as are his friends. The birthday party scene reminds me a lot of the party scene from The Sixth Sense. Haley definitely carries the day, and more than anything he is disconcerting.

This movie was no E.T. My dad complained because of the lack of dialogue. This was one of his major complaints with E.T., and he felt that A.I. also failed to have enough talking. This time, John Williams' score did not seem to annoy him as much, however. He thought the music in E.T. to be sickeningly saccharine. I never saw the sparseness of speech to be a problem for the former, so it didn't really bother me in the latter, either. A friend of mine forewarned me that while he thought the movie was pretty good up to a point, the ending spoiled the social commentary. If he was able to make enough sense out of this movie to see a social commentary and to tell that the ending shattered it, I salute him. I was never entirely sure what was going on and how I was supposed to feel about it. It definitely did not make me feel good like E.T. did. In fact, it sent cold shivers down my spine on a number of occasions.

One painfully long scene in the film involves David's being captured and taken to a Flesh Fair, a ghastly gladiator-like spectacle with the motto "a celebration of life." Androids are rounded up for these events and tortured in the arena before a bloodthirsty mob in the stands. It was a horrifying sight reminding me of the gruesome garage in The Brave Little Toaster. That movie still gives me the willies... The Flesh Fair provides nightmare material for a week, and it's not the only disturbing part of this movie. It's dark and depressing at every turn, and its extended ending (my friend also pointed out, and I definitely agree, that the movie felt like it should have ended about 20 minutes before it did) did nothing to salvage the warm and fuzzy feeling I was hoping to get. It left me dazed, disoriented, and down in the doldrums.

Add to that the scenes of a Manhattan flattened by floods, with just Lady Liberty's arm rising above the waves and the Twin Towers lording over the ruined city. New York City virtually destroyed. And, at one point, David leaping from the top of a building, and a shot of him plummeting to the waters below in a scene that looked far too much like those scenes of the WTC jumpers for comfort. It was all a little too eerie for me to say that I enjoyed the movie very much.

And yet, perhaps that sense of eeriness is what was intended. Though A.I. did not give me the reaction I had hoped for, it did produce a strong visceral reaction. Strange pairing that it was, the film made excellent use of Osment's talents and the available technology to give a glimpse of a possible future. And so I cautiously commend it and award it four stars. But it leaves me uneasy and hoping that Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future was more accurate than this. Please, Lord, tell me this is not where we are headed!