Open Letters Monthly: Grown Ups 2

Couldn't we have another Hangover movie instead?

Grown Ups was not just a surprise hit when it was released three years ago, but also the biggest-grossing film for star Adam Sandler. With his next few projects garnering mixed reviews and negative box office receipts, he got together the old team from that 2010 hit and put together the aptly-named sequel (his first actual sequel as well) Grown Ups 2.

Lenny Feder and his family have moved to his New England hometown in an effort to lead a normal, low-key life with his friends Eric, Kurt and Higgy and their respective households. On the last day of school, each grown-up is provided with a challenge which educates them about how special their children are and just how good a job they have done as parents. But will rivalries old and new derail those new found discoveries?

Grown Ups 2 is directed by Dennis Dugan and stars Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Nick Swardson, Steve Austin, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, Maya Rudolph and Taylor Lautner.

Click here for the full review at Open Letters Monthly.

Double Feature: Hyde Park on Hudson and Breaking Dawn Part 2

We're rapidly approaching the year's end, and I find myself in the uncomfortable position of having too little time to see too many movies. This will only become more complex in the coming week, as Christmas weekend brings us a number of decent-to-great options that include Les Miserables, Django Unchained, Parental Guidance, The Guilt Trip, Jack Reacher, This is 40 and the 3D re-release of Monsters Inc. That means that as much as I want to avoid them, I have to at least try getting to the more poorly-received November/December releases while they're still around. I can't discover hidden gems otherwise, and in the worst-case scenario they'll just hit my Worst of the Year list, which goes up every December 31'st.

Today, I saw two flicks with an excellent chance of making that list, for wholly different reasons. It's blatantly obvious that Hyde Park on Hudson is bucking for an Oscar opportunity for lead actor Bill Murray, playing former US President Frank Delano Roosevelt Sorry, I know all I seem to talk about lately is the Best Actor race, but to be fair it's the only category that seems to be getting any action lately. In the film, the country is in the fragile state between the worst of the Great Depression and the future global conflict of World War II. At home, the people have enough trouble holding down jobs and want little to do with the problems halfway around the globe. But the leaders of Great Britain know that war with Nazi Germany is inevitable, and King George and his wife Queen Elizabeth have been invited to Roosevelt's private home to convene about the island nation getting future support from us.

Another Dark Horse Oscar contender?

The movie pushes its actors first and foremost, and of course a lot of attention is given to Murray, who adds this performance atop an impressive list of roles in the past decade in films like Lost in Translation, Broken Flowers, Zombieland, and this year's Moonrise Kingdom. Once again the actor manages to blur the line between dramatic composure and comedic relief with ease, and any acclaim he earns from this is well deserved. He's also surrounded by an abundance of talented ladies, with Olivia Colman, Olivia Williams and Elizabeth Marvel as Queen Elizabeth, Eleanor Roosevelt and Roosevelt's private secretary Marguerite LeHand, respectively. The biggest surprise however, is easily Samuel West as King George VI. It seems the Queen's father has been appearing everywhere lately, from Colin Firth's well-deserved Academy Award-winning performance in The King's Speech to Madonna's romance film W.E. Credit has to go to West for not allowing the role to go stale, and even managing to be as impressive in scenes both with and without Murray. Director Roger Michell (Notting Hill) also does a great job focusing on the similarities and differences between the President and the King, sharing in disabilities but separate in their appreciation for their wives, among other things. When the story focuses on the budding friendship between these two great men, it's simply amazing.

Seriously, why is nobody talking about this guy?

Unfortunately, the film's tale is told through possibly the worst witness of all, simple-minded sixth cousin to the President Margaret "Daisy" Suckley, invited to help Franklin relax. The pseudo-incestuous relationship that follows is both uncomfortable to watch and lacking in any major impact. Even if the trite love tale is actually based on a true story (discovered letters between Suckley and Roosevelt), Laura Linney's performance as Daisy is weak beyond words, and her voice-over narrations are dull and uninterested, dragging down both the tempo and importance of the event as a whole. It certainly makes it difficult to recommend Hyde Park on Hudson as anything more than a potential rental; Murray and West put in spellbinding performances, but they're stuck in a story that needed more cutting if it wanted any chance of turning out well.

But that's Shakespeare compared to every teenage girl's image-destroying teen paranormal romance finale The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2. First, the admission: I've never read or watched anything to do with the Twilight franchise. Even with former roommates who were hardcore fans I've managed to avoid the Stephenie Meyer phenomena for as long as it's been in existence. In fact, the ONLY reason I had any interest in seeing this final entry to the series? The promised battle royale between the heroic Cullen clan and the Illuminati-esque Volturi, with the fate of the future in the balance. The question was whether I could sit through an hour and a half of trite dialogue, poor story and cringe-worthy romance before I got my promised ten minutes of bloodshed.

Breaking Dawn Part 2 definitely gets off to a poor start, with director Bill Condon (this is the same guy who did Chicago?) showing off some of the absolute worst CGI to appear in a major blockbuster. These are special effects so bad, the term "special" takes on a whole other meaning. Looking haphazard and slapdash, they never get above the level of "mediocre", and it's shocking that care wasn't made to get decent SFX for a proven franchise worth billions. Thankfully so much of the movie focuses on pretty people problems and setup for the final battle that once you get past the opening half hour, effect use is minimal at best.

So... why are we doing this again? Oh, right, the mortgage...

On the other hand, one of the best kept secrets in the Twilight series is that it has actually developed some pretty good actors. Sure, everybody gets stuck on Kristen Stewart's wooden and lifeless performance throughout (and that doesn't change here), but for the most the films have done a good job showcasing the talents of Robert Pattinson and many of the secondary actors who have made careers off of the franchise, from Ashley Greene to Peter Facinelli to Anna Kendrick (who sadly does not appear in the finale). Okay, Taylor Lautner has gone stale, but while you need a scorecard to keep track of the dozens (!) of characters who appear in Breaking Dawn Part 2, many of them are either very talented actors or carry the benefit of playing fascinating characters who suffer in the shadows of the "Big Three". Standouts include Michael Sheen, Lee Pace, Dakota Fanning (who I don't believe even says a word), Jamie Campbell Bower, Rami Malek, Casey LaBow and a sorely underused Joe Anderson, and they're supplemented by a wealth of depth that includes ultra-violent Irish vampires (of course), old-school Romanian vamps, female Amazon warriors, and others with special abilities (none of which explains how they survive in the sunlight, however). It's surprising how talent-rich the series has become, and most of these people will go on to have special Hollywood careers.

If you ever see this, it's probably too late.

But while the final battle (15-20 minutes of bloodless fun, up from the 10 I had been expecting) was everything I could have hoped for, the whole experience is undone by shoddy logic, amateurish writing, and ultimate failure by resorting to deus ex machina to immediately undo any emotional turmoil by fans. On one hand, this final act of Twilight is probably the most accessible entry to the saga for genre fans. On the other hand, that decent 20 minutes was all I really wanted, and am left with no interest to go back and revisit the story behind it. Now that I've sated my brief, insane sparkly vampire desire, I can go back to REAL blood-sucking fun from the Underworld series or Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which I already own on Blu-ray (thank you, Black Friday midnight sales). The point is that when I want a vampire film, I don't need the silly romance and stupid dialogue that is clogging up teen romance shelves these days. I want blood, guts, and a little animal cruelty, and that's just not something you're going to see from Stephenie Meyer.

Stolen Time

Is it wrong that I actually wanted to see Abduction?

Don't get me wrong; I could care less that this film is the first project to be headlined by Twilight star Taylor Lautner as a leading man, as the pug-faced bodybuilder has done nothing to convince me that he's earned the shot. Being in a successful series of films based on an even more successful series of teen supernatural novels is NOT a recipe for standalone success; Kristen Stewart has had no tangible success outside of the Twilight movies and Robert Pattinson had to adapt another popular novel (in the great Water for Elephants) to star in another hit. No, Lautner was nowhere near the top of the list of reasons I had for wanting to see this film; it was instead his director and co-stars who baited me into the theater like a mouse to cheese. I've never seen a John Singleton film, but even a middle-class white boy can understand the impact he has had with the urban titles Poetic Justice and the Oscar-nominated Boyz n tha Hood. And the talent piled around Lautner? Sigourney Weaver, Alfred Molina, Jason Isaacs, Maria Bello and Michael Nyqvist are all top-notch performers whose presence spoke to me and guaranteed that I would be seeing this film as soon as I could fit it into my schedule.

Movie appealing to teens? Guaranteed liberal cell phone usage

Nathan Harper (Lautner) is a normal suburban teenager. He's on the wrestling team in high school, crushes on his classmate/neighbor Karen (Lily Collins) and lives with his parents Kevin (Isaacs) and Mara (Bello). His is a fairly normal life, but he is also troubled in that he suffers from insomnia and rage issues brought on by dreams he has of witnessing a woman he vaguely recognizes being murdered. As a result Nathan doesn't always feel like he belongs in the life he leads, all more complicated by the discovery of his childhood photo on a missing person's website. Soon after learning that the people in his house are not his parents, Nathan and Karen find themselves on the run from a CIA group led by Frank Burton (Molina) and a Russian terrorist group under the leadership of Viktor Koslow (Nyqvist). If they are to have any chance, Nathan must learn about his real father and the reasons his life up to this point has been a lie.

Because every teenager need a motorcycle for... stuff

Unfortunately, there's very little good to say about Abduction. While the premise has some potential, it is utterly wasted thanks to a terrible screenplay by Stellastarr frontman Shawn Christensen. This man needs to stick to his musical career, as the film's horrid dialogue and pacing fail on every level. Almost is bad is Singleton's work as director. As far from the subjects of his earlier work as humanly possible, Abduction simply didn't have the right man in charge, as Singleton can't do for upper-class white kids what he did for lower-class urban black youths in the nineties. The whole teen angst movement that has become so popular in recent years seems over his head and one can't help but wonder what would happen if someone more in tune like Catherine Hardwicke had been in charge (of course she made the atrocious Red Riding Hood so she might not be the best example). Maybe it's time Singleton go back to writing his own screenplays, as he really doesn't seem to do well when it comes to other people's stories.

Sweaty Taylor Lautner is not a pretty thing

And yet this might have been slightly redeemable if Lautner had been a more polished lead actor; sadly, this was a bad first pick for a shot at a post-Twilight career. It's not the Lautner is a BAD actor, it's just that he can't overcome the trite material he's given to work with at this stage. Looking like a poor-man's Tom Cruise is not a good thing if you can't capture that early Tom Cruise charm, something he will desperately need if he wants success in the future. Lily Collins is no better, having not lived up to her billing as an actress to watch out for. As she was in this year's other snore-fest action film Priest, Collins is a goal and something to protect, but never breaks out of that shell and becomes her own character. She does get one moment to shine, but the scene is so overlooked by the filmmakers that it barely warrants a mention. Together, the pair make for an uninteresting set of leads, complete with an entirely implausible romance.

Trying to be slick. Failing.

And so it falls to the support cast to keep this film completely out of the gutter. However, despite the amazing amount of talent present even this group can't save this mess. Sigourney Weaver, Alfred Molina and Jason Isaacs are all high-impact talents who usually raise the quality of a film just by their mere presence. Look at Weaver in Paul; the perfect example of a perfectly-cast small role. And Molina was easily the best part of Prince of Persia, one of 2010's worst titles. Both are completely wasted here, with Molina not quite ringing true as a CIA operative who may or may not be trustworthy, and Weaver shockingly bland as one of Nathan's true allies. Isaacs has been good in just about every genre of film you can imagine, from the women's drama Nine Lives to the action thriller Green Zone to the sci-fi horror Event Horizon. He's always been amongst the best performers that nobody in the community recognizes, and part of the reason for that is his inability to pick the great, popular movies. In that way, he's kind of a male, English Robin Wright. Here, he's the best part of the film, only to be killed off early, along with the equally-talented Maria Bello. The biggest hope I had for this film was for Michael Nyqvist to make an impact on Hollywood. Nyqvist, best known for his leading role of Mikael Blomkvist in the Swedish adaptation of Stieg Larssen's Millennium trilogy, had an opportunity to become a known quantity to an American audience. Unfortunately, he suffers the same fate as Weaver, as what talent he brings to the table is countered by cliche characterization and the lousy script. He'll have another chance with the latest Mission Impossible film when it releases later this year, but it's still a major disappointment to see him wasted in this film.

Sadly, Excitement missed the last train to the filming of Abduction

Let's get this straight: Abduction is not a good film. It's not even a mediocre film. A cheap knockoff of the Jason Bourne series, this is a bad film that takes the talents present and cuts it all out until you cannot tell that it was ever there. One of the year's worst, it has the wrong director, a misused cast, and lead actor who can't yet cut it as a lead actor. Unlike the much more polished Pattinson, Lautner hasn't proven that he can yet carry a film with any degree of authority. Until he can, and until he starts to pick better material, I think I can safely avoid his theatrical releases for now and the immediate future.