Vacation (2015)

Saying that I was disappointed in Vacation is like saying I was disappointed in the Taco Bell I got at 2 AM on a Saturday. I wasn't expecting much. Even with lowered expectations and a beer before the movie (so, yes, I was in a good mood), I felt that Vacation was still a giant waste of time.

I guess I should start with the cast. I like Ed Helms a lot, but I don't think he was right for the role. He's too sincere when it would have been better to have someone a little darker or with more of a sarcastic edge. It also doesn't help that he looks nothing like an older Anthony Michael Hall. Yes, he's playing the same Rusty Griswold from the original Vacation. In fact, I don't know why they just didn't get Hall to play the role. I'm pretty sure he's available. Leslie Mann was better cast as the older Audrey, but she's only in one part of the movie. I didn't mind Chris Hemsworth's attempt at comedy, but I can't say the same for his attempt at a Texan accent. Lastly, it's a shame they didn't give Christina Applegate more to do as she seemed like the only person that was really into it.

Oh, there is a cameo by Chevy Chase, but it only served to show how little he has left in the tank. He as shaky and unfunny. Beverly D'Angelo still looked good though, but she has like two lines of dialog. Their entire scene felt added on just for nostalgia's sake.

The other big problem with Vacation is that it's just not that funny. There's a few chuckles, but nothing made me laugh out loud. The funniest part of the movie was the opening credits, which was just a montage of awkward, random family vacation photos. This isn't even something out of the script or story. I think most people will get the biggest kick out of the younger brother constantly bullying the older brother, but that's a one-note gag that plays out by about the halfway mark. Most of the other humor comes out of crude bodily humor, or awkward behavior or dialog.

Vacation features two of my biggest pet peeves in comedy, the guy that gets walked all over for most of the film (basically the same role Helms played in The Hangover), and jokes hinging around something that's impossible. Like, there's a scene where they hit a button on their fake car (which already has enough design flaws that there's no way it could possibly exist) that causes all of the windows to explode. Even the characters remark as to why that would happen, but just because you point out that fact in the movie doesn't make it funny. It's still stupid. They try to redo the famous Christie Brinkley scene where the punchline is that she's brutally killed in a head-on collision. Can someone explain to me how that's funny on any level?

There's really nothing more I can say about Vacation. It's definitely not worth seeing in the theater, and I'm having a hard time saying it's worth seeing at all. Just stick to the original and Christmas Vacation and forget that they even attempted another sequel.

1 (out of 5) Death Stars

The Lego Movie (2014)

It's been said that The Lego Movie is little more than a extended toy commercial. Even if I agreed with that, my general response to this is, "Who cares?" Legos are awesome, and so is The Lego Movie!

How rare is it that you have a series of toys that has stood the test of time. I played with Legos when I was a kid, particularly the generic 80's Space Legos referenced in the film, and decades later my nephews are playing with them. Only they have much cooler Star Wars and Superhero themed Legos. Plus, there's the great Lego video game series, too. Admit it, you've played them. I suppose it helps when you film is based on a product that has a broad, built in audience.

The basic story is a Matrix-esque hero's quest. When attempting to protect a weapon called the "Kragle", Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman) warns Lord Business (Will Ferrell) of a prophecy where someone known as the "Special" will find the Piece of Resistance, the only thing that can stop the Kragle.

Later, we meet Emmet (Chris Pratt), an average guy with no special skills or qualities. While working on a construction site, he sees a woman, Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), frantically searching for something. When trying to catch up to her, he stumbles down a hole and finds the famed Piece. He has a vision and shortly after is arrested by Bad Cop (Liam Neeson). Emmet learns of Lord, now President, Business' plan to use the Kragle to destroy the world. Believing Emmet is the Special, she rescues him and off they go to thwart President Business' plan.

It's almost hard to put into words how much fun is packed into The Lego Movie. There literally is a laugh a minute, with the gags coming in such rapid fire succession that it's easy to miss everything that's going on. Like many of the better animated films, the humor doesn't pander to a particular age group. There's something for everyone. At times you'll hear a big laugh from the kids, then maybe a handful of adults at something a little more obscure. They even throw in a subtle dig at generic sitcoms and pop music aimed at the masses.

As we get to the conclusion, there's a slight twist that gives the story some weight and makes it more than just about jokes and pretty animation. You'll look back on the film and realize that some of it's creativity, and even the simpler moments, are really more about the imagination of a child. It also reminded me of times where I would refuse to let my nephews take a Star Wars action figure out of the package, as to not ruin it's condition or integrity, when they simply wanted to play with it. Toys, especially Legos, are meant to be played with and inspire creativity, not sit on some old guy's shelf hoping it will gain value some day. Sure collecting has its place, but it helps to be reminded about their true purpose.

Despite Legos not having a ton of articulation, the animation is surprisingly fluid. There some very creative use of Legos to animate rounded shapes like clouds and water. There's some great Transformers type stuff, as well. This is also one of the few movies that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend seeing in 3D. The format fits the the vibrant images and animation well.

Where The Lego Movie really shines is with it's voice cast. As I've mentioned in previous animated films, it's a strength when they can cast recognizable voices, but they don't distract or take you out of the movie. While the cast is filled with big name stars, you're likely to not recognize many of voices until you watch the credits. Many I thought were impressions until I saw they cast the actual person. Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Morgan Freeman, and the rest are all great, but I think most people will remember Will Arnett's portrayal as Batman as the best of the bunch. He's absolutely hilarious, and sings the best Batman related song of all time. Charlie Day was also another standout as his voice fit his character perfectly. I think you'll see a lot of people quoting his, and other lines, from the film for a while.

Lastly, I have to mention the directing team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. These are the same guys behind Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street, so they are really knocking it out of the park so far.

The Lego Movie is truly a great animated family film that appeals to the kid in all of us. It's smart, hilarious and features both great animation and voice acting. I know it's early in the year, but I can already see this in my best of 2014 list and easily my favorite animated film. I can't recommend this movie enough.

5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Spaceship!

Pacific Rim (2013)

I spent much of my youth watching Godzilla, Ultraman, Voltron, Giant Robo, Mazinger Z and other various Creature Features.  I had tons of these toys, and still own about 10 Godzilla films on DVD at present.  I've long wished for that big budget epic of any of these properties, and no, Roland Emmerich's Godzilla does not count.  I do have hopes for the upcoming Godzilla film though.  You can imagine my excitement when seeing the various trailers and spots for Pacific Rim.  I finally get to see giant robots fight giant creatures in the way I've always dreamed!

The kid in me loved Pacific Rim on that front.  It delivers on exactly what it advertised.  However, if you watch Pacific Rim and come away from it thinking it's an awful piece of shit, then I wouldn't be able to disagree with you.  Nearly every other aspect of Pacific Rim is a mess (I'll get to that).  Some of this is a byproduct of the style though.  Pacific Rim is basically a big budget B movie or Midnight Monster Movie.  It's nothing more than a kids film, and it even feels like a toy commercial at times.

If you're hoping this may lead to a influx of more of these films, this is where I think Pacific Rim was a missed opportunity.  It doesn't do anything to transcend the genre.  I don't see many guys that will be able to drag their wives or girlfriends to this.  There just isn't any appeal outside of fathers and sons.  I had hoped that Guillermo del Toro would have tried to reach out to a wider audience, but those looking for a better story or interesting characters won't be able to get past the general cheesiness.

The entire backstory of Pacific Rim is laid out in the opening prologue.  Aliens opens a dimensional rift in the Pacific Ocean and begin to send giant monsters, called Kaiju, through it on a regular schedule.  There doesn't seem to be any purpose to it other than to cause destruction.  The monsters progressively become larger and more powerful, so the world's governments put aside their differences and coordinate to build giant robots called Jaegers.  Initially these were controlled by a single pilot, but it's found that the neural load was too much for a single person, so they are operated by pairs of people that have their minds linked together, called "drifting".  This is not to be confused with Tokyo Drifting.

The action picks up several years into the conflict and things aren't looking good for humanity.  The Kaiju are getting stronger and attacking more frequently, and we're running out of Jaegers.  In a last ditch attempt to stop them, the remaining Jaegers are pooled and a plan is formed to close the rift.  Becket (Charlie Hunnam), a former Jaeger pilot that's moved on after the death of this brother is asked to step back into his old Jaeger.  That's pretty much the entire plot.

While I liked that Pacific Rim didn't waste too much time with backstory and throws us right into the action, I also wanted to see more of the early days of the Jaeger program and successes.  There were several generations of Jaegers, but you don't get to see all of them or learn what they improved with each version.  By the time of the events in Pacific Rim, there are only about five Jaegers left.  It would have been awesome to see a large force of these all on screen at once fighting multiple monsters.  I realize the budget of the film might not allowed that, but even a short, wide shot of an early epic battle would have been a sight to behold.

Instead, we're coming into to the story as the Jaegerr program is being shut down due to decreasing effectiveness.  These Jaegers don't last very long in a fight.  Some are so ineffective that it's hard to understand why they ever went this direction in the first place.  Wouldn't it have been more efficient to use the same resources to build up a large arsenal of huge missiles, mines and other weaponry to combat them?  Things that didn't require pilots or could be controlled remotely?  Yeah, I know that's not as fun, and there'd be no movie otherwise.  Forget it.  We came to see giant robots versus giant monsters!

Again, this is the success of Pacific Rim.  The action and special effects are fan-friggin-tastic!  Everything is colorful, the Kaiju and Jaegers all have interesting and unique looks about them.  You get to see robots vs monster action throughout the film, and there are some great, creative fights.  However, this brings me to one of the things that bugged me about Pacific Rim.  There are more than a few times where you can't tell what's going on.  It's not as bad as something like Transformers, but most of these battles occur at night, and in water, and are shot too close.  You never really get to have a good, long look at either the Kaiju or the Jaegers.  With all the design that went into them, it would be nice to be able to appreciate that more.  Just pause on a wide shot for an extra second or two.

As I've mentioned, there's not much to the plot and it's a pretty self-contained story.  There's no attempt to setup or even hint at a sequel or something coming next.  Part of me appreciates that, but when discussing after with my friend, we both thought the movie would have been better if it had been framed similar to how The Princess Bride was told. You could have had a retired Jaeger pilot telling his son or grandson the tale as a bedtime story.  At the end when the kid says something like, "Wow!  That was amazing!"  They could end the film with the pilot saying something like, "Oh yeah?  Well, wait until I tell you about what happened next!"  Then you could pretty much go crazy with anything you want in the sequel.  It doesn't mean they won't make one if it does well enough, but it felt like another missed opportunity to me.

I don't mind the thin plot since I wasn't watching Pacific Rim for that, but I was annoyed by all the various and unnecessary character threads.  This really drug the middle part of the film down, and didn't add anything or made me care about the characters.  Just get to the next fight scene.  Pacific Rim is over two hours long and it shouldn't have been.  There were times I got a little impatient waiting for the action to pick up again.

That's not to say if the characters were interesting or their development was done well it wouldn't have been appreciated though.  They behave in ways that make no sense or have no motivation behind.  There's another Jaeger pilot that absolutely hates Becket for no real reason.  They're working together to stop the apocalypse (oh, and we'll get to the "cancelling the apocalypse" thing), so you'd think they'd have some kind of bond or camaraderie.  There's a pair of scientists played by Charlie Day and Burn (Burn?) Gorman, that were meant as comic relief, but their antics and behavior were plain silly.  I did enjoy Charlie Day though, but that's probably due to more to being a fan of his in general.  Ron Perlman has a small role as this ridiculous black market seller of Kaiju parts that I couldn't help but laugh at, but not in a good way.  There's a lot of unintentional humor, and I didn't seem to be alone in laughing at the film.  At least this will make for a great Rifftrax.

The characters are so one-dimensional that many of them aren't even referred by name.  Even Charlie Hunnam's character is only mentioned by his last name, and he only ever referred to his brother as "my brother".  When the credits rolled, we were surprised to see they were named Raleigh and Yancy.  This also gave us a laugh, because aren't these girls names?  Why go through the trouble of coming up with unusual names for your characters if you don't bother using them?  Anyway...

Nearly everything about the plot is telegraphed.  It's every action cliche you can imagine.  There's even a young, aspiring Jaeger pilot, Mako (Rinko Kikuchi), who is the best candidate to be Becket's partner, but Idris Elba won't let her.  There's a relationship between the two of them that's undeveloped as well, but the whole thing seemed like a pointless conflict and build up, as we all know she's going to end up in a Jaeger at some point.  Many parts of the film very melodramatic.

The dialog is pretty terrible, and it's not just that it's awful, but it's how it's delivered.  Characters shout for no reason.  Charlie Hunnam had a constant sneer even when he didn't have a reason to be angry.  Idris Elba at one point says, "don't let my calm demeanor fool you", yet he was one of the guys shouting most of his dialog.  I didn't find him calm.  Everyone seemed to be way overdoing it and it felt very cartoonish.  Maybe that's what Guillermo del Toro was going for with all the overacting and melodrama, to evoke those kinds of shows and cartoons that are silly and overdone.  I was just a little disappointed to see someone like Idris Elba made to look like an average actor.  If this was your first experience with him, you'd wonder what the big deal was.  You could say that about almost everyone in the film though.

Regarding all the shouting, I'm not sure if this was a problem with the film's sound mix or the theater I saw it in, but a lot of the dialog had an echo which also made it hard to make out.  Much of the dialog I couldn't understand because it was drowned out by other noise in the film.

Now it's time to "Cancel the Apocalypse".  I'm really getting tired of the trope of the dramatic, motivational speech that happens just before the climax.  It's unnecessary most of the time, but in an effort to not sound like all other speeches, they say things that aren't very natural.  In Pacific Rim, Idris Elba is forced to deliver an uninspired speech where he says, "Today, we cancel the apocalypse!"  If they make Pacific Rim 2, is someone going to say, "Tonight, we reschedule the Doomsday to a date to be determined later!"  Please let this happen.  My friend was starting to comment about the length of the film, and was unsure how much time we had left, so I said, "Well, he hasn't cancelled the apocalypse yet, so we still have a ways to go."  Then when the scene finally started, I sat up and said, "Oh sweet, he's about to cancel the apocalypse!"  It's a good thing the theater was mostly empty.  Lastly, I thought it was funny that you hear someone say in the film that it was a good speech.  It wasn't.

Pacific Rim is light on story, cheesy, over-acted, and terribly written.  You might think then that I hated it, but you're wrong!  It's still very entertaining and a lot of fun.  It absolutely delivers on the giant robots vs. monsters mayhem that was advertised.  The kid in me was delighted by what I saw, but still came away a little disappointed that it could have been more.  If you don't want anything beyond some mindless and great looking action, or are someone like me that needs your Godzilla fix, then it's definitely worth a matinee.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars

Monsters University (2013)

What is it with rehashes of Revenge of the Nerds lately?  Monsters University is the second movie I've seen in the past month (The Internship being the other) that borrows heavily from Nerds.

Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) was inspired at a young age to become a scarer.  He studied harder than everyone and eventually got accepted to Monsters University.  Despite knowing the ins and outs of scaring, Mike has a lot of doubters that don't believe he has the innate ability to be a good scarer.  Jake Sullivan (John Goodman), on the other hand, comes from a well known scaring family and has all the physical attributes you'd want to have.  Mike and Jake start out at odds, competing to see who's the better scarer.  Sully thinks Mike just doesn't have what it takes, and Mike thinks Sully is just relying on his family's name and natural ability to get by.

Their competition gets the better of them though, and both are eventually kicked out of the scare program by the Dean (Helen Mirren).  Their only chance back in is to win the Scare Games, a series of contests that pit all the various fraternities and sororities against each other.  Mike and Sully are forced to put their differences aside and join the fraternity full of castoffs in order to compete in the Games.  Nobody thinks their fraternity has even the slightest chance, but Mike thinks he can whip them into shape.  Sounds all too familiar, eh?

Even though it follows a familiar format and contains familiar themes, I still enjoyed Monsters University.  This is one of those times where I wasn't bothered by all the reused tropes and plot elements.  I tend to enjoy underdog stories, even though they tend to be predictable.  It's also a prequel that works.  I liked seeing how Mike and Sully started out and eventually became the friends we know from Monsters, Inc.  It also serves to make them both more sympathetic characters when you see the issues they had to overcome.  Although one of the issues with doing a prequel so long after the fact is that many of the characters we spend time getting to know in Monsters University aren't mentioned or seen in Monsters, Inc.  There are a few common characters like Randy (Steve Buscemi) though.  On the other hand, it really won't matter what order you watch either of these films.  There's nothing really spoiled or ruined by watching them in a particular order.

If they ever do decide to do a third film, I'd like to see them do something far in the future.  Maybe base it around Boo as a college student herself, whose long forgotten her adventure with Kitty and and Mike Wazowski.

The humor is pretty standard and definitely geared towards the family.  Most of the families sitting around me all laughed at various points.  I didn't find it particularly funny myself, but not because it was childish.  Just not quite enough bite for my tastes.  However, there's a great sequence at the end that fans of horror films will really appreciate.  I don't know which of the three writers wrote that section (Robert L. Baird, Daniel Gerson, and director Dan Scanlon), but it was a smart sequence that was best part of the film for me.

As you'd expect with a Pixar film, the animation is top notch.  When you compare this with Monsters, Inc. it really is amazing to see how far it's come.  There are times where things are so realistic looking - particularly with the short film before the main feature - that you may think real sets are used with the characters added in after.  It truly is beautiful, and worth watching just for the animation if that's your thing.

Monsters University is one of the rare examples of a prequel that's on par with original, and I actually enjoyed it a little more than Monsters, Inc.  While it's definitely not Pixar's best work, and dives a little too deep into familiar territory, it's still a fun and engaging film that the whole family can enjoy together.  Easy matinee recommendation for this one.

3.5 (out of 5) Death Stars