Summer Movie Olympics, Part 4: That Sinking Feeling...

I’ve been less than on top of things as far as updating the ol’ blog for the last week. I was up in the Bay Area, visiting my family and friends and staying busy in an attempt to forget just how unemployed I am. But I did manage to get in a few summer movies, including the long promised “Poseidon.” So here’s three new reviews:

OVER THE HEDGE
Dreamworks should be proud. They’ve finally managed to make a mediocre animated film, as opposed to the god-awful drivel they usually unleash on the masses, further contributing to the dumbing down of the youth of America. This is probably the first Dreamworks animated movie since “Antz” to have an actual storyline (unless you count “The Prince of Egypt,” which was based on a story that has sold even more copies than Dan Brown’s books.)

So to start with the bad…the animation is nothing compared to the work of Pixar and the casting is ill-conceived as usual, with Bruce Willis and Gary Shandling doing barley passable jobs as a raccoon and a turtle at odds with each other, while the talents of William Shatner, Eugene Levy, Steve Carrell, Thomas Haden Church, and…Avril Lavigne are all wasted. Worst of all, Ben Folds contributes some truly awful songs, including an appalling cover of The Clash classic “Lost in the Supermarket.”

Despite the numerous problems, there are a few positives here. The movie does have an environment friendly message that the kids will understand, while a lot of the satire comes from cute animals skewering the consumer culture of humans, (and yes, blah blah blah, you can argue that a movie like this is contributing to that consumer culture, that the characters are all over TV ads pimping toys and sugary drinks, so the movie’s message is hypocritical- but let’s take what we can get from the people who brought us “Shark Tale,” shall we?) Surprisingly, the movie does not rely on stale pop-culture gags at all…there was not one “Matrix” reference during the entire running time. And there are a few genuinely funny sequences- I particularly enjoyed the scene when the hyper-active squirrel finally is allowed to drink a caffeinated beverage, and we see everything from his perspective...very slowly.

So the movie is not good per se, but it is solidly and compently average. And for Dreamworks Animation, that’s a step forward. Maybe if they continue in this fashion, we’ll actually see something as clever and different as “Antz” was when they first launched their ‘toon division. But let’s not get our hopes up- scheduled for release next summer, Dreamworks is hard at work on “Shrek 3.”


THE BREAK UP
A well intentioned snooze-fest, “The Break Up” aims for something different in the romantic comedy genre, but doesn’t really achieve it.

In the first scene, Gary (Vince Vaughn) bullies his way into a date with Brooke (Jennifer Aniston.) As the credits roll, we see snapshots of their relationship. We find out that Gary and Brooke are living together in a great condo in Chicago. After a disastrous dinner party in which Gary and Brooke’s families both attend, the couple has a huge fight because Brooke can’t make Gary understand that she doesn’t just want him to do the dishes; she wants him to “want to do the dishes.” The fight ends in a break up in which neither of them want to move out of their amazing condo.

What follows is a lot bickering and the two leads acting increasingly mean in attempts to make the other jealous. Brooke goes out on a series of bad dates, parading them in front of Gary. In turn, Gary invites strippers over for strip poker night. Brooke invites her closeted brother over to practice with his men’s choir, annoying her ex. Gary buys a pool table and puts it in the dining room, something Brooke would never let him do when they were together. The game of one-upmanship is just mean and hurtful, but is also not interesting enough cinematically to make for a compelling movie. I’ve had passive aggressive roommates in my life before; it’s uncomfortable and never a fun situation, and I certainly don’t need to see a movie about it. If the filmmakers were going for a “War of the Roses” style dark comedy, they needed to go much further. As it stands, the movie is not very funny or entertaining, the lead characters don’t ever seem to like each other in the first place, the large supporting cast doesn’t add much, and the entire thing is just not all that compelling. The end works and doesn’t cheat us with a fake happy ending (even in the tacked on, forced final scene) but it also doesn’t give you a reason to care whether these people get back together or not.

POSEIDON
Now this is what I’m talking about. This is a summer movie; silly, exciting, fast moving and fun. It’s exactly how I want to spend two hours on a June evening.

It takes barley twenty minutes of character introductions before a rogue wave comes out of nowhere and flips the massive, titular ocean liner. Our brave group of main characters, including Kurt Russel as a former mayor of New York and ex-firefighter (his characters name should have just been “Mr. 9/11,”) his daughter (Emmy Rossum, the dead daughter from “Mystic River,”) her secret fiancée whom the mayor doesn’t approve of (an actor so bland I won’t even look up his name on IMDB,) a maverick professional gambler (Josh Lucas,) a hottie single mother (Jacinda Barrett,) and her cute son (Jimmy Bennett,) who are in the movie so Lucas can learn to care about people other than himself, a stowaway immigrant on her way home to see her sick brother (Mia Mastro,) a nervous cook who guides our heroes through the ship (“Six Feet Under’s” likeable Freddy Rodriguez,) Kevin Dillon as Lucky Larry, whose entire character is motivation is that he is a loud and obnoxious jerk (I liked thinking of Dillon playing his character from Entourage playing the role of Lucky Larry- it makes it funier. And if you’re surprised when he dies, I’ve got a bridge in San Francisco I’d like to sell you, which has been moved to Alcatraz by Magneto recently,) and, as promised in a previous post- Richard Dreyfuss as a gay architect.

If you need a reason to see any movie this summer, let Richard Dreyfuss as a gay architect be your motivation.

The movie moves swiftly and efficiently- director Wolfgang Petersen is a pro at big summer movies, and the veteran schools hack supreme Brett Ratner and newbie JJ Abrams in terms of how these things work. “Poseidon” delivers on all fronts that I’d hope from it, which means it was totally ridiculous and goofy but in all the right ways. The movie alternated between silly and ridiculous and edge of your seat suspenseful, making me laugh at the goofiness of the entire affair when I wasn’t biting my nails.

I really can’t ask for much more from a summer movie- an upside down ship, a cast of B-Listers dying random (and horrifyingly violent yet non graphic PG-13) deaths, lots of extras playing rich people getting crushed under debris, Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas as the ship’s onboard entertainment hugging Andre Braugher, as the ship’s captain bravely just before a wall of water breaks through a window, falling elevators, and RICHARD DREYFUSS AS A GAY ARCHITECT.

I’d rather spend two hours on this capsized ship, clichéd and predictable as it is, then watch Tom Cruise masturbate all over his self indulgent vanity project any day. So far, “Poseidon” is the guilty pleasure of the summer. Too bad it will have to contend with the likes of “Snakes on a Plane” to maintain that title.