Drifting Away

I remember seeing the first Ice Age film back in 2002. It was a resurgent time for animated films, with the likes of Shrek and Monsters Inc. having set new, high standards for cartoon entertainment, and the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature was was created to finally give recognition to the artistic importance of these movies. Compared to the excellence of titles like Lilo & Stitch, Ice Age was a fine, if not particularly special, release that focused on the survival of mammals during the Paleolithic ice age. I remember LIKING Ice Age, but also thinking that there was no real reason to revisit the lives of Manny the woolly mammoth (Ray Romano), Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo) and Diego the smilodon (Dennis Leary). That's why I've effectively avoided the film's first two sequels over the past decade, and also why only the first Ice Age received a nomination for Best Animated Feature (it lost to Spirited Away), while the others have earned just middling reviews. Still, the series has proved popular with the kids, so Manny and company are back in Ice Age: Continental Drift, and I was just curious enough to see what the three heroes have been up to in the past ten years.

Bet he's starting to look a little tasty right now...

After starting off with the dialogue-less The Longest Daycare starring Maggie Simpson (a wry and fun short), we discover that things have certainly changed for our heroes. No longer alone in the world, Manny has found Ellie, the love of his life (Queen Latifah), and the two have a teenage daughter named Peaches (Keke Palmer), who is just beginning to discover boys. Sid is briefly reunited with the family that abandoned him, only to have them drop off his elderly grandmother Granny (Wanda Sykes) before quickly escaping again. Soon Scrat the saber-toothed squirrel (about the only reason this series has lasted as long as it has) is up to his usual antics, finding a place to bury his beloved acorn. When this action causes the breakup of Pangaea into the continents we now know, our Manny, Sid and Diego are separated from their herd on a small, uncontrollable iceberg. Soon Manny and his crew (alongside Granny, who accidentally tags along for the ride) find themselves the targets of pirates, led by the gorilla Captain Gutt (Peter Dinklage) and his feline first mate Shira (Jennifer Lopez). It's a race home for our heroes, who won't let anything get between Manny and the reuniting of his family.

Look, it's the foreign box office! Start paddling!

I'll give this to the new Ice Age; the animation is much better than I expected. All the previews I have seen had led me to believe that the computer animation, especially the background art, would pale in comparison to other recent contemporary fare, even less than mediocre titles Kung Fu Panda 2 or Puss in Boots. Fortunately, what looks like bad animation on small screens actually comes to life on the big ones. It's still nothing in comparison to anything you've seen in a Pixar title, but the backgrounds are amazingly lifelike, and the character animations are fluid and spotless.

His heart, it breaks.

Sadly the story is what really lacks any depth, though this does have the benefit of making it easy for the children in the audience to follow along. Manny and company's story pits them consistently against Gutt's pirates, with apparently no other major predators residing in the middle of the ocean. Meanwhile the biggest story on the mainland is not escaping the slow moving rock wall that threatens to wipe out the herd, but Peaches' discovery that the boy she has a crush on is not all he turns out to be. Meanwhile Scrat's story is more out of favor than usual, and while he is still the film's most entertaining character, his skits are far closer in quality to the rest of the story than they used to be. Or maybe I'm just getting older. But where the story lacks depth it makes up for in honesty, as the motivations and desires of all the main characters is easy enough to follow for both adults and their kids.

Not the kind of people you want to meet in the middle of the ocean.

Directors Steve Martino and Mike Thurmeier also do a great job putting together a cast that, with very few exceptions, feel at home in this ice-cold world. Still, this film wasn't a challenge for everyone. While the returning Romano, Leary, and Latifah had to just be themselves, only Leguizamo and newcomers Palmer and Josh Gad feel as though they're playing actual characters in a story. Still, the interplay between Manny, Sid and Diego more than makes up for any lack of creativity on the actors' side, and Latifah and Palmer hold their own in their storyline. The pirates are also a lively bunch, featuring the talented voices of Dinklage (the image of Tyrion Lannister playing a giant gorilla makes me smile inside), Nick Frost, Aziz Ansari and Rebel Wilson in what might be the best additions to the franchise. And Sykes has the perfect voice and comedic timing to make her character even more timeless as Scrat. But not everyone's inclusion was a slam dunk; when did Jennifer Lopez become so DRY a performer? Shira's potential romance with Diego means little when you just don't care about her, no matter how many cliched transformations the villain-turned-hero undergoes. And why did the producers bother going through the casting and promoting of musical artists Drake and Nicki Minaj when the pair would do so little, and not even all that well? These gripes are thankfully limited, and the cast on the whole does what needs to be done to make the film an entertaining experience.

I know who I'm rooting for.

In the end, Ice Age:Continental Drift ends up quite close in quality to this past June's Madagascar 3. That's not too bad a place to be, as most animated films released this year have been somewhat underwhelming, even the admittedly highly-anticipated Brave. Only time will tell how well we remember this latest Ice Age outing, but this was certainly better than some of the award-nominated fare in the last few years, and the franchise is still popular enough to churn out a few more sequels. I can actually recommend this one to adults as well as kids, and that's probably the best thing I've ever said about an animated film in 2012.

Cuff Her

It's a romantic comedy! With guns!

If those two statements combined are enough to make you want to see One For the Money, the latest film to front former Gray's Anatomy star Katherine Heigl, then my job is done. Nothing to see here folks, go to the theater right now and see this film to your heart's desire. No? That's not nearly enough to convince you to see this movie? You're still recovering from The Killers to fall for that twice? Clever girl. Based on first of the extensive Stephanie Plum series by mystery author Janet Evanovich, One for the Money introduces us to one of the more enduring heroines in modern fiction. Stephanie Plum has been the protagonist in eighteen (EIGHTEEN!!) full-length novels, and one has to wonder why with such a loyal fan-base and obvious popularity she hasn't been given the cinematic treatment until now. Maybe producers were just waiting for the right actress to come along, and I'll more than readily give Heigl credit for her talents as an actress, even if she has yet to attain dominance in the film industry. Money seems at least different on the surface from her usual romantic roles, and if it turned out to actually be GOOD, then maybe I could get behind seeing more of this promising performer in the future.

The new meaning of "White Trash"

Stephanie Plum (Heigl) has been out of work for six months following her release from Macy's lingerie department. She's also a recent divorcee who is behind on her bills, rent, and car payments. Using a family connection to get a job as a recovery agent (a fancy term for bounty hunter), she jumps at the chance to collect the bounty on accused murderer Joe Morelli (Jason O'Mara), a hard-nosed cop who seduced and dumped Stephanie in high school. Getting pointers from an established and enigmatic agent known as Ranger (Daniel Sunjata), we witness Plum stumble her baby steps on the path to becoming a true bad-ass, as she discovers (naturally) that things are not always what they seem, either in the case she's following or the feelings in her heart.

This just in: new evidence in the "Granny Killer" epidemic...

If there's one reason to see Money, it's definitely Heigl as Plum, who melds so effortlessly into her character that you cannot see the actress at all, only the persona on top. Much of the enjoyment derived from this film is in not only in watching Plum so far out of her element, but the fact that her inner strength and determination help her compensate, becoming far more competent and capable as the story unfolds. Sure, as a romantic character she gets a little cliched around the edges, but when Plum is focused on the action and investigation elements of the tale, she really stands out as a strong woman who would do anything to get her man. Heigl's ability to morph into this role is especially intriguing, once again making her an actress on whom to keep watch.

Someone's overcompensating...

If only the rest of the film were as watchable as its lead actress. There are three major problems with One for the Money. One is the story, which borderlines on ridiculous in its ability to gloss over major plot holes with impunity. I'm not sure if this is also a problem with the novel and not necessarily the film's fault, but anyone who has ever watched a police procedural show could run the list of discrepancies with Money's narrative progression ad infinatum. Sure, it makes for an entertaining ride, but why should logic be thrown out the window in the process? Second is the romantic angle. Sure, Heigl and O'Mara have some chemistry together, in an antagonistic, unfulfilling sort of way. But for the most part it's largely bland, uninteresting, and isn't nearly enough by itself to make for an interesting story. It's far more fun to see Plum and Morelli go at it verbally, as their arguments make for some of the film's more interesting conversations.

Shit, it's the critics! Get down!!

The third and most damning thing wrong with this film is that just about every character is a racist caricature of a real person. Heigl, O'Mara and Daniel Sunjata manage to escape the worst of these criticisms, though O'Mara is a typical tough-guy cop, and Sunjata is so cliched as an emotionless bounty hunter that he barely rates mentioning. At least they're not like Sherri Shepherd, who plays a painfully difficult-to-watch prostitute named Lula, who acts as an informant for Plum. Lula and her associate Jackie (Ryan Michelle Bathe) have a few funny moments but are otherwise in the unfortunate situation of being the only major women of color in the film... and they're hookers. Other stereotypes include violent Latinos (John Leguizamo, Gavin-Keith Umeh), drugged-out Asians (Leonardo Nam) and stuck-up, white trash Caucasians (Patrick Fischler, Nate Mooney). That's right, the film is even racist against whites, which might have been either Evanovich's or director Julie Ann Robinson's justification for going through with it. It's a huge knock against the movie as a whole, and the Hollywood process in general.

Aaand I talked a bit too much. Finishing now.

Still, I didn't feel entirely ripped off coming out of the theater, and so I don't think any of you will either. On a completely base level, you might like One for the Money's pacing, suspense and Katherine Heigl in a rare, interesting lead role. One might think that the Stephanie Plum story will get more interesting as it goes along. That's why it's a shame that this film has done so poorly at the box office, as any prospect for a sequel seems a distant hope at best. Even if it is remains a one-all wonder, it was nice to see Heigl step up to a challenge, and make One for the Money as fun as it is. Sure, it comes in dead last at #6 for 2012, but thanks to this talented actress it won't remain there forever. It's a romantic comedy with guns. If that's all you need, then this film is for you. All others inquire elsewhere.

Raising the Bar

How long has it been since Matthew McConaughey has been known for anything besides his good looks? Sure, he's had his share of hit films over course of his career, with romantic comedies like Fool's Gold and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, dramas like We Are Marshall, even the psychological thriller Frailty. But McConaughey's resume isn't what has been getting him the most attention of late. Appearing on several "sexiest man" magazine covers, it's easy to forget that once upon a time he was one of the more respected and renowned actors in Hollywood. Often picking film that are more "fun" than critically acclaimed, he's all but secured a second or third tier celebrity status, well below the likes of George Clooney or Javier Bardem, but still above say, Michael Douglass. With the trailers to The Lincoln Lawyer, however, McConaughey seems to be refuting that status. Reminding so many people of his captivating performance in 1996's A Time To Kill, the box office winner looked to be as charming as ever in this adaptation of the novel my Michael Connolly, perhaps finally choosing a role that put his full talents on display. It certainly looked good enough to draw me out to the theater this past Sunday, hoping that the trailers did more than highlight the film's best moments.

A very special episode of Law & Order: Celebrity Victims Unit

McConaughey plays small-time defense attorney Mickey Haller, a smart and charming smooth-talker who, despite a career of defending lowlifes and scumbags and holding a not small amount of disdain for overzealous cops and prosecutors, is actually the hero of this story. Out of the blue, Haller is brought in on a high-profile case: a wealthy Beverly Hills playboy named Louis Roullet (Ryan Phillippe) is being accused of beating and threatening to kill a young woman he had met one evening. Naturally, he claims that he's being set up, and there is certainly enough doubt accredited to the woman's story to make such a statement feasible. As more and more facts become known however, what began as a straightforward case becomes a twisted cat-and-mouse game in which Mickey's not sure who to trust, or what he can do to make things right.

Macy channeling his Boogie Nights persona

The strength of the story lies in its straightforwardness and honesty. Told exclusively from the perspective of Haller, the film's tale is learned by the audience at the same time our hero becomes privy to it. In this way, we're never under the impression that the characters know much more than we do, and this helps draw in the audience to the point where stepping away before conclusions are drawn is nearly impossible. You're invested in nearly every second of the film's run time, and the time spent never feels empty, as every moment bristles with the tension of wondering what new ground-breaking piece of information we'll learn next from the film's assorted cadre of characters.

I just wanted to plug in a photo of Marisa Tomei... for all the obvious reasons

The film's biggest draw is that of its cast. Director Brad Furman did a wonderful job filling in all the roles, even if most of them pale in comparison to McConaughey. The film is told from Haller's singular point of view, and it's fortunate that an actor of McConaughey's charm is in charge here. A perfect blend of charisma, humor and brains, Haller is practically written for McConaughey to melt into. The film suffers slightly for never straying from his side (it's probably the closest I've seen to a one-man show with an ensemble cast), but not so much that it permanently damages the relationship with the audience. I'll see Marisa Tomei in just about anything, so varied are her exceptional performances. She's just as good here, though her role as Haller's District Attorney ex-wife isn't the kind of award bait that her aging exotic dancer in The Wrestler was. Still, she does a great job and some of the film's best scenes are where we see both the good and bad in the relationship between the former flames. Sweet yet strained, it was a fully realistic pseudo-romance, enhanced by the stars' chemistry. That Tomei also played a smart, sophisticated woman as well is almost a bonus. William H. Macy is also good in a small role as Haller's private investigator friend, and solid performances abound from such varied talents as John Leguizamo, Josh Lucas, Frances Fisher, Bryan Cranston, Michaela Conlin, Margarita Levieva and Laurence Mason. Michael Pena as well is simply amazing, and while he is relegated to only two short scenes, his character proves to be so engaging and important that you really care what happens to him despite his brief appearance. The only real disappointment among this crowd is Phillippe, who has never been one of my (or many people's) favorites. The only film I've liked him in was last year's MacGruber, and then only because he was able to drop that uber-serious attitude he usually brings to roles not unlike this one. When all is said and done, he's given far too good a role to know what to do with, and doesn't pull it off convincingly. Still, with McConaughey in charge of just about every scene even this small annoyance barely makes a real fuss.

Get over it Matthew; Cranston has won more awards than you

If there's anything lacking here, it's the result of a rather lackluster ending that tries a little too hard to tie up all the loose threads. Compared to the rest of the film, it lacks the composure to be attractive to the audience and results in a bit of disappointment in comparison. Still, The Lincoln Lawyer is good enough to recommend to anyone looking for a fun movie, even if the subject matter is a bit more mature than Haller's one-liners. An ideal platform for Matthew McConaughey to dispel any thoughts that he can't do more serious fare, The Lincoln Lawyer tops out at #4 on the 2011 Top Films list. A lot of fun and a good old fashioned legal thriller, I think just about anyone can go into this film and more or less enjoy it.

Should've Been Recalled

Sometimes an interesting idea alone isn't enough. When author Eric Garcia began co-writing a screenplay based on his in-progress novel Reposession Mambo, he must have thought it was pretty cool. When the film was released a scant year after his book, he must have thought, "wow". After the movie got mostly negative reviews and made back only a fraction of the money it cost to make it, his response was probably something like "oops".

Repo Men takes place in 2025, where a corporation called The Union has made quite a fortune for itself by selling replacement organs, joints and other body parts to those that need or want them. The dark side of this is that if the recipient can't make their regular (and expensive) payments, the organs are default and The Union sends one of it's "Repo Men" to reclaim the part by breaking into your home, incapacitating you, and cutting you open to remove the part, presumably leaving you to die on the floor of your abode. It's in this act where we meet Remy, a Repo Man played by Jude Law. He's worked as a Repo Man for years alongside his best friend Jake, played by Forest Whitaker. He has a good life, makes good money, and is slowly being pulled in two directions. His wife Carol (Carice Van Houten) wants him to step away from the repo aspect of his job, and instead transfer to a job in sales, while Jake wants him to remain in Repo, to remain his best friend, which he doesn't see happening if he goes to sales. Deciding to honor the wishes of his family, Remy goes on one last job...

Law (L), and Whitaker

This futuristic setting is at first rendered in a fashion that I think was meant to be like Blade Runner, but that analogy quickly falls apart as we see less and less city as the movie progresses, taking place many times either in the unchanged suburbs or the decrepit and seedy junktown on the outskirts of the city where people are fleeing repossession. It's this mishmash of settings that is the most distracting aspect of the film, as the moviemakers don't seem to know exactly what kind of future they want to create, or even more criminally, how to use setting to emphasize the mood of a film. Night and day are used intermittantly, and while there is the obvious difference between the stark, uniform city of The Union and the pleasant, innocent aspect of the suburbs, there's little to no connection between the two, no reason to think these places would exist simultaneously in the same universe, let alone the same city.

The acting here is good, though not great. I've always thought that Jude Law was an overrated actor, with over-hyped performances in films like The Talented Mister Ripley and Cold Mountain the result more of Hollywood's search for a new Clark Gable rather than any actual talent on his part. He redeemed himself in my eyes more recently in films like My Blueberry Nights and Sherlock Holmes, and even in this piteously bad film he is in fact excellent, conveying mood in his eyes and visually believing the dialogue coming from his lips. He easily outpaces Whitaker, who seems to be once again playing a variation of himself, with little range between goofy happiness and psychotic anger. Whitaker, who teased audiences with his charismatic performance in The Last King of Scotland, seems to be constantly proving that his performance in the fictional story of Uganda's Idi Amin was a fluke rather than a process of growing talent. In smaller roles are Liev Schreiber and Alice Braga, but both were in better films this year (Salt and Predators, respectively), while cameo roles by John Leguizamo and hip-hop artist and producer RZA are surprisingly good, though Leguizamo's role appears only when the audience has lost all interest in what's happening. Van Houten hasn't exactly lit up the sky with her American film appearances since 2006's Black Book, as Valkyrie and this film hardly do her justice after being nominated for so many awards based on her role as a Jewish spy in WWII. She's underused and overqualified, and surprisingly has not gotten the same respect that has been bestowed upon a different international actress that had her big break only one year later, Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose.

The film starts off strong before dawdling and dwindling in interest about half an hour in, and abhorred pacing means that we're never sure what part of the narrative we're actually in. At least half a dozen times I found myself muttering to myself, asking why the movie was not yet over, why it was still going on. At that point I didn't need a real conclusion, I would have settled for a half-assed setup to an inevitable sequel just to see the film end. There was so much exposition, thinly-veiled plot-points and clues to how the movie would actually end, and frankly it was simply bogging down my viewing experience, a movie that played like a no-think action/thriller attempting to make me think about it's stupid ideas more than I need to. The film does finally ramp up in a final, bloody, sequence that actually brought my interest back to the film, even if it was highly predictable.

The idea of a big corporation being the blank-faced bad-guy is nothing new. I can think of at least a half-dozen titles off the top of my head that use that same theme (including one of my favorite all-time films, Alien), and seeing it here again only fills me with a ho-hum feeling, even if we actually see into the evil machinations of this particular corporation. What bothers me the most is the public aspect of it's evil. The movie states that The Union actually makes most of it's money from re-selling reposessed organs, so they sell an organ, the customer fails to make payments, they repossess the organ, repeat. That makes sense. It even makes sense that there would be people running from repossession who couldn't pay, an underground. The problem I have is that the public seems to know about these Repo Men, and they are easily recognizable by The Union tattoos printed on their necks. So that raises the question: why would people buy organs from The Union if they know there's a chance they might be repossessed? Even if they were desperate, there couldn't be THAT many desperate people out there to keep such a company afloat, let alone with a choke-hold on the government to overlook such things. Perhaps I'm simply being naive, but it simply doesn't seem feasable to me.

If there's one thing redeeming the film (besides it's ending), it's the soundtrack. Though track from the likes of RZA and Beck are not stellar, it's when the music takes a step into the far past that we get a real feeling for the film, as songs by Nina Simone and Rosemary Clooney take center stage. It's flashback music more than makes up for the more contemporary duds, and like Simone we are "Feeling Good" when they're playing in the background.

Let's be honest here, Repo Men is a bad movie. It starts quick, gets bogged down by clutter and mess in the middle, before finishing off in an exciting but highly predictable ending. The film is only 111 minutes but feels twice as long, and I wouldn't be surprised if anyone started watching this movie stood up, turned off the TV, and went into the other room to do something else. The film does have an interesting premise, but it's not nearly enough to keep the audience watching. It doesn't come close to being one of this year's Top 10 Films, as the only movie worse than Repo Men this year would have to be Legion, and that's saying something profound. Certainly more profound than anything Repo Men had to tell us.