HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA

GRADE: B-

Reviewed by Paul Gibbs

I assumed that Adam Sandler’s new animated comedy was using its title as a play on the Eagles hit song Hotel California, but, after seeing the film, I’m not at all sure it isn’t also referencing Terry George’s 2004 film “Hotel Rwanda”.  As in that far more serious film, the title hotel is a refuge for a group of persecuted souls. But, in this case, Count Dracula (voiced by Sandler) has established the hotel as a safe haven for monsters, a place where they can remain hidden from humans who set after them with pitchforks, fire, silver bullets and the like. Drac’s primary motivation is to protect his young daughter Mavis (voiced by Disney Channel star Selena Gomez, best known for being confused with Demi Lovato). As Mavis reaches her 118^th birthday, and the moment where Dracula promised she could go out on her own to see the world, the count goes to great lengths to ensure that her experience will be a negative one. Then, when Mavis decides her father is right and she’s better off staying away from humans, who should drop into her birthday celebration but Jonathan, an adventurous young human voiced by Saturday Night Live cast member Andy Samberg.

Besides providing the voice of Dracula, Sandler is also an executive producer, and one of the screenwriters is SNL veteran Robert Smigel, creator of such characters as the Ambiguously Gay Duo.  This leads to the film showing a heavy influence of Sandler’s particular brand of comedy, meaning there are far more bodily function gags than just about any parent I know really wants being viewed by their kids. It’s ironic that the participation of “grown up” comedians  gives “Hotel Transylvania” a much more juvenile sense of humor than we’re used to seeing in children’s animated films. Ironic, but not particularly surprising.

Fortunately, this short coming is balanced out by strong animation in the distinctive style of director Genndy Tartakovsky, and, more importantly, by a lot more heart than we usually expect from Sandler. Sandler, so often merely irritating, is actually quite charming much of the time in his portrayal of Dracula as the classic overprotective father, and it’s the sweetness of this relationship, along with the goofy fun of seeing cartoon monsters hanging around together, that lifts the film past its tendency toward crudeness into still being a cute, enjoyable children’s film. Sandler is supported by Kevin James as Frankenstein’s monster, Steve Buscemi as the Wolfman, and David Spade as the Invisible Man, and while none of them earn the kind of big laughs we might hope for, they do manage to be largely amusing and endearing.  Adults aren’t likely to find themselves swept up like they are in a Pixar classic, but they’ll still likely have fun if Dracula, Frankenstein and werewolves are part of their childhood Halloween memories, and I found myself enjoying  the movie a great deal on that level.

Admittedly, I’m going easy on this one. I’ve always been a sucker for animated children’s films, and, having grown up watching The Munsters on Halloween when other kids were watching A Nightmare On Elm Street, this brought a welcome feeling of nostalgia for the holiday that the horror boom of recent years hasn’t.  Hotel Transylvania isn’t going to be competing for the Best Animated Film Oscar, but it’s a pleasant little movie that most kids and a fair number of adults will enjoy. Keep your expectations relatively low and you’ll have a good time. I give it a B -.

LOOPER

Reviewed by Patrick Gibbs

GRADE: A-  

Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano and Jeff Daniels

Written and Directed by Rian Johnson

Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, Hollywood's current “this guy has star quality, let's try to put him in everything until eventually every hates him” actor, stars as Joe, an ordinairy guy with a not so ordinairy career. It is the year 2042, and Joe is a “Loopers” - a hitman who deals exlusively in disposing of marks sent back, blindfolded and bound, from the year 2072, when time travel will have been invented but outlawed, and law enforcement is strict enough and technolgoy advanced to the point that disposal of a body isn't as simple as it was in the good old days. It's a successful business, and Joe is literally making a killing every day, keeping himself supplied in money, drugs and women. But there is a catch: the average career of a Lopper only last 30 years, at which point the mob bosses “close the loop” by sending the future version of the Looper back to be disposed of by his past self, who then gains instant retirement and enough gold to live it up aborad for the next thirty years. As Joe observes, “this job deosn't exactly attract the forward thinking type.”

Needless to say, the time comes when Joe's loop is meant to be closed, but his future self (played by Bruce Willis) somehow shows up without a blindfold and with his hands untied. He manages to over power his younger self and sets off on the run, and it's up to Joe to kill Joe so that Joe can get his life back. But unfortunately for Joe, it seems that Joe has other ideas.

LOOPER is atmospheric and filled with solid performances, with a stellar cast that also includes Emily Blunt, Paul Dano and Jeff Daniels, and plays a bit like “Tarantino does Terminator.” It's dark and violent time travel moviefull of drugs, mob hits and debauichery – but also a sense of thoughtfulness and an underlying intelligence that sets it far about what it could have been.

Much talk has been made out of Leavitt's prosthetic and CGI altered face, desinged to make him look more like a young Bruce Willis, and while it is distracting at first, it's a very well executed effect and is far more convincing than the mad wig seen on Willis is flashback (Flashforward? Flashforward of a flashback?). Leavitt has consistantly delivered stellar performances ever since 3RD ROCK FROM THE SUN, and in particular, a scene between Leavitt and Willis meeting face to face at a dinner, in what might be a nod to the meeting of Pacino and De Niro in Michael Mann's HEAT, is quite entertaining.

Some aspects of the story play better than others, and a plot involving a growing number of the population developing telenetic powers felt a bit sloppy to me. In addition, it's both a strength and weakness that the movie keeps you contantly trying to figure who, if anyone, you should be rooting for in this story – no one is entirely likable, but in their own way they are all sympathetic. If you are willing to stick it out until the payoff, it's an entertaining and sometime sthought provoking ride, and likely to be one of the best films of the fall season.

LOOPER is rated R for strong, brutal violence, a steady stream of profanity, and some nudity. 

TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE

Reviewed by Paul Gibbs

GRADE: B
Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake, John Goodman
Written by Robert Brown
Directed by Robert Lorenz

Formulas arise in storytelling for one simple reason: They work. The double-edged sword of following a tried and true story  formula in creating a movie is that the result is almost assured of being a movie that entertains and "works" on a certain level. But, in all likelihood, the formulaic nature will make the film too predictable and by the numbers to be truly great. Such is the case with the new Clint Eastwood vehicle Trouble With The Curve.

Eastwood stars as Gus Lobell, a cantankerous old scout for  the Atlanta Braves baseball team. Gus' eyesight is failing, and the Moneyball school of baseball is making owners question whether an old dinosaur like Gus should be forced to retire. For reasons that never entirely gelled for me, Gus' friend and boss, Pete (played by John Goodman) decides the best way to handle the situation is to talk Mickey (Amy Adams), Gus' semi estranged daughter, in to leaving her career as a lawyer at the worst possible time to accompany Gus on a road trip to scout a new prospect. Along the way, Gus and Mickey argue, reminisce, and learn a little about life.

Yes, the film really is as formulaic as it sounds, and no, the story doesn't really offer much more than that, other than a fairly standard romantic subplot involving Mickey and another scout, played by Justin Timberlake. However, I'm still giving Trouble With the Curve a solid recommendation, because, plain and simple, it plays.  Some credit goes to the screenplay, and sometime to first time director Robert Lorenz, whose work is solid, if not exceptional. But the vast majority of the credit belongs to the cast. Eastwood may be playing the same grumpy old man we’ve seen him play with increasing regularity, but he’s still an incredibly engaging and powerful presence. And the film really rides on his chemistry with Amy Adams, who has never been more charming (and that’s saying a great deal). Adams has tackled more challenging characterizations than this one, but it’s refreshing here to see her play a character that is neither the sticky sweet good girl she played in Enchanted or Doubt, or the tough as nails role she took on in The Fighter.  She proves herself just as capable in a middle of the road performance, and for me she really carried “Trouble With The Curve” even more than Eastwood did. Together they make as strong a cinematic duo as we’ve seen in quite a while.  Even Timberlake managed to make a positive impression with the most genuine performance I’ve seen him give.

It’s just as well that Eastwood didn’t direct this film, because it helps a bit to separate it from comparisons to Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino, both of which were based around similar dynamics of a grumpy Eastwood’s interaction with a plucky young daughter figure, and both of which were less formulaic and more fully realized films. Taken on its own terms, and removing the expectation of  another career highlight for Eastwood, Trouble With The Curve is a charming, likable lightweight movie.

Trouble With the Curve is Rated PG-13 for profanity, sexual references and some violence.

DREDD 3D

 Reviewed by Patrick Gibbs

GRADE: C +

Karl Urban,Olivia Thirlby and Lena Headey

Based on JUDGE DREDD created by Jack Wagner & Carlos Ezquerra

Screenplay by Alex Garland

Directed by Pete Travis

The future United States is an irradiated waste land known as the Cursed Earth. On the east coast of North America lies Mega -City One, a vast, violent metropolis containing 800 million residents where 17,000 crimes are reported daily and "Slo-Mo", an addictive new drug that slows the user's perception of time to 1% of normal, has been introduced. The only force of order is the Judges, who act as judge, jury, and executioner.

Judge Dredd (Karl Uban) is tasked by the Chief Judge with evaluating rookie Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), a psychic who has failed the tests to become a full Judge. Elsewhere, in the 200-story slum tower block Peach Trees, drug lord Madeline Madrigal, known as Ma-Ma (which gets a pretty big laugh if you are a Futurama fan ), infuses three men with Slo-Mo and throws their skinned bodies from the top of the tower. Dredd and Anderson respond and learn of a drug den, which they assault. They arrest Kay, one of Ma-Ma's henchmen, after Anderson psychically detects his involvement in the murders. To prevent Kay being removed from the building and interrogated about her operation, Ma-Ma's forces seize the tower's security control room and seal the building using its blast shields under the pretense of a security test, preventing the Judges from leaving or summoning help. Ma Ma orders that the judges be killed and warns that anyone who helps will be murdered, along with the next generation of their families. From here, the movie becomes one part Die Hard three parts video game  as Dredd and Anderson alternate between being the hunted and the hunters, and we are treated to a parade of increasingly violent and sadistic deaths, some at the hands of the bad guys, some at the hands of the good guys.

This is, of course, the second big screen version of the wildly successful U.K. Comic strip, the first being Sylvester Stallone's big budget version in 1995, which played fast and loose with the source material and failed to please critics or audiences. It's a movie that is uniformly spoken of with either disdain or anger, particularly among fans of the comic, and is beloved by almost no one, which makes it still quite possibly Rob Schneider’s best film.

DREDD 3D is an attempt to take the material back to to it's roots, and to please the hardcore comics fans and is setting out, among other things, to make sure it does not leave itself open to the complaint the first film faced that it was too soft and watered down. “You want violence? I'll give you violence” seems to be the mantra of director Pete Travis (Vantage Point.). Respect for human life is not on the forefront of ANYONE'S minds in this film, although I was pleased to see a modicum of restraint shown when Dredd is cornered by two teens with guns and actually bothers to change his gun to stun instead of showering them with bullets or “hotshots” (a powerful round which seems to be specifically designed to shoot inside a perp's mouth and make their head turn into a volcano, because hey, you never know when you're going to need that.). Also, in one moment toward the end, in a pivotal moment, the morality of these summaries executions is dealt with, admittedly in a somewhat cursory fashion, but it did manage to salvage the likability of the film's strongest character and performance, Olivia Thirlby's Judge Anderson.

The film survives due to fast pacing, exciting action and entertaining performances from Thirlby, Urban and Wood Harris as Kay, the henchman the two Judges have taken captive. The chemistry between these three is surprisingly strong and they make the most out of weak dialogue. Dredd and Anderson make for enjoyable buddy cop team, and some of the interplay between cute and seemingly naive Anderson her tough as nails, bloodthirsty prisoner is fairly entertaining, though it gets harsh and exploitative at times, but whenever she shows him he can't scare her and they she is tougher and far smarter than he gives her credit for, I couldn't help but enjoy myself.

Urban is an extremely likable presence in any film he does, and seems to specialize in channeling other actors, whether it is Tommy Lee Jones in Comanche Moon or Deforest Kelly in Star Trek. Here, he is going back to the character's roots as inspired by Dirty Harry Callahan and bringing a touch of Clint Eastwood to the role, with a pinch of Christian Bale's Batman voice for good measure. The result is a performance that shouldn’t work, and probably wouldn't from any other actor, but Urban has a way of imitating while at the same time making a character his own, Fairing far worse is Lena Headey as Ma-Ma. The talented and beautiful actress is reduced to a one note villain who comes across as a cross between Lucy Liu's O-Ren Ishii and Heath Ledger's Joker, with the exception that both of those actors seemed to be having fun with their roles. Headey is just going through the motions and has given far better performances, but at least she avoid going wildly over the top.

The effects and production design are strong, although we are treated to far too many prolonged sequences from the point of view of those under the influence of the “Slo-Mo” drug, a blatant excuse to show of the 3D that will undoubtedly seem even more tedious in 2D form.

In the end, this is a movie aimed at a very specific audience, and if R rated, ultra violent, bleak comic book sci-fi isn't your thing, stay far away from this one. But if you get your kicks from this sort of thing, or every once in a while, under the right circumstances, find it a guilty pleasure, there is some entertainment value.

DREDD 3D is rated R for constant, graphic, brutal violence, wall to wall profanity, and brief but semi-graphic sexual content (it's so brief that it's frankly hard to call it TOO graphic, but it's not exactly pleasant.).

HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET

Reviewed by Patrick Gibbs

GRADE: B -

Jennifer Lawrence, Max Thieriot, Elizabeth Shue, Gil Bellows

Story by Jonathan Mostow

Screenplay by David Loucka
Directed by Mark Tonderai

Jennifer Lawrence, the Academy Award nominee who should have beat Natalie Portman, and who went on to star in this year's mega hit The Hunger Games, anchors this movie in the role of  Elissa, a high schooler who moves to small, upscale, rural town with her mother Sarah, who is seeking a fresh start and has found he dream house. The house has everything, and best of all, it's cheap, because a double homicide took place next door years ago, which tends to depreciate property value, especially in the movies.

It seems that a girl named Carrie Ann killed her parents in their beds, and disappeared into the night. The house is no inhabited by the family's sole survivor, Carrie Ann's brother Ryan, played by Max Thieriot. Ryan had ostensibly been away caring for a sickly aunt at the time the murder. Ryan is rarely scene in town, and is a social outcast whom everyone talks about, but no no one actually talks to, apart from the kindly local Sheriff (played by The Shawshank Redemption's Gill Bellows).

Against Sarah's wishes, Elissa begins a relationship with the reclusive Ryan—and the closer they get, the deeper she is pulled into a mystery that goes far deeper than anyone in town even imagines.

Much in the same way that Disturbia was clearly a teenage version of Alfred Hithcock's classic Rear Window, House At The End Of The The Street is a blatant, if not entirely effective homage to Psycho, set in the world of teen angst. But where Disturbia was essentially just a rip off of Rear Window, this film definitely deserves the distinction of being called a homage, featuring a new surprisingly intriguing story of it's own and some genuinely interesting ideas, and there is a fair amount to genuinely admire about this movie. Unfortunately, partially as a result of aiming higher on a creative level, in the end it's just not nearly as successful as Disturbia was at being a solid piece of entertainment.

The story is most certainly involving, but it's also convoluted and it succumbs to too many potholes and “how can anyone be that stupid” moments. It's a movie that deserves credit for aspiring to be more than a cheap slasher exploitation film, instead going for the Hitchockian psychological suspense thriller, and on some level it succeeds, but it's impossible to get past the feeling that it simply could have been a lot better. Strong performances by the always engaging Lawrence, a complex and intriguing portrayal by Max Thieriot, and a story by Jonathan Mostow, who wrote and directed the implausible but wildly entertaining Breakdown, are definitely key ingredients to what seems like a good recipe, but unfortunately, director Mark Tonderai simply isn't a strong enough chef, and the result is decidedly half baked.

Tonderai has only made one other feature, 2009's Hush, and he's working way too hard to try to prove himself here, over thinking and milking each and every shot, trying to add heavy elements of Michael Bay and Paul Greengrass, as well as countless other directors, instead of just serving the story. A few less attempts at getting in all of the text book money shots and more time spent on characterization, in particularly some questionable choices concerning Ryan, would have served the movie well. In addition, Elizabeth Shue, as Elissa's frustrated single mother, gives an uneven and often irritating performance that is not helped at all by weak dialogue and ill defined back story. Shue looks terrific, and when she came on screen I sfound myself thinking "what every happened to her? Why did she stop making movies?" Then she tried to act and I remembered.

Complaints aside, this is still one of the better mainstream horror films in recent memory, and it succeeds at providing it's share of scares and twists, some of which are quite clever if a bit predictable, and some of the more haunting elements of the story may linger in your head for days afterward. That's enough to give it a moderate recommendation and call House a somewhat successful film – but it's not enough to make it great.

House At The End Of The Street is rated PG-13 for violence and disturbing imagery, as well as mild profanity and sexual references.