Spy (2015)

Here's a story. I actually 'watched' Spy a little over a month ago. The night it came out, in fact. Why didn't I write about it? I fell asleep about 15 minutes into it and woke up with about 5 minutes left. Not really a good place to write a review, right? It wasn't Spy's fault though. Normally I don't fall asleep during films, but the moral of the story is, don't go to an 11:30 PM screening on a work night when you're already pretty tired. I'm too old for this late screening shit.

Anyway, so I finally gave it a shot again over the weekend and I'm glad I did. I've been hard on Melissa McCarthy films recently, which is deserved because Tammy sucked and Identity Thief sucked worse. I was optimistic about Spy though since this was also a Paul Feig helmed film, and I hoped that their collaboration would work similarly as it did for Bridesmaids and The Heat. Spy is a genuinely funny film.

It seems that McCarthy is best when she's adlibbing and hurling insults, but she needs someone like Feig to reign it in and refine it. Some of the best moments of the film are when she's just berating the hell out of somebody. They even played on the way she's normally used in physical comedy and made it work. Whoever McCarthy's stunt double was, she kicked ass.

Surprisingly, one of the other funniest people in Spy is Jason Statham, who plays this hyper-macho version of every character he's ever played before. At every opportunity he spews an increasingly improbable list of feats and it's hysterical (he even throws in a direct reference to Crank). The whole cast is great really. Rose Byrne, Jude Law, Miranda Hart, and especially Peter Serafinowicz.  This is the kind of film where you get the feeling that everyone got along and had a great time making the film. You can feel that in the chemistry of it all.

At it's heart, Spy is a pretty good spoof of the spy film genre, in general. It doesn't take itself too seriously, while occasionally taking jabs at some of the more ridiculous parts of spy films. There's even some good action sequences.

Spy's winding down it's theatrical run, but if you haven't seen it yet, and it's still playing near you, I highly recommend checking it out. Totally worth it.

4 (out of 5) Death Stars

Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)

People used to say that Darth Sidious was really short for insidious (and Vader was short for invader).  Then, Insidious comes out and there's that Darth Maul looking dude in it (but not short for mauler, or imaul, or whatever), and I was like, "Hey, what's up with that?"

I have to give credit to James Wan and Leigh Whannell Insidious: Chapter 2 is a genuine sequel to Insidious, and doesn't feel like a cheap sequel made to cash in.  Chapter 2 absolutely requires that you've seen the first.  In fact, I wouldn't even recommend seeing it unless you have it fresh in your mind.  Chapter 2 does a good job of expanding on the story, and it loops back on events of the first in pretty clever ways that I enjoyed.

Unfortunately, Chapter 2 misses the mark as far as actual scares.  The first was a lesson in effective use of sound and atmosphere, while the second relies a bit too much on loud noises and cheap jump scares.  Even when they displayed the title they did it with an ear splitting noise that was actually a little painful to listen to.

It's kind of odd to me in that I liked Chapter 2 for the opposite reasons I liked the first.  When watching Insidious, I was really into the film until it switched gears and they went to the astral-plane where Darth Maul's brother hung out.  With Chapter 2, I enjoyed the film more in the second half when they went back to the astral-plane, and you got the expansion of the story and callbacks to the first.

So what's it about anyway?  After a brief prologue where we learn that Josh was able to astral project as a child and was hypnotized to forget this, Chapter 2 picks up immediately after the events of the first.  Despite recovering their son from the astral plane, Renai (Rose Byrne) is still hearing and witnessing strange events around the house.  Josh (Patrick Wilson), who's already under suspicion for the death of Elise (Lin Shaye), is exhibiting bizarre behavior of his own.  It becomes clear that Josh is no longer himself and something came back with him from the astral plane.  Josh's mother, Lorraine (Barbara Hershey), contacts Elise's old team, as well as the man that hypnotized Josh as a kid, to investigate.  As they discover more, Josh's behavior becomes more erratic and things escalate.

As I eluded to earlier, part of my disappointment in the film is that there was a too much reliance on generic, horror/thriller cliches.  At one point an abandoned hospital is searched...at night.  Why can't they search this during the day when there's more ambient light?  Why do they never bring more flashlights?  I was also disappointed in the lack of an effective villain or imagery.  While I thought the Darth Maul guy from the first was a little silly by the end of the film, at least he was scary looking.  Chapter 2 has a bunch of people in sheets and a totally not-scary woman dressed in white.  This woman in white turned out to be an overbearing mother that was forcing her son to dress as a girl.  Why?  I have no idea!  Why are these two the focus?  Who is Josh possessed by and why?  I don't feel like we got good answers to any of these questions.  Instead of being scary, it just came off as weird.

Since there's no tension due to lack of scares, I felt the pace of the film really dragged, as well.  An hour and 45 minutes seems long considering how underdeveloped the story was.

I didn't hate the film though.  I do appreciate that they are making these films on a tiny budget and not relying on CG or excessive gore.  They even managed to get a few laughs this time around, although some of them may have been unintentional.  The performances were also above average for the genre.  However, I thought the normally rock-solid Patrick Wilson was a little too over-the-top at times.

Insidious: Chapter 2 does a good job of expanding on the story set up by the first, but it unfortunately doesn't have the scares to match.  If you were a fan of Insidious, then I think Chapter 2 is still worth a watch to see how they built on the story, but overall it's a bit of a step down.  I'd recommend saving it for rental and watching Chapter 1 and 2 back-to-back.

2 (out of 5) Death Stars

The Internship (2013)

My old, cynical self watched the first 20 minutes or so of The Internship with my arms folded across my chest, without so much as a smile on my face.  It's not that The Internship wasn't funny at all, it was that nearly every laugh during this time were all things I've seen in the trailer.  Then I thought, is that really the movie's fault?  Everyone else is laughing, and I'm betting these people don't see nearly as many movies as I do.  Would I be laughing more if I hadn't seen that trailer like 20 times this year?

After The Internship blows its trailer-wad, I warmed up to it a bit.  Don't get me wrong, it's not a great film, but I found myself chuckling a few times.  The humor's a little one-note though, and some gags are repeated a few too many times.  It's easy to say that the film is really trying to get by on the charm of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.  I'm sure that's what Vaughn thought when coming up with the story and co-writing the screenplay (co-wrote with Jared Stern).  The Internship hits all the typical beats, and busts out every underdog, and some rom-com, cliche they could throw at you.  Even the soundtrack has a cheesy, familiar feel to it.  Director Shawn Levy's resume doesn't exactly strike you with the number of huge hits, and he really doesn't take any chances here.  It's all very paint-by-numbers.

The Internship recycles so many plot elements that you'll have the whole movie figured out within that first 20 minutes.  I realized around that point that I was basically watching a retread of any high-school or college comedy where competing cliques or frats go at each other.  It's like a mix of Revenge of the Nerds, only the jocks are just type-A nerds, and Old School, where the dean is replaced by a snooty, disapproving boss (Aasif Mandvi).

Watch salesmen Nick (Wilson) and Billy (Vaughn) find themselves out of work after their owner (John Goodman, who's in everything these days) decides to close up shop without warning.   Unsure what to do next, Billy decides to dream big and takes a chance at getting an internship at Google.  The condition of the internship at Google is that they are grouped up and given a series of challenges.  The team with the best score gets guaranteed jobs.  Nobody wants to get paired with the old dudes, so Nick and Billy end up with a group of cast-offs.  Even the cast-offs aren't wild about being grouped up with fast talking guys with no tech skills.  Do you think the group will eventually come together and rally?  Oh, the suspense...

On a side note, I live fairly close to Google (as well as use their blog software), but I've never heard anything about their actual internships being as cutthroat or competition based as in the movie.  My research shows that while they got the culture part right about Google, the competition is mostly a fabrication likely added for dramatic purposes.  Everyone I've ever talked to has said it truly is the most amazing place to work.

What needs to be said about Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson at this point?  They give you exactly what you expect from them: Vaughn's hypercharged, stream-of-consciousness rants, and Wilson's aw-shucks charm.  They are pretty much playing the same characters they've always played.  At one point there's a reference to the fact that they've known each other since they were kids, and I couldn't help but think that wasn't that also the case in Wedding Crashers.  They might as well have named the characters the same and just called it John and Jeremy go to Google.  The next film can be John and Jeremy join the Army and it can be a retread of Stripes.

The rest of the cast is fine.  The group rounded out with Dylan O'Brien, Tiya Sircar, Josh Brener and Tobit Raphael.  I thought Raphael was funny, in particular.  Max Minghella effectly plays the main antagonist, and you want to just punch his character in the face the whole film.  Rose Byrne also stars as Owen Wilson's main crush.  I could have used a little more Byrne in the film, but that's probably due to my crush on her.

The Internship isn't reinventing the wheel, and for some of you this may feel all too familiar.  I do think that it's a crowd-pleasing film, but a lot of it is going to come down to whether or not you're tired of Vaughn and Wilson's act, or this formula in general.  I warmed it up to it as it went on, and got a few laughs out of it, so I guess I can't quit these guys just yet.  This hasn't been a good year for comedy, but I'm guessing this is going to likely to be the most successful of the Summer due to it's mainstream appeal.  I call it a matinee.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

(Note: Originally I gave this 3 Death Stars, but upon reflecting, I'm knocking this down a bit.)

The Place Beyond the Pines (2013)

It's like Drive 2.0...

It's easy to draw parallels between The Place Beyond the Pines and Drive.  It doesn't help at all that Ryan Gosling plays another stunt driver that doesn't speak much.  It's also similar in that the trailer sets up a much different film that what you really get.  I know many people that were disappointed with Drive thinking it was going to be an action-oriented film, and from the trailer for TPBtP, you might think the same thing.  That's not to say that it's bad, in fact it's good film, just not what you might expect.

This might be a little spoilery, but I'll try not to reveal too much....

Pines is an overarching story, spanning over 15 years, and following the families of Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling) and Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper).  We begin with Luke, a stunt motorbike rider for a state fair.  He ex Romina (Eva Mendes) visits him and Luke learns he is the father of her newborn son.  Luke decides to stick around to provide for him, but eventually needs a way to make more money.  His current employer reveals he used to rob banks, so the two of them decide to start robbing several banks in the area.  He eventually crosses paths with Cross, a local Schenectady cop, during one of the robberies.  This is pretty much the story you see in the trailer, but this is really just the first act.

The second act follows Cross after stopping Glanton.  This is has made him a hero amongst his fellow officers, but he gets mixed up with some crooked cops, led by Ray Liotta.  Cross wants to expose the corruption, and uses the opportunity to gain a higher position.

We then get to the third act of the film.  The story comes full circle, but it's also the weakest part of the larger story.  Again, I can't really get into it without spoiling things, the events that play out are just way too clean and coincidental.  You can see how it's going to play out from a mile away, and ends the film on a bad note.  It doesn't help that the two characters that are the focus of the third act, played by Emory Cohen and Dane DeHaan, are the weakest and least interesting of the film.  It's not an issue with the performances, as much as it is with the story itself.  I will say, however, that Cohen speaks with a ridiculous Long Island accent, when neither of his parents do, and it just makes his character that much more unbelievable.  Also, another thing I thought was weak about the third act was they didn't do a particularly good job of aging the characters, outside of adding a few patches of grey hair here and there.

It's a shame it ends on such a bad note, because I felt the movie had been going along pretty well until that third act.  It's close to two and a half hours though, and any of these acts could have been movies all on their own.  As much as I liked the second act, it felt like they rushed through the conclusion of it, and it was already a little cliched.  I've often criticised a film for having too many writers, and this one has three: director Derek Cianfrance, Ben Coccio, and Darius Marder.  Each act feels like they were written by different people, and then tied loosely together.  The story is a little too ambitious for a single film.  I can't help but think this would have been great as a show or miniseries on HBO, similar to The Wire.

Pines is another one of those movies where characters don't always say much, and you see a lot of meaningful staring into the distance.  This usually means the music needs to stand out, and I thought this had a really haunting score.  I had to look up who did the music only to find out it was done by Mike Patton.  Mike Patton?  Of Mr. Bungle and Faith No More?  I never would have guessed he was involved.

I also enjoyed the aged, gritty look of the film.  I don't think they ever make a point to tell you when this movie occurs, but you get the feeling it's in the recent past.  The themes of the film though could be told in any setting though.

Pines has very good performances across the board, but I didn't think anyone was really stretching out of their comfort zones.  Again, Gosling basically plays a tatted up version of the same character he played in Drive, Ray Liotta plays another crooked cop, and Dane Dehan plays another awkward, angsty teen.  Eva Mendes only pops up here and there, and Rose Byrne is pretty much forgotten about by the third act.  That's also an issue in that there's so much story, not all of the characters are well developed.

The Place Beyond the Pines is an ambitious, well-acted story, but ultimately lets the viewer down with a disappointing third act. It's length makes it something that may be a little too much for casual viewers, even I started to squirm in my seat towards the end, but it's worth a watch...on DVD.

3.5 (out of 5) Death Stars