Epic (2013)

You may have noticed that I have kind of a blind spot when it comes to kids films.  Not having any kids, the appeal or desire to see some of these films just isn't there sometimes.  Epic is an example of why I tend to avoid them.  It's not that Epic is a bad film, but it's definitely a film geared towards a younger audience, and as far as the story, isn't anything you haven't seen before.

M.K. (Amanda Seyfried) moves in with her father, after the recent death of her mother.  Her father, Professor Bomba (Jason Sudeikis), is an eccentric scientist obsessed with finding evidence of tiny humans living in the forest.  They do a pretty good job of making M.K. unlikable, giving her no tolerance or compassion towards her father.  She just thinks he's weird and wants him to give it up.  She's so frustrated that after like a day, she bails on him.  I don't know where she was planning on going, being only 17, and walking out on her remaining parent.  Leave it to angsty teens to have a thought out plan, right?

Anyway, as M.K. is leaving, she chases their half-blind, three-legged dog (I'm not making that up) into the woods.  She finds the queen of the forest, Tara (Beyoncé Knowles), dying.  Tara gives her a pod that was part of a ritual to name her heir, and shrinks her down to their size.  Her dying request is that M.K. take this pod to someone to complete the ritual.  She joins up with Ronin (Colin Farrell), a commanding soldier; a snail and slug, Grub (Chris O'Dowd) and Mub (Aziz Ansari); and a rebellious soldier named Nod (Josh Hutcherson) to complete this task.  Their primary threat are the Boggans, a race of creatures that seek to destroy the forest.  They are led by the evil Mandrake (Christoph Waltz).

It's a standard adventure story from there.  People overcome their differences, characters grow up and learn lessons, etc.  It's all pretty predictable and familiar.  It's almost ironic to call this Epic, as it didn't feel too epic to me.  If anything I'd expect some indie film to use the title ironically.  Epic was based off the William Joyce book The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs, but it was director Chris Wedge's goal to adapt the story to make it more of an action-adventure.  It looks like something got a little lost in the adaptation as the whole story felt thin to me.  There's not a lot of depth to the story or characters.  I'm sure having five (five?!) screenwriters didn't help either.

Again, I'm not saying Epic is a bad movie, or even has a that bad of a story.  I just never got invested in what was going on or found myself caring about any of the characters.  I spent more time keeping all the character's names straight in my head, and when I wasn't doing that, I was trying to figure out who the voices of all the main characters were.  For the record, I only guessed four right: Beyoncé, Aziz Ansari, Colin Farrell, and Christoph Waltz.

Most of the attempts at humor fell flat.  It seemed to be working for the kids though, and that's really all Epic can aim for, an average kids film.  I see this being something you can put on the TV, and it'll entertain your kids for 100 minutes, but I don't see them falling in love with it and watching it over and over.  It's just not that memorable.

I did enjoy the CG though.  The design of the world was very interesting and there were a lot of nice details with the characters and settings.  The animation was very fluid, with the exception of how they animated Professor Bomba.  He had a very jerky and unnatural way of moment that was too cartoonish and seemed too much of a contrast from everyone else.

Epic isn't a complete waste of time, but it's yet another middle of the road animated film that borrows heavily from many other films and themes.  Unlike some stronger animated films, it's gonna struggle to hold the attention of anyone over the age of 10.  It's a solid kid's film though and one you can feel confident with letting them watch unattended.  Epic is a rental.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

This is 40 (2012) - Movie Review

Was the working title of this film "This is Misery"?

I say that because if there was ever a movie where I felt the message they were trying to tell me that marriage and having kids is a miserable experience, it would be This is 40.  Billed as the "sort-of sequel to Knocked Up", we catch up with Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) a few years after the events of Knocked Up.  I thought it was odd that there was no cameo from either Katherine Heigl (you do see a picture of her on the wall though) or Seth Rogen, which seemed like a missed opportunity. Granted Heigl is probably on Judd Apatow's shit list after what she said about Knocked Up, but Rogen is still in Apatow's camp.  Also, as the movie centers around the relationship with their families and their 40th birthdays, it seems odd that known family members would have no mention or involvement in the film.

One of the biggest issues with This is 40 is that there's really no plot at all.  It's the Seinfeld of movies in that it's a movie about nothing.  You're just watching a short snapshot of these people dealing with their issues.  The other odd part was that the movie takes place over the course of a single week.  I only know this because the movie begins with Debbie's birthday, and they say Pete's birthday is in the same week (the film ends with Pete's birthday party).  Despite the short time frame of the film, I felt like I watched several months of their lives.  At one point you see their living room and notice there's a Christmas tree and wonder how much time has passed.  Were we in December the whole time?

Even with no plot and only a week elapses, I felt like there was too much going on and too many side characters.  How many issues do these people have?  You're watching Pete deal with the lack of success of his independent record label, and how that's causing financial strain he hasn't shared with Debbie.  Debbie owns small boutique store that seemed to have huge sales numbers, and they are alerted to a missing twelve thousand dollars, but didn't have any urgency over finding where it went.  This leads to a side plot involving an unnecessary Megan Fox and Charlyne Yi. Their oldest daughter Sadie (Maude Apatow) for some reason has a fascination with Lost even though that's been off the air for a few years, and never stops yelling.  There's a side plot involving the mother of a boy (Melissa McCarthy) after the boy and Sadie have a Facebook fight.  Debbie is dealing with the resentment she feels towards her absent father (John Lithgow), and Pete's father (Albert Brooks) has been guilting them into lending him money constantly.

In typical Judd Apatow fashion, the film is way too long and really needed to be cut down.  I don't understand why a movie with no plot needed to be over two hours.  Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a long movie, and I normally love Judd Apatow's style, but this is the first of his films where I really felt the meandering length of the film.  It just kind of ends without any resolution to any of their issues, and it doesn't cover enough time in their lives to show any growth of the characters.

Don't get me wrong, it's not all bad.  There are many hilarious moments, but the movie was arranged where all the laughs came in blocks or montages of funny scenes.  When there aren't laughs though, everyone is fighting and yelling and nobody seems happy.  Katherine Heigl had a complaint about Knocked Up where she said, "It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys,"  After watching This is 40, I have to say I understand what she was saying.  I couldn't help but think that Debbie was always bitching and shrill, where Pete was always made to look like a nice guy.  I find it odd that Judd Apatow would make a movie about marriage and family life that paints it in such a negative light and cast his own wife and children in the movie.  I hope he's not making a commentary about his own personal life.

For the most part the performances are all fine, even if I didn't necessarily love the characters. Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann are good as the leads and do the type of work you normally expect out of them.  I actually got more out of a lot of the supporting characters, even though there were too many of them.  I thought Albert Brooks was funny every time he was on screen.  Melissa McCarthy had the funniest moment of the film (stay for her scene during the credits).  Jason Segel has a good sequence involving Chris O'Dowd and Megan Fox, but again, many of these characters just seemed unnecessary or underdeveloped.

This is 40 is an uneven and overlong film.  It's a mixed bag of funny or insightful scenes, but then times that make you never want to get married or have kids.  If you're a Judd Apatow fan, I think it's worth a watch at some point, but save it for rental.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Friends With Kids - Movie Review

This is going to be a quick review as I find that I'm probably going to echo a few sentiments about this movie from my Jeff, Who Lives at Home review.

The premise of Friends With Kids might be a little out there depending on your perspective: two old friends, Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt), after seeing how having kids have affected the relationships of their mutual friends, decide that maybe the best course of action is to just have a kid together.  The hope is that this will get them past any messy divorce issues and allow both of them to still date and play the field.  The movie shows that they are both still looking for 'the one', but understand that their window of opportunity for having a kid is closing.  They agree to split responsibility down the middle.  What could go wrong, right?

Initially, it works out well for them, as it's treated almost as a business arrangement between friends.  They are both rational and mature about it.  This irritates some of their married friends, as they think it's a bit of a slap in the face to their relationships and wonder if they will be able to keep over the long haul.  As you may have already guessed, emotions do get invested and the relationship gets complicated.  This the main flaw of the film.  What starts out as a subversive look at 'traditional' relationships and having kids, ends up becoming just kind of a standard romantic comedy aimed at people over 30.

One thing that kind of bugged me was when characters talked about New York like the audience is all from New York.  I know movies can't 100% appeal to everyone, but there's a part of me that feels left out when very specific references are made to living in a certain city.  I imagine people from NY though might feel the same way about movies based in San Francisco or LA.  This is a minor point though and it didn't make or break the movie for me.  It's just a pet peeve of mine.

The movie is basically carried by Adam Scott.  If you've been a fan of his from Parks and Recreation and his other various movies, then this movie is the one you've been waiting for.  I think it's going to be a breakout role for him as far as being in more films.  He's kind of like a more serious, less snarky, Paul Rudd.

The cast is very strong.  It's essentially a Bridesmaids reunion with good performances from Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig and Chris O'Dowd.  They are all very funny in parts.  Although, I'm actually mad that Don Draper wasn't in it more.  He's shown that he has the comedy chops and I didn't feel like he got a chance to really show it.  Maybe because Jennifer Westfeldt his is real life girlfriend she avoided putting him in the movie too much.  I dunno, but I think we could all use some more Hamm.

It's runs on a bit too long, especially once you figure out how the movie is going to play out.  I think about  5-10 minutes needed to be trimmed to tighten it up.  Overall I thought Jennifer Westfeldt's story and direction were fine.  This is her directorial debut, but I think many may be fans of her previous writing for Kissing Jessica Stein (haven't seen it).  I hate to criticize her, but I think as far as the cast goes she might have been the weakest link.  I didn't think she was bad, I just think there a missing element between her and Scott as far as the chemistry goes.  Oh wait, Westfeldt could never be the weak link in a movie that features Megan Fox in any role.  Megan Fox just bugs me.

Despite the way the film wraps up, it does avoid a lot of the usual conventions of weaker romantic comedies.  How many times have you seen a romantic comedy where there's a conflict that would be resolved if the characters just had a five minute conversation.  Well, in this movie, characters actually communicate once there's conflict.  Because Friends With Kids avoids that flaw, it's conclusion does feel a little more earned.

I did enjoy Friends With Kids despite my issues with it, which really are minor compared to other films.  It's very funny in parts and has a great cast.  It's an above average romantic comedy with it's subject and setup, but the ultimate conclusion is what prevents this from being rated higher.  I do think it's worth watching, but maybe saving for a rental.

3.5 (out of 5) Death Stars