So, it’s about elvish teens in an elvish suburbia who are gifted with a wizard’s staff which might bring their late father back, but only delivers half of him.
The guys who made Seth Rogen’s “Sausage Party” directed the new animated “The Addams Family,” but there’s little of that anarchy here and (thankfully) none of the vulgarity.
MGM/UA and Vancouver’s Cinesite animation studio made the classic blunder of casting big names — TWO Oscar winners — instead of funny voices for their characters. So Charlize Theron’s slinky turn as Morticia and Chloe Grace Moretz’s deadpan take on Wednesday don’t work without them on camera, trying to top Anjelica Huston and Christina Ricci.
And the things an adult finds amusing in this latest big screen version of “The Addams Family” aren’t the ones the little kid audience it’s intended for will giggle over. It’s got more than a hint of New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams’ look about it. Most of the voice actors take a shot at mimicking the performers in the 1990s Barry Sonnenfeld films, starring the irrepressible Raoul Julia, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd and Christina Ricci, which only pays off in Oscar Isaac’s amusing Latin lover version of Raoul Julia’s version of Gomez.
But if you’re pressed for something to do with children who love going to the movies, I have to say it’s funnier than “Abominable,” even if the animation (by the Vancouver Cinesite Studios) doesn’t have that Dreamworks polish or heart.
And who among us can resist that finger-snapping theme song, the one Tin Pan Alley veteran Vic Mizzy composed, so very long ago, for the black and white TV series that made “The Addams Family” the touchstone Gothic farce it remains to this day?
This take on the tale gives us the origin story, takes us back to the Old World wedding of Morticia (Theron) and Gomez (Isaac), nuptials interrupted by cries of “MONSTERS” from villagers wielding pitchforks and trigger happy with their catapult.
The newlyweds must find somewhere just as “horrible” and “awful,” perhaps a tad more tolerant. New Jersey it is. That’s where Thing (A disembodied hand, remember?), their driver, runs over Lurch, and they discover their future butler’s been living in an abandoned asylum. Home sweet home!
Everything’s gloomy and decaying, just the way they like it, as they have two murderously competitive kids, morbid, morose Wednesdsay (Moretz) and explosives fan Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard).
“They blow up so fast!”
Then a development overseen by a cable TV home makeover queen (Oscar winner Allison Janney) drains the swamp that gives the place its lovely murk and fog, and the Addams — with a big family gathering coming up — have to make nice with the suburbanites who’ve moved into “Assimilation,” where the town choir sings “It’s easy to be happy when you have no choice!”
A clever line? Gomez wanders into the quaint planned community diner — “Enjoy your cuppa Joe, or whoEVER you have in there!”
A funny running gag, cribbed from the TV show? Lurch (often “conducted” by Thing) sets the mood at the ancient pipe organ, inventing the theme song, riffing through “Green Onions,” “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” and a cover of a certain R.E.M. ballad.
One great scene? That would be with Wednesday, who no longer wants to be “cage schooled” and heads to junior high where frog dissection day becomes a tribute to James Whale’s “Frankenstein.” That’s an absolute stitch. Ahem.
This “Family” needed a lot more moments like those, a zanier voice cast (Nick Kroll’s not bad as Uncle Fester) and more of the bug-eyed, wrong-headed enthusiasms — financial and martial to parental and romantic — of Gomez, always the key to versions of this endlessly reincarnated franchise.
Little kids will snicker and snap their fingers in time to the tune. Parents? You might might grin at the nostalgia of it all, an inventive moment or two, but little else.
MPAA Rating: PG for macabre and suggestive humor, and some action.
Cast: The voices of Charlize Theron, Oscar Isaac, Chloe Grace Moretz, Snoop Dogg, Allison Janney, Titus Burgess, Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara and Bette Midler.
Credits: Directed by Greg Tiernan, Conrad Vernon, script by Pamela Pettler and Matt Lieberman, based on characters created by Charles Addams. An MGM release.
However cartoonist Charles Addams is remembered, it’s the 1960s TV series based on his work that has real cultural currency.
That show, starring Sean Astin’s dad, bug-eyed John Astin, Carolyn Jones and Jackie Coogan, inspired the hilarious 1990s Barry Sonenfeld films starring the great Raoul Julia, Oscar winner Anjelica Huston, introduced Christina Ricci to the world and gave Christopher Lloyd his third iconic character role.
And now there’s a cartoon, with the voices of Oscar winner Charlize Theron, Oscar Isaac, Snoop Dogg, Chloe Grace Moretz, Oscar winner Allison Janney, Titus Burgess, Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara and…drum role please — the Divine Miss M., Bette Midler.
One thing animation does is allow the characters to get close to the way Mr. Addams himself drew them. See what I mean?
It opens Friday. The old rule used to be, “Be suspicious of any cartoon with TOO dazzling a voice actor cast.”
The preview is a bit late — Wednesday night is a mere 24 hours before OPENING night,.
And then there was this last minute embargo on reviews. Late Thursday afternoon.
You’d think thet’d catch on that these are “warnings” that color the perception of their film pre opening as surely as mixed or negative reviews. But we will see.
The novelty of sampling the work of “Nollywood,” Nigeria’s lively film industry, of seeing the rare film (in the West) that looks at the country from an insider’s point of view, wears off far too quickly in this tale of a demonic diety possessed statuette.
“The Figurine” as it was titled for export, “Araromire” for domestic consumption, is a 2009-2010 slow-walk soap opera masquerading as a horror film. It finally gets around to supernatural violence — only hinted at in a long prologue — in its final act.
It is too little too late.
The tale follows two friends, Sola and Femi, played by actor and sometime director Kunle Afolayan, and Ramsey Nouah, who stumble across a wooden idol in a hut when they’re doing their young Nigerians’ national (civilian-ish) Youth Corps training.
Sola hasn’t been able to land a job because he’s put off doing this service. Femi seems destined for greater things in the world of Lagos finance.
But the moment Sola steals that statuette, both of them have a change of luck. Sola impregnates and marries the coquettish Mona (Omoni Oboli). He lands a plum job.
Femi? He doesn’t exactly fall on hard times, but he is left unhappily alone.
What we’ve been told in the prologue, which nobody in the story figures out until late in the second act, is that the “figurine” is of an ancient spirit, “Araromire.” We’ve seen how she was summoned by a native priest almost 100 years before. Her rep? She is the goddess “of luck and good fortune.” She bestows it upon her master for seven years.
But there’s a catch. At the end of those seven years, “It takes it all away!”
The pacing, and the almost punishingly roundabout way Kunle Afolayan’s film sidles up to “the plot” will be a turnoff to many.
And whatever the maturity of Nigeria’s film industry, there are things First World films and film fans take for granted that “Figurine” stumbles over. Actors talk off-mike (No looping?). Takes go on too long, after their payoff. That leads to scenes that meander.
The few exteriors liven the picture up, with only one set really giving us the feel of the place, how people live and decorate their lives there.
Contrast this with the comparitively over-produced “Half of a Yellow Sun” with Thandie Newton, Anika Noni Rose and Chiwetel Ejiofor, a period piece that felt more like “real life” despite the “Hollywood” casting and design touches.
The face-slaps and corny dialogue (in English, and Nigerian pidgin) — “Don’t tell me you believe such superstitions, too!” — do the players, who aren’t bad, no favors.
In the U.S., only the exceptional film from a culture not known for film as an export typically merits a showing. “Araromire/The Figurine” isn’t exceptional in any way — a pedestrian horror plot, timidly and languidly acted, filmed and edited, its only recommendation being “Well, it’s not EVERY day we see a ‘horror’ movie (even a soapy one) from Nigeria.”
“Furie” is a female Vietnamese “Taken” predicated on the simple premise that you “Never take on a tigress who is defending her cub.”
It’s a showcase for Vietnamese actress, model and pretty-convincing martial artist Veronica Ngo (Ngo Van Tranh), who takes takes beating after beating, and delivers beating after beating, as she brawls her way through the child-trafficking trade of Indochina.
Hai Phuong (Ngo) is a debt collector in Tra Vinh, feared by some, hated by most. She isn’t shy about busting deadbeats in the mouth, and often finds herself chased off by machete-wielding debtors who underestimate her lithe frame and capacity for violence. Some even dare to come to her house and make threats.
Her little girl (Mai Cát Vi) is bullied for being a fatherless child, and for how Mommy provides for them. She can’t be more than 10, but already she’s got a business plan — fish farming — that she hopes can fix all this.
That goes by the boards the day Mai is kidnapped, right in front of her mother at the market. Hai Phuong takes a beating, but so do a LOT of henchmen. The market is busted up, and as the bad guys spirit the child away in a boat, Hai Phuong steals a moped and the cross-country chase is on.
Naturally, the trail leads to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. A desperate visit to the police station misses connecting her with the detective (Thanh Nhien Phan) on the kidnapping beat. But Hai Phuong steals a rap sheet leading into this underworld where children and others are grabbed for all manner of criminal activities, including organ harvesting.
The machete fights of the rural districts turn into a screwdriver/hammer brawl, a hatchet fight, fire-extinguisher-as-weapon on a train, and of course, a cat fight.
Tranh Hoa has a Michelle Rodriguez in “Girlfight” and “Fast and Furious” look and vibe, the two-fisted Dragon Lady/mastermind of this enterprise, or at least the top dog Hai Phuong right in front of her. Their throwdown is epic.
Guns? They’re saved for the finale.
The story is as plain as they get, with a ticking clock driving Tigress Mom’s dogged pursuit and Ngo’s ability to handle intricate fight choreography with anybody. Slo-mo and sound effects do a decent job of covering up the blows-that-aren’t-blows, the simple throw-weight that make the fights laughable from a “How’d she recover from THAT?” perspective.
Ngo, Tranh Hoa and Thanh Nhien Phan have mastered the badass glower and cooly cruel sneer action heroes wear when the brawls are about to start, or their characters are getting their second wind in mid-fight.
But it is Ngo who must carry picture across its (anti-climactic) finish, keep us involved when it lapses into third act lulls. And she does. It’s no wonder Hollywood has finally discovered her (at 40) and is casting her in action films by Spike Lee and Gina Prince-Bythewood. Even without a “cub” to protect, she’s a tigress.
MPAA Rating: unrated, graphic violence, some of it involving children and child abduction
Cast: Veronica Ngo, Mai Cát Vi, Thanh Nhien Phan, Tranh Hoa
Credits: Written and directec by Le-Van Kiet. A Well Go/Netflix release.
When the child has to become the adult because of a parent lost in addiction, you get the painful, guilt and rage that such an unnatural reversal brings with it.
This film festival favorite is headed into theatrical/VOS release.
Posted inReviews, previews, profiles and movie news|Comments Off on Movie Preview: Camila Morone is a teen coping with meth-mouth dad James Badge Dale in “Mickey and the Bear”
If only they hadn’t given away most of the movie in the trailers.
If only Ang Lee hadn’t tried to conjure up an action film out of close-ups of indifferent actors — two of them Will Smith.
If only the digitally-augmented action beats weren’t so obvious — digital de-aging, physics-defying, unnatural, unsurvivable fights and chases, a parkour practitioner straight out of video game graphics.
If only the screenplay didn’t provide the perfect, pithy single sentence review of “Gemini Man.”
“It’s like The Hindenburg crashed into The Titanic!”
It’s a thriller about a hitman who hugs — everybody — a picture that skips from Belgium to Buttermilk Sound, Cartagena to Budapest. And it’s something of a digitally-augmented debacle.
Smith plays Henry Brogan, a supernaturally gifted government assassin who can hit a passenger in a hurtling bullet train from two kilometers away.
He’s just done his “one last job,” and shared a toast.
“To the next war, which is NO war.”
But that last job wasn’t what it seemed, and the people who run him send assassins after him. Brogan barely has time to grab his “blown bag” (bugout bag), fetch the fetching marina manager/agent “minder” (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and summon his pilot pal (Benedict Wong), who whisks them off to Cartagena.
The bad guys can find them there, because the baddest bad guy, a former boss (Clive Owen) has this mercenary operation, “Gemini,” that can get to anybody.
And his ace agent looks just like Brogan, only 28 years younger.
The digital process of taking that many years off Will Smith is good enough to pass muster, but makes for a more wooden performance. It’s the plainly animated running, fighting and racing a motorcycle that take you out of the picture.
Three credited credits screenwriters — two of whom have “Breach,” “Captain Phillips,” “Game of Thrones” and “The 25th Hour” in their credits — and all they could come up with was that “Titanic/Hindenburg” crash line, and a lot more generic junk like this.
“I need you to get to get me to Budapest!”
“What’s in Budapest?”
Apparently, the two acclaimed writers deferred to the dude with “Turbo” on his resume for most of the dialogue.
Lee, director of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Brokeback Mountain,” sees the picture in nurturing, protecting, parenting tones, which is why he went with so many closeups. The players have their strengths, but can’t find anything in their skillset to give this script that feel.
That adds up to a movie with a whole lot of running around, zero pathos, no romance — one of the many holes in Will Smith’s movie acting game — and a central conceit that’s given away in the trailers.
And that “crash?” Well, it’s something to see man.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence and action throughout, and brief strong language.
Cast: Will Smith, Clive Owen, Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Credits: Directed by Ang Lee, script by David Benioff, Darren Lemke and Billy Ray. A Paramount release.
Movie Nation 