Double Feature: Sports Flick Drama

Sports movies are something special. Sports movies based on a true story are even more so. But sports movies based on a true story and produced by Walt Disney Studios?

Meh.

Today we're going to look at two sports flicks that have come out recently that aren't exactly the second coming of Moneyball. The first, Draft Day, is a fictional behind-the-scenes look of an NFL team - in this case, the hard-losing Cleveland Browns - whose General Manager, Sonny Weaver Jr. (Kevin Costner) gets the opportunity to trade for the #1 pick in the draft, just hours before one of the most celebrated sporting events in the United States goes live. He's under pressure from the owner (Frank Langella), his former championship-winning coach (Dennis Leary), and even his mother (Ellen Burstyn) to make a splash for a team and a city that have been suffering an epic Super Bowl drought. It's a lot of pressure on one man, who only wants the chance to build a team of his own and see what can be done.

"You can't let them in here! They'll... they'll see the big board!"

It's not everyday you see the National Football League have an actual presence in a movie - usually, unless the movie in question is a biopic, NFL team names are either replaced by fictional fill-ins or mentioned in passing - but they're all over Draft Day, along with a healthy presence from ESPN for good measure. While on the surface that might seem like a raw, artificial deal, this is a film in which the combination of Hollywood and the showmanship of the NFL really works. Thanks to a surprisingly deft script (courtesy of newcomers Rajiv Joseph and Scott Rothman), it's got the strengths of both sides, with an excellent, stylized, expertly-edited narration that keeps you guessing as to the final outcome, and few of the weaknesses you might expect to come from that coupling.

Hey, I didn't know the Browns were interested in drafting Jackie Robinson.

Despite the strength in presentation, does Draft Day have its faults? Well, sure, the characters are all kinds of cliches, the subplot of the office romance between Weaver and Jennifer Garner's otherwise-cool "female sports executive" (because a woman can't be in a sports movie unless she's the love interest, mother or daughter) is forced, a bit unsatisfying, and absolutely a pandering to a potential female audience, and when you cast rapper Sean "P. Diddy" Combs in a major role, need I say more? But under the expert direction of Ivan Reitman (yeah, I forgot the director of Ghostbusters was here) the actors mostly put in excellent efforts, the characters are at certainly memorable, whether it's Leary's gruff antagonistic Head Coach or Chadwick Boseman as a flamboyant, energetic potential draftee. Reitman is definitely a master storyteller, as this had all the potential to be an artificial-feeling romanticization of the real NFL. It still goes a little over the top, but Draft Day is a surprisingly fun football movie, and if you can still see this in the theater, you could do a whole lot worse.

And by "a whole lot worse," I'm obviously referring to Million Dollar Arm, which had all the potential in the world as a sports tale based on a true story, before Disney got its hooks in it. On the surface, the tale of a down-on-his-luck sports agent (John Hamm) who travels to India to recruit Cricket players as potential Major League baseball players seems like JUST the idea a clever storyteller brings to the big screen. In practice... well, if you were offended by the whitewashing and "white savior" controversy that was The Help, then you haven't seen anything until you see White People Problems: The Sports Flick.

As far as acting goes, this movie has a ton of talent. Hamm transitions smoothly from TV, and while he's certainly helped by his square jaw and gruff demeanor, he shows a range that may surprise you if you havent' yet gotten around to watching Mad Men. He's also surrounded by a strong supporting cast, including The Life of Pi's Suraj Sharma and Slumdog Millionaire's Madhur Mittal as the two young athletes the agent recruits, Lake Bell as his neighbor/love interest, and Bill Paxton and Aasif Mandvi in smaller roles. Hindi star Pitobash steals many a scene as a young baseball fanatic, and while Alan Arkin tends to play the exact same character these days, you can't discount his presence or entertainment value whenever he's on the screen. In all, gun-for-hire director Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl, Fright Night) gets excellent performances from his talented team. Unfortunately, that's where this movie's upside just about dries up.

I was feeling like Arkin when I saw this, too.

But while the story of these two young men and their introduction to the sport of baseball is interesting and occasionally inspirational, we really don't learn all that much about newfound pitchers Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel. The script paints them as coming from typically poor settings, and even if the representation of their upbringing is accurate, it doesn't make up for characters that are shallowly written, despite the charm that Sharma and Mittal bring to the roles. Instead, the story focuses all its attention on Hamm's J.B. Bernstein, combining a typical fish-out-of-water story with  money problems and a "will-they-won't-they" love story with Lake Bell's polar opposite neighbor (again, even if the events are remotely accurate, why does it all come off as classic Hollywood schlock?). As good as Hamm is, he really ought to have been a supporting character in this tale, but for the Disnification by the film's financiers.

The Daily Show auditions ran a little late...

Million Dollar Arm has a slew of smaller problems, as well. The dialogue is full of genre cliches and familiar arguments. Worse, the arguments presented are forced and don't really make any sense from a logical perspective. For instance, many characters throw down in arguments with Bernstein in terms of his treatment of the players, even though the script makes things perfectly clear that in certain explicit situations he has no power over the topic in question, making the idea of his "redemption" (from asshole to nice guy) feel ill-conceived and baseless. And along those same lines, the redemption subplot is poorly implemented, and whether the numerous red herrings that are his out-of-nowhere character turns are due to poor writing or atrocious editing is pointless to ruminate on, as either way still kills much of the story's momentum. The film even wastes the musical talents of Slumdog Millionaire's A.R. Rahman, whose unique style is wiped away to provide a simple, rote soundtrack completely void of character or identity.

"Urge to kill... rising..."

And despite that, I can't really call Million Dollar Arm a BAD movie. It accomplished exactly what it set out to do, as mistaken as the goals it postulated were. It's occasionally fun, inspirational and interesting. It's also brainless, with the focus in the completely wrong place. Not to mention that since this is a Disney movie, they avoid pointing out any serious negative about the story (like the fact that one of these young men has already been released by his major league baseball club, while the other has suffered a string of injuries and may never pitch in the majors). I guess Disney figured that nobody would want to see such a strong cultural tale told from the point of view of someone who WASN'T an American, but since nobody bothered to see this, either, I guess that concept backfired on them anyway. This MIGHT be worth a DVD rental sometime in the future, as there's definitely some interesting stuff to glean from the story's mere existence. But when compared to Draft Day, or ANY decent sports movie for that matter, Million Dollar Arm comes up a bit lame.

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.

Totally 'Amazing'

Now THIS is the type of summer action movie I like to see! Though there was no way it could be possibly outshine The Avengers, and there's a good chance it won't be quite as good as Christopher Nolan's conclusion to the Batman trilogy in The Dark Knight Rises, The Amazing Spider-Man was one summer blockbuster I'd been waiting months to see. Having seen so many big budget duds, I NEEDED something genuinely good to write about, especially with a July that sports only seven major film releases (I write about a dozen reviews a month; you do the math). Thankfully the superhero reboot directed by (500) Days of Summer's Marc Webb (I don't think his name had anything to do with the selection process) was exactly what both Todd and I needed, as both of us wanted something that came CLOSE to bringing back the giddiness of seeing The Avengers on screen.

As a film franchise, Spider-Man had hit on some hard times. Remember, the Sam Raimi trilogy of Spidey films were all released in the past decade, and most people going to see Andrew Garfield play their favorite web-slinging hero not only remember Tobey Maguire's take on the same role, but in fact bought tickets for it in May of 2002. But after Sony Pictures (supposedly) screwed up Raimi's vision of the series in 2007's second sequel, they're giving it the old sophomore try in the reboot. There's little question as to why Sony reset the series; the previous stars were getting old, Raimi wasn't on board, and if they didn't do something with the license the rights would revert back to Marvel, as well as all those box office dollars. That wasn't much of a problem when Marvel couldn't make a good movie if they tried, but now that they're owned by Disney...

Oh, Peter Parker; you nerd, you!

Well, it doesn't matter anymore. Despite any early reservations, both Todd (who doesn't miss a superhero movie if she can help it) and I loved The Amazing Spider-Man. This was a classically-told story executed so well that it mattered little if Webb and company didn't add anything significant to the mythology of the character. Peter Parker is the same loner, smart-ass high-schooler that the comics remember, trying to make it through his school years while living with his Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field). A renewed search into the disappearance of his parents as a boy brings him to OsCorp, the scientific research company for whom his dad used to work. There he meets the one-armed Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), who had worked alongside Richard Parker on genetic research intended to cure diseases around the world. Peter also manages to get bitten by a genetically-modified spider, which somehow turns him into something more than human, with the proportionate strength of a spider, excellent reflexes and the ability to cling to walls and ceilings. Eventually the genetic experiments break down (as they invariably to at the cinema) and the newly-christened Spider-Man must protect the city from Connors, whose work has resulted in him have transformed into the rampaging Lizard.

He's just hangin' around...

Most Spider-Man fans know the major events that have shaped the unusual life of Peter Parker. First of course is the spider bite, the source of all his powers (when I get bitten, usually all that is involved is a lot of scratching). Others include the myriad of tragic deaths left in Spider-Man's wake, usually those close to him. I won't say who perishes for the sake of the dozen or so people out there who have somehow managed to escape all references to pop culture, but trust me on this one: Spider-Man is definitely the harbinger of death. But one thing I don't recall from any comic books was the loss of Parker's parents, or at least the idea that their absence is a major factor in his development. It is here where Webb makes his biggest divergence from the source material, and it is indeed a welcome change from what we already know about the teenage superhero. The character was never so driven in the original trilogy, and that change of focus does wonders for making this film fresh despite everything else remaining practically the same.

The sequel will feature Spidey vs. the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Garfield is especially impressive in his first major leading film role. Throughout the movie, Peter Parker goes from smart-assed teen to super-powered bully and arrogant jerk (where I became worried would be his final resting place) to, finally, the wise-cracking, responsible superhero we know and love. I was so relieved than the creative minds behind Parker manged to perfectly emulate what was so great about the teenaged hero and get it so RIGHT. Garfield is simply amazing, bringing with him a darker, more brooding tone to the role and  actually taking the character on an emotional journey that changes how he sees the world and his place in it. Not to disparage Maguire's impressive (if somewhat campy) take on the part, but Garfield simply blows his predecessor's incarnation out of the water. It's a moment of celebration when Spider-Man finally attains that "hero" status from the city of New York, especially since he's no longer seeking approval for his actions, but just trying to do the right thing. This was a rushed process in Raimi's version, but Webb allows Parker to mature as a character over the length of the film, not something you often see in blockbuster movies.

Peek-a-Boo!

Webb did a great job in surrounding Garfield with exceptional talent, both on the acting and creative sides. Most notable is the fantastic Emma Stone as legendary Spidey girlfriend Gwen Stacy, as she and Garfield together possess excellent chemistry, far more than Maguire and Kirsten Dunst (as Mary Jane Watson) ever boasted. Gwen is the kind of seemingly unattainable girl we've all known at one point or another; beautiful, smart and driven, but without the bullish attitude that often accompanies those qualities. She has very strong feelings on right and wrong, and with a police Captain for a dad, it's easy to see from where those good qualities came. It feels like Stone has been around forever, though it's easy to forget that she made her big screen debut AFTER Spider-Man 3's launch in 2007. Her rapid ascent has been her legacy, and she has quickly garnered quite the impressive list of credentials. Her inclusion here is the perfect example of casting done right. Other examples include Sheen and Fields, whose character's no-nonsense goodness exemplify the Golden Age of Comics in being bright lights in otherwise dark surroundings. The always-strong Dennis Leary also impresses as George Stacy, where his unique personality (I like to call it "Charismatic Rage") fits perfectly with the perpetually-stressed and high-strung officer of the law. Ifans is another actor who has really turned it up a notch of late, with his excellent turns in Anonymous and The Five-Year Engagement. The Lizard is one of those Spider-Man villains I had not been familiar with, and I was afraid that The Amazing Spider-Man would turn into a "monster-of-the-week", doing little but prep you for a more plot-based sequel. Thankfully (as Todd later related) Curt Connors has always been a strong villain, and continues to be so here. He's really a tragic character in fact, trying desperately to use his new-found formula for good, only to change his tune and turn into a fearsome creature when things go horribly wrong. Ifans plays a good (ish) man forced into an evil destiny because he was pushed one time too many, and it's easy to sympathize with his plight. It makes for a great tale, and along with the rest of the cast really sets the standards for the whole theatrical experience.

Dramatic pose... and GO!

The best things about The Amazing Spider-Man were all the little things that Webb and company got right. Gone are the "organic webbing" that Parker could somehow (and conveniently) excrete from his wrists in the Raimi films, replaced with the gosh-darned web shooters we knew we always wanted. I loved how Parker, while top-of-his-class smart, used technology derived from OsCorp designs to develop his shooters and web fluid, as even a genius-level student designing those from scratch would have been a bit of a stretch. Speaking of OsCorp, I loved how corporate head Norman Osborn's presence was felt but never overtly shown, even in the post-credits "reveal." They're taking their time with Osborn, which is great since the character is easily Spider-Man's nemesis in the comics, even more so than the popular Venom. I loved how the ending left a number of things in the air, not forcing itself to resolve every little conflict in Parker's life in just 136 minutes. I loved the special effects, which felt both realistic and breathtakingly spectacular all at once. Even early scenes of Parkour are excellently conceived and pulled off, though they're all but gone once Parker finally dons the famous red and blue spandex.

"I'm going to throw you out the window, now."

Sure, Spider-Man has a few blemishes, but that was mostly in the visual department. Maybe it was just because we were late getting to the show and the only central seats left were in the front row (damn you, MBTA!), but the action scenes were often shot much too close to what was happening, obscuring any details. It's a common problem in even great action films, and for a first-time action director like Webb, it's unsurprising that he would fall into that trap. Also, as I stated earlier, there was little beyond the focus on Peter Parker's parents that mark this as anything but a typical Spidey film, and so the director has little to actually call his own when all is said and done. Still, The Amazing Spider-Man is a well-cast, well-made and ultimately "amazing" movie, and easily the 7'th best film this year. It contains by far the best Stan Lee cameo of any Marvel movie, and is one of the best superhero films in recent years, better even than any of those released in 2011. I know it's easy to get excited for the new Batman film on July 20'th, and don't think this excuses you from not having seen The Avengers, because you really need to do so. But this was a pleasant surprise while I await other things, and if you'd be doing yourself an injustice if you don't take the time to check out this worthy reboot.