Movie Review: The Other Guys (A-)

From Old School to Elf to Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and even Land of the Lost (I think I might be one of a handful who actually enjoyed this movie), Will Ferrell has proven to be one of the funniest actors of the last decade. Mark Walhberg is in the same boat talent-wise. He’s no Oscar winner (literally), but he’s capable and solid, especially in The Departed, Three Kings and Boogie Nights. You’d think with these two headlining The Other Guys, a buddy-buddy-cop movie comedy, I would have been chomping at the bit to plant my derrière in an air conditioned multiplex seat, especially where funnyman director/writer Adam McKay (Step Brothers, Talladega Nights, Anchorman) is at the helm. But I wasn’t. The trailers and TV spots were uninspiring and the comedy showcased therein seemed beyond recycled. I literally had to drag myself to the press screening.

Boy howdy, I’m glad I did! The Other Guys is the funniest movie of the summer. I went in expecting yawns and anguish, but I came out smiling and pleased. The Other Guys is funny from start to finish and its humor isn’t constructed on the flimsy and unstable foundation of physical comedy, but rather on the oddball characters and sharp writing Ferrell and McKay fans have come to know from their work together on the aforementioned Talladega Nights and Anchorman.

Set in New York City, the film’s narrator, an un-credited Ice-T, introduces us to Detectives Highsmith and Danson (Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson), two slick, action-loving cops who are the toast of the town and almost as beloved as the Yankees amongst New Yorkers. The City that Never Sleeps is dealt a crushing blow when these two men are killed in the line of duty (something I did not see coming and an absolutely hilarious ode to Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid), but their fellow officers aren’t so brokenhearted and start jostling to take Highsmith and Danson’s spots as celebrity cops.

Enter Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) and Allen Gamble (Will Ferrell). Both are desk jockeys, but only one enjoys the paperwork. They are partners, but are absolutely nothing alike. Gamble works the desk because he promised his wife (Eva Mendes) he’d stay safe, and Hoitz works the desk because all of NYC hates his guts for accidentally shooting Derek Jeter and costing the Yanks the World Series. Allen is the peaceful, calm, kindhearted doofus of the bunch – listening to Little River Band and driving a Toyota Prius, while Terry is the angry, ready-to-blow hothead, constantly insulting Allen’s abilities and masculinity, telling him he doesn’t even pee like a man. They are led by Captain Gene March (Michael Keaton) who, in a sign of the economic downturn, must also work at Bed Bath & Beyond to put his bi-sexual artist son through college. However, when the duo begins investigating the financial dealings of David Ershon (Steve Coogan), they discover crimes that could promote them from the laughing stock of the department to New York’s new heroes.

Aside from Inception and Salt, I’d have to say The Other Guys is easily my next favorite movie of the summer and easily one of the funniest films of the year. It’s fast paced and even the craziest, most outlandish tangents the film takes don’t cause enough of a slowdown to induce boredom. I laughed from start to finish and would easily pay the full-price ticket for this PG-13 rib-tickler.

Movie Review: The Last Airbender (F)

By ANDY MORGAN

There are very few movies I completely and utterly abhor. Generally, I can usually find something positive or likeable in a film, even if said cinema is receiving disgust and scorn en masse from most fall-in-line movie critics. I relish the truth that I don’t always see eye-to-eye with most critics and can find some thread of hope in Hollywood’s efforts. Such is not the case with M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender. I literally hated every cringe-inducing minute I spent at the Cineplex with the useless 3D glasses stuck to my face. And I’m even angrier because Shyamalan duped me back in 2008 with The Happening, another dreadful catastrophe from the guy behind Signs, one of my favorite movies of all-time. He’s been on the Tour of Suck since The Village and given every opportunity to succeed, he falls flat. Shame on Shyamalan.

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Movie Review: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (B)

By ANDY MORGAN

Making fun of Twilight fans and bemoaning Stephanie Meyer’s novels and the subsequent movies is almost as easy as drumming up sarcastic jabs about Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton or Miley Cyrus. There’s no effort required. It’s easy. And it’s also out of control. It’s almost as popular to dump on the vampire-werewolf franchise as it is all the rage to scoop up Team Jacob or Team Edward paraphernalia at Hot Topic. Every time I see a teen with a mouthful of braces squeal her affection for the furry-browed Edward, or some 40 year-old lady, with the mileage of a bad marriage and five kids written on her countenance, gush at Jacob’s sculpted abs, I am simply befuddled beyond belief. How can such a ridiculous story cause such frenzy amongst its fanbase, most of whom are women?

And then I think of Star Wars nerds.

And Lord of the Rings geeks.

And the worshipers of comic books.

And I realize they are absolutely no different from the so-called Twihards.

Wearing a Team Edward shirt is no different than wearing a shirt with Darth Vader, the Eye of Sauron, Batman, Harry Potter, or Optimus Prime. Fans are fans, and like it or not, Twilight is a phenomenon with a tremendous following. As such, it brings out the haters. And that’s fine, but the naysayers ought to think twice about skipping The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, because director David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night) finally assembles all the wayward pieces of the last two films and leaves the audience with a fast-paced, action-filled soap opera that has both feet planted firmly in the realm of entertainment and less in the land of eye-rolling cheese.

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Movie Review: The Last Airbender (C-)

By DAN VINTON

If there’s one thing The Last Airbender does well, it proves any mystique surrounding M. Night Shaymalan is gone. With this coffin-bound nail, all residual goodwill The Sixth Sense director retained from followup successes like Unbreakable, Signs and even the creepy but fatally flawed The Village has been throttled by his is own hands.

Shaymalan’s latest, (based on the 2005-2008 Nickelodeon cartoon series I’ve never seen), builds a likable, tactile, genuinely fascinating and lushly art-directed world of mishmashed fantasy/Asian mysticism where unique, element controlling tribes seek Aang, a lost kid who must find himself before he can bring them all together. Along the way, Aang is aided by a couple white kids and and an unexplained floating Wampa-thing that looks like Falcor‘s fat, lazy cousin– all while being pursued by angry members of the warmongering, machine-making Fire Clan.

The story follows a traditional theme undermined and sabotaged by offputtingly miscast high school amateur hour “actors” (including Twilight‘s awful Jackson Rathbone and Slumdog Millionaire’s still-wet-behind-the-ears Dev Patel) who force ear-punishing dialogue in cringe worthy combos in story progression unseen since Barney & Friends. And while a third act showdown between armies of fire and ice picks things up a bit and the action is kinetic and interesting enough to warrant some moderate thrills, the movie collapses against the traveshamockery of its mutton-fisted, amateur and ultimately uninvolving first 70 minutes.

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Movie Review: The A-Team (A)

Every autumn for the last four years, Dan and I, along with our pal Nick, head up to Garden City, Utah – home of Utah’s Bear Lake – and spend a weekend inhaling everything and anything bad for your body, including Doritos, cinnamon rolls, bacon, M&Ms, Swedish fish, soda, Oreos, Nutter Butters, hamburgers, fries, pizza and anything else in sight that’s chocked full of sugar. This three day culinary orgy is affectionately called “Mankend” and is punctuated by an afternoon of gun-firing goodness. In the end, we all enjoy 72 hours of laughing, dirty stories, farting and video games. The only thing missing is booze, hookers and pornos. Maybe someday.

I bring up Mankend because Joe Carnahan’s The A-Team is the cinematic equivalent of a weekend with the dudes. I wouldn’t call it a “guy flick” but it definitely tilts that direction. I can’t remember the last time I smiled and giggled from start to finish during a movie, but such was the case with The A-Team. And apparently, aside from Dan, who gave the movie a B+, most other critics are calling this nonsensical and a mess. Even my beloved Roger Ebert gave it the bird finger and said watching the two-hour movie was punishment. Did these guys see the same movie? Are they depressed about the BP oil spill or the imminent threat of Iran or North Korea shooting a nuke up America’s prunehole? It makes no sense to me whatsoever.

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The A-Team Movie Review (Dan’s Take) B+

With childhood nostalgia anchored firmly in the 80s, I’m a prime target for Hollywood’s recent nostalgia sweep. Thanks to a raging ego, contrarianism and a cold black heart however, I’m a hard sell– or like to think I am. I tend to like 80s nostalgia planted firmly in the 80s- big hair, fluffy innocence, original charm and all. And while we here at AATM are never against a remake/reboot, oftentimes they’re thin rehashes that rely on name brand only and eschew what worked for material that’s simply meaner, uglier, sloppier and strainingly unhip in attempts to be hip.

Still, we’ve got two iconic 80′s pop culture survivors making a play for buckets of summertime dollars– between Karate Kid and The A-Team, welcome to 80′s flashback weekend, 2010. Happily, thanks to some bouncy dialogue, use of its TV predecessors elaborate ruses (peppered with Carnahan’s trademark planning cut to action and back again), cheerful doses of action-heavy camaraderie and enough balance between old and new, The A-Team arrives (10 years and close to 20 writers later) with a giddy dose of shenanigans that equal a testosterone soaked onslaught of both gregariousness and fun.

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Get Him to The Greek Movie Review (A-)

It would be easy to dismiss all the boobies, drugs, drinking, swearing, puking and other dirty deeds in Get Him to the Greek as “been there done that,” especially considering the director, Nicholas Stoller, was the man behind Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the movie that inspired this current spin-off sequel. And of course we can’t forget the Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, The 40 Year-Old Virgin) connection, as he serves as producer on both comedies. But what makes Get Him to the Greek so fantastic is what allows the Apatow humor formula to work so often: crass, in-your-face comedy, hilarious dialogue performed by talented, charming actors and a dash of honesty and heart to boot.

Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), who we met in Forgetting Sarah Marshall as a vulgar, narcotics-loving British rockstar, is the man Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) is trying to get to the Greek Theater in Los Angeles for an anniversary performance of sorts. It seems Pinnacle Records, headed by Sergio Roma (Sean “P.Diddy” Combs), is struggling to make money in the recession and Roma needs something to jumpstart the label. Green, a huge fan of Snow, comes up with the idea for the concert, a risky one considering Snow’s life is in shambles. His girlfriend, Jackie Q (Rose Byrne), has left him and taken custody of their son, and his most recent song (and video), “African Child,” is called by critics “the worst thing to happen to Africa since apartheid.” Roma reluctantly agrees and sends Green to London to escort Snow back to the USA for an appearance on the Today Show and the eventual concert in Los Angeles.

My one worry about Get Him to the Greek was the “road trip” angle from London to Los Angeles and would it get boring after the first few laughs? I’m happy to report I laughed throughout the entire movie and never once felt uninterested or frayed. This success isn’t buoyed by any special brilliance of the story itself, in fact some of it is quite routine – the girlfriend who is choosing a career over a relationship, the lonely rocker with no true friends, the estranged dad, instead the pizzazz and vigor in Get Him to the Greek comes from the full-bodied acting from Jonah Hill and Russell Brand, as well as surprise gems from Combs, Byrne, and Elisabeth Moss, who plays Green’s girlfriend, Daphne. There are also loads of cameos and winks at Hollywood, but these don’t feel forced or overplayed as they did in Apatow’s Funny People in 2009.

Get Him to the Greek isn’t a perfect movie or comedy. Towards the end of the feature, Combs’ shenanigans and bluster are a little tiring, as is the ending you already knew was coming, but it’s not enough to ruin the film or make you forget all the laughing you’ve done for the last hour and a half. It’s definitely worth the full-price ticket, but be forewarned – this is an R-rated comedy in every way, shape and form, so if you blush easy, you may want to stay away.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Movie Review (B-)

With the combined might of uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Jake Gyllenhall’s rockin’ abs and respected director Mike Newell (Donnie Brasco, Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time hits Memorial Day weekend with a big question mark: will this video-game based movie finally pass over the threshold of wretched to mediocre and inspire a franchise in vein of Pirates of the Caribbean? I’ll always argue a movie’s success should be based on its merits as a film rather than comparison to a video game, but the short answer is this: Prince of Persia is both fun and miles beyond its pixel-inspired brethren. And while it shares the common theme of a heroic orphan thrust into a world of magic and adventure, it does lack a Depp-like meat hook and falls short of Pirates charm– though, surprisingly, not by much.

Steeped in the craggy canyons, expansive deserts and mile-high minarets of a romanticized height-of-power Persian Empire, The Prince of Persia succeeds in taking the Cliff note narrative of 2003′s video game of the same title– invading prince discovers a dagger able to turn back time and eventually helps a princess recover it to thwart the evil plans of a duplicitous court adviser–and beefs it out with enough neutral (though slightly overstuffed) mythology, plucky character and surrounding quest to elevate it beyond the simple cut and paste/flat fan service of previous game to film failures.

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Shrek Forever After Movie Review (C+)

Shrek and Shrek 2 can easily be referred to as animated classics and have, like nearly every feature film in the Pixar canon, set the standard for tone and design in computer-animated movies for the last decade. Using irreverence as fuel – almost making concerted efforts to be the anti-Disney, and buoyed by an eclectic list of effective voice talent, the first two Shrek films were able to appeal to adults and kids with its fairytale mix of sweet and spicy humor.

But something went wrong with Shrek the Third. Sure it made a ton of cash ($322,719,944 to be exact), but it nosedived with critics. Now, I realize the folks reviewing movies can be a snooty, frivolous batch of fools sometimes, but when the first two movies are around 90percent fresh on RottenTomatoes.com and the third movie is drowning at 41 percent, something clearly didn’t work. We can say been-there-done-that, the franchise has run out of gas and a thousand other clichés, but the real culprit was the fairytale was ripped from the story, replaced with marriage, responsibility, babies and the whole ball-and-chain we call real life. Adults don’t go to cartoons for reminders into their responsibilities and it sure as hell isn’t funny, at least not in the way that makes you want to engage in cinematic self-flagellation by repeatedly spending your hard earned money on a full-price ticket.

Thankfully someone at DreamWorks kind of noticed this problem and the fourth movie in the franchise, Shrek Forever After (in 3D!), is a slight return to the fairytale world that made Shrek so endearing to moviegoers. I say slight, because writers Josh Klausner and Darren Lemke, as well as director Mike Mitchell (Sky High) are sneaky in the way they return us to the fantasyland of Far Far Away. This is enough to make the movie more entertaining than Shrek the Third, but still isn’t enough for a return the glory days of 2001 and 2004.

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Iron Man 2 Movie Review (A-)

I had this big introductory paragraph parsed out about how difficult it is to make sequels that don’t suck in Hollywood and how it’s even harder to push out a comic book sequel considering the rabid throng of fans frothing in the background, waiting to pounce if their beloved story isn’t up to par with their expectations. I imagine this type of stress might cause the bookkeepers in Tinsletown to drink Mylanta like an ice-cold pitcher of summertime Kool-Aid and probably gave director Jon Favreau many a night of the Rocky Mountain Quick Step. That’s the shits in layman’s terms, but between you and me, I think he can relax now, because Iron Man 2 is so chock full of awesome that I was entertained from start-to-finish.

Iron Man 2, like Superman 2, Spider-Man 2, and The Dark Knight, is easily better than its 2008 predecessor, the movie Robert Downey Jr. can thank for restarting his career and making him Hollywood’s new/old hot commodity. Again, in Iron Man 2, Downey Jr. is the driving force, but he’s helped a long nicely by Favreau’s deft directorial touch and solid performances from Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle, Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell. Probably the only person that seems out of place is Samuel L. Jackson, who just hasn’t been relevant since, um, Pulp Fiction. He’s a face and a voice, but his acting chops aren’t even in the league of the other players in Iron Man 2. I suppose one positive is the production didn’t have to pay for his costume as Nick Fury, as it appears Jackson opened his chest o’ memorabilia and found the costume he donned for 2000’s Shaft.

Iron Man 2’s story begins six months after Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) told the press “I am Iron Man,” and we find the world at peace, Tony’s ego inflated beyond belief and the same sinister arms manufacturers, this time sleazy Stark-wannabe Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), conspiring to control and/or eliminate Iron Man. It’s all about the money and in the world of weapons, peace does not equal profit. The same can’t be said about Ivan Vanko (Rourke), a silver-toothed, skunk-haired Russian who wants Tony/Iron Man dead based on alleged past transgressions against the Vanko family by Howard Stark, Tony’s father. Vanko creates an angry Electric Horseman whip suit and attacks Tony during a race in Monaco and this gives Hammer, and the government, fuel to try and shut Tony down. Fortunately, Tony can rely on his pals Pepper (Paltrow), James Rhodes (Cheadle) and new assistant Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson) to get him back on his feet and win the day.

Iron Man 2 establishes yet again that a cast of actors, not just pretty faces, along with a capable director can turn a Marvel comic book, one not as popular as Spider-Man or others, into a first-rate movie that has broad appeal. If Marvel Studios does the same with Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers and the Spider-Man reboot, I have nothing but anticipation for these films in the next few years.