Drunk with Power

Oh, if only I could somehow get those two hours back. The Hangover: Part III was released this Memorial Day weekend, and the final tale from the series that put Todd Phillips on par with Judd Apatow in terms of pure cinema raunchiness finally comes to an end, and it's an ignoble one that should have occurred back in 2009 with the closing credits of the first Hangover. Phillips up to that point had made a B-List career from his crude comedies, especially Road Trip and Old School. He was a director able to tap into that coveted 18-49 male audience with practiced ease. The Hangover proved not only to be an audacious comedy (it was certainly unique, if perhaps a bit overrated), and a star-making one at that. Besides Phillips, the movie proved to be a launching point for then-middling actors Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Ken Jeong and especially Zach Galifianakis. But The Hangover Part II was a mess, missing most of the charm that the first film so enjoyable. Still, it was a big fat success, and so Part III was all but guaranteed, and with a restructured story (no more memory loss) and a promise that it would be the most outrageous finale to date, it should have been at least worth a look.

Nobody needs that many sheets.

In this reunion of sorts, "Wolfpack" members Phil (Cooper), Stu (Helms) and Doug (Justin Bartha) come together to help the disturbed manchild Alan (Galifianakis), who has unraveled even more after stopping his medication and in the aftermath of his father's death. The four men are making their way to a rehabilitation center for him when they are waylaid by ruthless gangster Marshall (John Goodman), from whom Lesley Chow (Jeong) stole $21 million in gold. Kidnapping Doug as collateral, Marshall demands that the remaining Wolfpack members find and apprehend Chow by any means necessary, and recover his gold in the process. If they cannot capture him within three days, Doug is history. But of course, with this group, nothing ever goes as planned. And when it comes to Chow, anything and everything is possible.

Jeffrey Tambor can never, ever smile.

Unfortunately, despite the insanity that is usually associated with this franchise, Part III makes Part II look like vintage Bill Cosby. Never mind the fact that most of the jokes here just aren't funny, but even the situations the trio find themselves in lack oomph. The first two Hangover movies featured Mike Tyson's tiger, a baby with sunglasses, transsexual prostitutes, and Mike Tyson. The most this sequel can muster is a decapitated giraffe, and that's the opening scene. The actors also look bored, sticking to their predetermined roles of straight guy, freaking-out guy and whack-job with minimal effort. Galifianakis' malaise in particular is disappointing, as Alan's zaniness is probably the main reason there are three Hangovers instead of just one. John Goodman is certainly a talented actor, but his character is too bland, and it seems like he was cast just to bring a strong presence to the movie (incidentally, the same role Paul Giamatti had in Part II). Melissa McCarthy is also grossly misused, as her crass, completely unlikeable character tries to undo all the goodwill she's gained from Bridesmaids and Identity Thief. Only the scenes with Ken Jeong's Chow are anything approaching quality, and that's because Jeong is the only cast member who seems to care that people are paying to see him put on a show. His crazy stunts almost manages to make up for the rampant stupidity of the film. Almost.

Oh, why, why are you doing this?

See, while The Hangover: Part III's best scenes are those featuring snippets from the original (best moment: the reunion of Alan and the baby - now toddler - in sunglasses), those are the times when Phillips seems to lose his focus and relapse into the coolness that this whole thing started with. In Part III, the movie takes itself FAR too seriously, committing far too much to the violence and not enough to the insanity that was the director's pedigree. A perfect example of this is the forced evolution of Alan; why do we need to see Alan become a different person? Sure, he's a halfwit moron with little redeeming value, but that's how we like him. The idea that Alan had to change in order to provide some sort of "closure" to the trilogy is the kind of misguided idea directors like to try when they think they're getting your money regardless. There are many other scenes that wouldn't feel out of place in the humorless context of modern action films or even serious dramas, as the writers obviously had a difficult time adjusting to the concept that many people were already tired of The Hangover's act. Still, their comedy is even darker than usual, to the point where it has barely an inkling of commonality with the first two movies.

Policeman of the year.

I have to give Phillips and his crew a little credit: with an almost guaranteed blockbuster on their hands, they refused to go the safe route and make an identical, certainly tiresome finale for their Hangover franchise. It's just too bad they don't know how to make anything else. The Hangover: Part III is arguably the worst movie this year. It's not funny, it's not exciting, and it completely disregards everything that made the original Hangover a treat for the senses. The good news is that we won't be seeing any more of this trash, at least not for the foreseeable future. The bad news is that it exists at all, and puts the final nail in the coffin of a once-robust film legacy. Apparently, it needed more Mike Tyson. Or at least his tiger.

Life at Home

Well, it's now that awkward time between blockbuster releases. Last week Todd and I saw The Hunger Games, and now this coming weekend will bring the monster-mashing Wrath of the Titans and fairy tale family comedy Mirror Mirror to the big screen. In between, however, there's just not a whole lot of stuff out there to see. I've been pretty good at seeing most of the big releases so far this year, and there's nothing I feel I have to rent right at this second. I only ever use Netflix to catch up on old TV shows, and so pretty mush all of the films I watch these days are in the theater. for that reason. it's a good thing there's always something that slips between the cracks, and in this case that meant a showdown between Best Foreign Language Academy Award winner A Separation and new indie comedy Jeff, Who Lives at Home. Since I'm sure you can all see the poster to the left, you can probably guess which of those films won the coin-toss. This is nothing personal, Iran; I had a small window to catch a film, and Jeff simply had the better available showtime. This was a film that had caught my attention from the first trailer, thanks especially to its all-too-human family who seem to both despise and love one another at the same time. It was one of my more anticipated films for March, so I was happy that I was able to finally fit this particular title into my busy schedule.

"No, thank you, I'm very happy with my long distance provider..."

In this comedy by brother directors Jay and Mark Duplass, Jason Segel plays the titular Jeff, a pot-smoking thirty year-old slacker living in his mother's basement. Forced out of the house on an errand by mother Sharon (Susan Sarandon), Jeff becomes obsessed with the name Kevin, sure it will lead him to something of great importance. Meanwhile, his brother Pat (Ed Helms) is having issues with his marriage, and begins to suspect that his wife Linda (Judy Greer) is having an affair with another man. Finally, Sharon is trying to consolidate her frustration with her children when she gets an unusual surprise, the discovery of a secret admirer who apparently works in the same office that she does.

The look on his face says it all; this won't end well.

When the film first starts, we can learn a lot about how things are going to go. Jeff loves the movie Signs by M. Night Shyamalan, mostly for its idea that everything and everyone is connected in some way, and despite the 2002 film's apparent unevenness and issues, he appreciates how it threaded multiple narratives on course to the "perfect moment" at its climax. Well, what do you know? I just summarized Jeff, Who Lives at Home pretty much perfectly. Jeff takes a long time to find its feet, struggling through some early scenes with Segel that are barely watchable thank to Jeff himself, whose "unique" take on life takes a lot of getting used to. By this time you might feel as though seeing Jeff was a monumental mistake, but I promise you this: it does eventually get better. The show finally gets going when Jeff and Pat collide, as the main plot of the film finally gets around to being told. Pat's relationship issues are so realistic that you would swear they were written by your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend, and thankfully it is this aspect that drives the film for much of its narrative, taking a break from the existential mumbo-jumbo that began the whole thing. Unlike the plight of her sons, the story revolving around mother Sharon is never dull or feels astray, and its truly original tale is easily the best part of the whole film experience.

Why, hello creepy man.

The acting is at least good enough to keep things interesting, even when the story doesn't. You would think Segel to be perfectly at home as an oversized manchild, but unlike his usual over-animated roles in How I Met Your Mother and The Muppets, Segel plays Jeff's eternal optimism with a level of sincerity I've never witnessed from the actor. Segel is a big kid, but it's nice to see him stop and ACT instead of merely playing. The result is a nice fit for him, and a side I'd love to see more of in the future. Helms is also great, though he occasionally gets into the screaming mode that has already gotten a bit old after two Hangover films. Still, he gets to perform as a great character and run with it, and every scene with him feels completely honest. Sarandon does a wonderful job as the stressed, depressed mother of two disappointing boys, not a surprise to anyone who has seen her in action. While it might seem like a while since Susan Sarandon has made an impact on the big screen, it sure felt like she still had "it" when given the chance. Judy Greer and Rae Dawn Chong also do great work as Pat's estranged wife and Sharon's office friend, respectively.

She doesn't look a day older than Bull Durham

Unfortunately, the film takes a few too many cues from master Shyamalan in telling the tales of these three relatives. I already mentioned the slow opening, but too many scenes from the middle on feel contrived or simply pointless when compared to the big picture. Jeff especially feels out of place as the story takes off without him, hilarious since he's supposedly the film's titular character. That changes at the end, but even the film's supposed "perfect moment" feels forced, though I do have to admit that I never saw it coming. The film really gives too much credence to Jeff's mystical insight, and wraps up the family feud way too quickly to be truly believable. Still, the interaction between the main characters was great, propelling the material above the farce it could have been. The script could have used some cuts or revisions in some places, but on the whole the story felt sincere in its intentions, at least.

Jason Segel is a BIG man...

It's that sincerity that makes Jeff, Who Lives at Home watchable, if not necessarily good. This was probably a film better suited for DVD than the big screen, as the mindset for enjoying this might be so narrow as to encourage pausing midway through and coming back to it later. You might want to see this if you're really itching for an indie comedy, as long as you don't mind that Jeff is really far more dramatic than your average comedy. Otherwise, I'd avoid it, waiting instead for the new blockbusters coming out this weekend.

Nature Calls

One of my favorite authors when I was a kid was Theodore Geisel, better known to you and your children as Dr. Seuss. Even if you're not intimately familiar with his work, there's a good chance you at least knew about him, as many of his books were practically required reading for any child growing up. Certainly the modern entertainment industry is aware of this, as many films based on his work have been released over the years, from the live action How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat to the animated Horton Hears a Who. It is the success of Horton Hears a Who that Universal Pictures is hoping to emulate with their latest animated film, Dr. Seuss' The Lorax, a remake of one of the author's lesser-known titles. For all intents and purposes his book on environmentalism, The Lorax was obviously designed to be Universal Pictures' most ambitious animated feature, and to ensure that people would want to see it, they filled the vocal cast with popular talents, including teen star Zac Efron, singer Taylor Swift, and Emmy and Golden Globe winner Danny Devito. The big question going into The Lorax was whether the film would impress parents as well as children. Certainly the trailer provided enough to ensure kids would enjoy the film, but would any full grown adult?

What's going through his head: "I bet he tastes like chicken..."

The town of Thneedville completely fake, as in artificial. There's not a single tree to be found, but most people are more than happy not having those "dirty" things around, ruining he perfection that is their city. All, that is, but for Audrey (Swift), a high-schooler whose only desire is to see a real, living tree, like those she has heard stories about. Eager to impress her, young Ted Wiggins (Efron) journeys outside of town to meet with the Once-ler (Ed Helms), rumored to know what happened to the trees so long ago. And so the Once-ler tells Ted the story of his youth, when greed and short-sightedness caused him to chop down all the Truffula Trees, angering mother nature and her appointed defender of the woods, The Lorax (Devito).

I'm upset. She doesn't look a thing like Taylor Swift!

From beginning to end, it's obvious a lot of thought, effort and care was put into the animation of this motion picture. Year after year, the genre of 3D animation has been routinely dominated by two forces, Pixar and Dreamworks. In recent years however, other animated studios have stepped to the plate, and while 3D animation is hardly a worldwide phenomena (most international cinema still uses traditional styles), more popular titles have been created outside of these big two companies in the past couple of years, most notably last year's Rango and 2010's Despicable Me. In fact, it was the same people (including co-director Chris Renaud) who made Despicable Me that created The Lorax, and it's easy to draw comparisons between the two in the art and animation departments, as well as other things. While there's nobody as physically unique as Gru among the human cast, the team turns their creative sides to building the unique creatures of the forest, from singing fish who walk on land to marshmallow-loving bears. By creating a unique ecology that thrive on the trees in the story, the filmmakers make creatures so effective that they risk overtaking their human (or at least speaking) counterparts in conveying the message of the film.

Betty White, meanwhile, looks exactly the same.

Of course, that's my first problem with The Lorax: the message. We're aware from the first moment that not having real trees around Thneedville is a big deal, and how deforestation used to (and often still does) happen due to the demands of big business. FOX News and other conservatives have voiced their dismissal of this film as being anti-industry, but the fact of the matter is that blatant deforestation for purposes of greed still happens, and exposing this idea to children to perhaps push for a different way isn't a bad idea in the slightest. Of course, when that's the entirety of your message, it gets damned annoying being an adult in the theater who already gets it, but is still being preached to almost non-stop for an entire two-thirds of the movie. The sad fact is that this film was excellent in 2008, when it was called Wall-E. Obviously the screenwriters figured they were reaching out to a more juvenile crowd, so repeating the message infinitely was objective number one, and in that regard they can consider themselves successful.

Beast versus... Beast... which will come out on top??

My second complaint about The Lorax is, well... it's a musical. Now, normally, I'm not against music in animated features. Several of my favorite Disney animated films growing up had substantial musical scores, and the simple fact that they had music never detracted from their quality. Of course, those were mostly GOOD musical numbers, as opposed to the stinkers that The Lorax dishes up. While the ensemble opening song "Thneedville" is a decent enough number, the quality of the songs drastically falls off, sinking as low as the hip-hop inspired "How Bad Can I Be?", featuring a VERY white Helms doing his best (or worst) attempt to rap. I've never found the idea of the whitest white men rapping to be even slightly humorous, but Hollywood can't seem to get enough of it. Overall, the musical score is barely entertaining, not worth the price of admission. And on a side note, how do you have Taylor Swift in a vocal role without getting her to record an original song for you?

"And THAT is where babies come from..."

At least the voice acting follows in the quality footsteps of the visual effects. Efron is definitely showing his mettle as an up-and-coming actor, proving himself the best thing to come out of the tween-beloved High School Musical series. Helms also charms as both a present day and flashback Once-ler. Helms has come a long way after breaking out on The Office, and is wringing everything he can out of that starring turn. Obviously, though, Devito is and was always meant to be the center of attention, and his rendition of the perpetually-cranky Lorax is perfectly written, seemingly tailored to Devito's unique vocal abilities. The only complaint I had about his performance is that there's not nearly ENOUGH of it, as the character disappears for the final act, and even his regular presence doesn't generate quite enough "oomph" behind it, again largely a fault of the screenwriters. The film has no slouches, and standouts include Betty White, Rob Riggle and Jenny Slate in major roles. The weakest by far is Swift, but even she is at least serviceable, if not guaranteed any awards in the near future.

If only there was an Academy Award for Best 'Stache... we can dream...

For all the good Dr. Seuss' The Lorax intends, it can't escape the fact that it is a film expressly geared towards small children. This isn't really a problem per se, but it can be if you're anything other than a sub-10-year-old child trying to sit through 95 minutes of great visuals, obvious messages and lousy music. It's a mixed bag, and while I enjoyed myself overall, the film was no better than #9 for 2012. While it's a perfectly acceptable movie you can take your kids to see, I wouldn't recommend The Lorax for anything more than just that.

Hair of the Dog

When The Hangover was released in theaters two years ago, it was an unprecedented hit. Opening on June 5, 2009, the film went on to make nearly $470 million worldwide, a reign of success for an R-rated comedy not seen since the days of Beverly Hills Cop and other eighties classics. Simply put, The Hangover's success shouldn't have happened, what with the rare diamonds to be found in the comedy business. The film, telling the tale of three emotionally-adolescent men who manage to lose the groom after a particularly raucous Las Vegas bachelor party and wake with no memory of the night before, was so successful that a sequel was not only pondered but practically inevitable. Only two years later we have that product, one of 2011's most awaited summer releases. Reuniting the "Wolfpack" of The Office's Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis (for whom these films have imparted his lifetime role) and Bradley Cooper, The Hangover Part II was made to capitalize on all the good will its predecessor had sown. Of course, I thought the original was an overrated farce with few actual laughs, so would I be impressed by a revamped (and relocated) remake?

Somehow this year's fashion shows amounted to more of the same

This time, the Wolfpack of Stu (Helms), Alan (Galifianakis), Phil (Cooper) and Doug (Justin Bartha) are on their way to Thailand, where Stu plans to be married to his new fiance Lauren (Jamie Chung) in her family's homeland. After what was supposed to be just a friendly drink between the four and Lauren's younger brother Teddy (Mason Lee), Stu, Alan and Phil wake up in Bangkok with no memory of how they arrived there. Worse, they've somehow lost Teddy in the streets of that legendary city, and with only a little time left before Stu must be back to say his "I do". It's business as usual, as the three sort-of-friends unite once more to locate their missing comrade.

Of all the films to make in Bangkok, why this one?

To be honest, if you've seen The Hangover, you pretty much know what is going to happen here as well. The characters are even in on the joke, frantically shouting that it's all happening once more. After the setup that establishes everything you NEED to know, one of the cast disappears. Later, he is found. In between, a LOT of crazy shit goes down. This IS Bangkok after all, and there's a reason the city has the reputation it has gained from popular culture, such as John Burdett's series of novels centered in Bangkok's seedy underbelly. That this only serves to rehash the same schlock over again in a new setting is disappointing, even if some of the scenes are even more outrageous than in the first film. Director Todd Phillips obviously didn't want to mess with a winning formula, but that doesn't excuse the film's lack of courage, as the film only pushes the envelope slightly beyond the same specific boundaries of of the 2009 original.

A monkey replaces the sunglasses-wearing baby, because... you know... you can't shoot babies.

The Hangover Part II also features the return of most of The Hangover's original cast, and that doesn't just mean the heroic trio. Helms, Galifianakis and Cooper all practically live these characters during the film's shooting. Helms plays the perpetually nervous Stu as second nature by now, and of course Cooper is completely at home as rugged ladies man Phil, but neither is very far from their happy medium. The characters are easy for them to portray, so it's not like they had to put a ton of effort into Stu and Phil's personalities. Galifianakis suffers from the same problem, but balances that out by being a million times more entertaining than any of his co-stars. Even if he plays a man who you would never be friends with in a million years were he to exist in real life, you can forgive Alan's silliness when he regularly smacks your funny bone into submission. Possibly the most irreverent film character of the past decade, Alan MAKES The Hangover, and there wouldn't be a sequel without him. Though the women are all but ignored, it's nice to see Jamie Chung in a 2011 film that doesn't COMPLETELY suck (I'm looking at you, Zack Snyder), and she makes a better leading female than Heather Graham ever did. Acclaimed director Ang Lee's son Mason manages his first major role well, though the role of an over-parented wiz-kid son is hardly anything but a cliched role for an Asian teen. Justin Bartha has a slightly larger role in this sequel but doesn't really get to be a part of the main story, and with his mainly uninteresting character that's okay. Finally, villain Ken Jeong returns as an ally to the Wolfpack in Bangkok. Though most find his broken-English speaking criminal offensive, I thought he was the second-funniest part of the entire film. Throw in award-winning performer Paul Giamatti as a an American "business man" and the cast is talented enough to avoid completely embarrassing themselves with the juvenile dialogue and cliched scenarios.

"Oh, WHAT will I do until Due Date 2 comes out??"

One of the worst things I can say about The Hangover Part II is... it's not particularly funny. For the amount of hype and attention the film got, you would expect wall-to-wall laughs, especially considering the material used. Despite the filmmakers' efforts to make everything so much crazier and zanier, the humor largely falls flat, and some sequences are more awkward than anything else. Sure, I got some fun out of watching part deux, but as I was at a midnight release event, I can probably attribute some of that brief gaiety to dehydration (the air conditioners in the theater were offline), exhaustion and sleep deprivation as much as anything on the screen. Sure, the first Hangover struck both box office and critical gold, but if more of the same is all we can look forward to in its sequels, then we should all hope this latest night out is the finale.