This should get Mark Twain spinning in his grave.
Before I start, I need to say that Dave lectured me on the importance of expressing my opinion as my own rather than doing it for big groups, as I did when I wrote in my post about Green Lantern. He’s not my dad, but technically he is my boss so I guess I have to listen to him. It is my personal opinion that the first GL movie sucked, and if they keep all the same writers and actors the next one will pretty much do the same.
The image I got from Dave’s comic book t-shirts. He sure has a lot of Green Lantern ones.
However, I just read that they are making a Tom Sawyer movie. This seems cool, but then I read that the story will be of Tom and Huck as adults, and feature supernatural elements. You know, one of the greatest and most racist stories of American literature done as a Scooby Doo cartoon. How does this make sense? Do the hacks in Hollywood really think they are better writers than Mark Twain, and therefore have license to write stories about his characters he never wanted to do? Maybe the supernatural element is them trying to channel Mark Twain’s ghost and writing what he wanted to write but never got around to.
Actually, a really funny story would be about some idiotic writers trying to pervert a classic novel and the ghost of the writer coming back to kill them as they sleep, like Freddy Kruger. In that case, however, I think I would go with Edger Allen Poe.
Jason
The 15 Worst Movies of 2011
It is a sad fact that my life as an amateur movie reviewers is not all picnics in a field of daisies day after day. I enjoy movies, and there are definitely times when I think I might have found my calling. However, there are days when watching movies feels more like a job than you would imagine it would, and that job somehow involves getting repeatedly kicked in the groin.
Thus we come to the movies that made me wish I had opted to start a blog reviewing the many different manhole covers I encounter during my daily life. These are the films that make you wonder if the production office is located under a spiders web of power lines and the producers all have a healthy paint chip salad for lunch while watching Keeping up with the Kardasians and throwing billiard balls at each others heads during commercial breaks. The movies where the real question is if the writers, directors, and actors all started off brain dead or if their brains somehow died a slow, twitching death while writing, directing, or acting in these films.
I originally was going to only do the 10 worst, but as I filtered down my list, cutting out movies that almost made it but had some camp redeeming qualities like Drive Angry or Twilight ,I realized I had an obligation to warn you people what to avoid. It’s like if I were moping up a floor I would be responsible to put up a wet floor sign, although in this case I was not at all responsible for any of this production.
15. What’s Your Number?-Anna Faris tries to convince the world she is at the same time a sexual being and a prude, and more or less botches it. This is one of those romance stories that makes you wonder if the writers have ever actually dated someone in their lives.
14. Johnny English Reborn-Ever wonder what a hamburger would be like if you held the meat, bun, cheese, and all the condiments? Basically leaving you with a wrapper? That’s pretty much what Johnny English is. A comedy movie, hold the comedy.
13. The Three Musketeers-This movie accomplishes the remarkable in keeping as close to the original story as possible while diverging as far from the original story as humanly possible, all at the same time. It’s like if you filmed an episode of Star Trek but made the bridge of the Enterprise look like an Apple Store (oh, wait, that was done. Suck it J.J. Abrams). Maybe it would be more like if you were to film Romeo and Juliet scene for scene with the correct language but put it on the set of Outland (geek cred for anyone who saw that in the theater). Also, completely worthless 3D.
12. Season of the Witch–I almost stuck Drive Angry in here as well, but realized there were some parts of that movie that I found entertaining in an extremely Americana way, thus saving Nicholas Cage the ignominy of having two films in my Worst of 2011 list (that honor is about to be visited upon Ryan Reynolds). Season of the Witch is that special kind of film that leaves you wondering if at any time during the production did the director, writer, producer, or studio executives actually sit down and watch the film? Dopey, dumb movie but perfectly adequate for Nick Cage to display his Terminator-like acting style.
11. The Hangover Part II-I will say this is one of the movies that really caught me by surprise last year, in that I was surprised they bothered to make it. If there was ever a film that did not call out for a sequel it’s the Hangover. When I say sequel, however, I am really saying clone, as this movie is pretty much scene for scene the same movie without the slightest effort at originality other than putting it in Thailand. However, I think some grease was left in the cloning tube as this movie is not remotely funny like the original. Take the Hangover and drain it of pretty much everything that made it fun and you will get this film.
10. The Green Hornet–A super hero should never be the comedy relief. That’s the sidekicks job. Also, Seth Rogan should never star in a PG-13 movie that does not in some way involve him smoking pot. It’s what he’s good at, and honestly it’s what he should stick to.
9. Abduction–We are now at the point where I want to make all these films number 1, and have to start rating them based on which movies made me want to murder the projectionist the least. Abduction sucked on many levels, but if I try to remember that it was made for teeny bopper morons and can ignore the fact that it actually features no abduction whatsoever (or anything else that might be mistaken for a plot) then I suppose it goes to simply stomach turning. If you like wolf boys abs this movie might do something for you.
8. Green Lantern–If I were doing my list of top 10 most disappointing movies of 2011 this film would get numbers 1 through number 7, with Green Lantern at number 8, The Immortals at number 9, and Columbiana at number 10. As I am doing just general badness this one gets number 8, but on a different day it could qualify for any of the top 10 slots. Too much humans (especially Ryan Reynolds), not enough aliens. Action that was criminally short and stupid. Characters Mother Theresa would be OK seeing die. CGI used to cover up massive holes in the plot and direction like a fresh coat of paint on a pickup truck dredged up from a lake after 10 years. Green Lantern image courtesy of the Comic Book T-Shirt category.
7. The Zookeeper–There aren’t a lot of movies that make me want to slowly pick all the skin off my face, but this is one of them. Dumb story, dumb dialog, dumb physical humor, dumb movie. Plus it’s painfully predicable.
6. One Day–If you feel like your life is OK but are somehow motivated to find the right excuse to kill yourself, this movie will push you over the edge. Also, for the first 2/3rds of the movie you will hate every character in the film with the burning passion of 10,000 suns. Feel free to laugh at Anne Hathaways on and off English accent, but that is about the only entertainment you are going to get.
5. The Change Up-Ryan Reynolds rates special acknowledgement for piloting two films into my Top 10. The only thing this film really has going for it is that it is rated R. Otherwise it is neither funny or entertaining. In fact, I think the desire to end up rated R is what caused this movie to suck so badly. In my minds eye I see the director waking up late at night in a cold sweat with the burning question “What if it’s not raunchy enough for rated R yet? What if we end up with PG-13??”. He pulls out a pad of paper and writes down the next raunchiest thing he can think of, leading us to the inevitable conclusion: babies excreting into daddy’s mouth.
4. New Years Eve–What’s worse than a movie based on a really dumb romantic concept? How about a movie based on 20 different really dumb romantic concepts? I guess I could say that New Years Eve is proof that lightning doesn’t strike twice. This movie was like if you swallowed 20 different colors of paint one at a time and then vomited them all over a canvas to see what kind of picture you ended up with. I often find myself wishing I were in a different theater (or unconscious) during the watching of some of these movies, but this time I found myself really praying that I had walked into the wrong movie and was watching an extended introduction for Cloverfield.
3. Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star–There isn’t enough alcohol on the planet to make this movie anything other than cringe-worthy. If you ever wanted to lose all desire to have sex with any human, man or woman, again in your life, then see this film. As for the “humor” of this film I think I can sum it up nicely with the following statement: THE MOVIE IS CALLED BUCKY LARSON AND IT STARS A GUY WITH HUGE BUCK TEETH!
2. Tree of Life-I know I am probably ruining what little credibility I have by calling this film the second worst movie made in 2011, but it is really a steaming pile of crap. I know there are people who call this an amazing film, but I say they are all pretentious asses. There is very little of artistic merit in this film, and what is left is some of the most boring cinema in the history of movies. I think you could have the same impact on the audience with 1/3 of the work if you just had the projectionist pause the film every 10 seconds for 20 seconds. The film watches like a child’s diorama made with a Little People play set and some plastic dinosaurs.
1. Jack and Jill–When I look back on 2011, the movie I wish I could find a memory enema for the most has to be this failed Adam Sandler monstrosity. Not even Al Pacino could save this film from contaminating the higher brain functions of the few of us unfortunate enough to watch it. It’s like Adam Sandler is an evil scientist with a plan to conquer the world, and step one is to make the worst movie in cinema history. I think the only way he could have made this movie experience worse is if he had hired thugs to wait outside the theater to beat up people as they left. That’s kind of how it felt. However, I feel a certain amount of justice is served by the movie costing $79,000,000 to make and grossing $74,158,147 domestic (damn the foreign market for supporting bad film).
That’s it. Thanks for reading. Feel free to disagree with me via comments on here. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu or email me with ideas, suggestions, or questions at [email protected]. If I have the energy I might see a midnight showing of 21 Jump Street. It looks kind of good. Have a good day. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Venom movie in the works
So I read online this morning that Sony is talking about a Venom spinoff. I am torn on this concept. On the one hand I love Venom and think he is a great character. On the other hand the last time he showed up in film he was about as bad as you could possibly make him. Could they have missed the point of Venom more? Maybe, if they made his costume pink or something. If Sony is going to do this, for god’s sake go with Eddie Brock (not Mac Gargan) and make him a muscle bound guy, not some wimpy kid designed to appeal to teeny boppers who like weedy girly man vampires.
The good news is it looks like the guy who directed Chronicle, Josh Trank, is going to do this and he seems to get it. I just wonder if Venom is going to be a villain or a hero, and if so who his enemy is going to be. Part of the whole appeal for Venom is his and Eddies obsession and complete hatred of Spider Man. At one point Brock and the symbiote came to be OK with Spider Man, but that was after years of wanting nothing but to squash him like a bug. I don’t know if they can recreate that obsession and make it believable for anyone else.
This shirt I found in Dave’s comic book t-shirts, by the way. Seems cool to me, especially if you are looking for a last minute costume. Talk to you later.
Jason
The Sub-Mariner rumored to be the next villain in Iron Man 3
So I heard a rumor today online that the villain they are considering for the next Iron Man movie is the Sub-Mariner. I actually think this is a pretty cool idea. The Sub-Mariner was always kind of a mysterious character who had his own agenda and complete contempt and disregard for surface dwellers. He was like a cool Aquaman. I also really like him because he looked a lot like a Vulcan, and I have always been a big Spock fan.
This will actually prove a nice challenge for Tony Stark. Does his suit even work underwater? I don’t expect it to rust or anything dumb like that, but is it truly water proof? Do the repulsors work underwater? How long of an air supply has he built into the suit? In the first movie the thing flared out in the upper atmosphere, so maybe there is no air supply, just some kind of filter. I am really curious.
Of course, the very first Iron Man as seen in this image I found in Dave’s comic book t shirts was really primitive, showing there is an evolution of the suit technology. Maybe the movie will start off with the suit not really able to do anything under water and Tony having to modify it into an aqua suit. That would be cool.
Of course, in my comic book recollection the Sub-Mariner was always more of a Fantastic Four villain, but maybe I missed a few issues.
Jason
TMNT Reboot?
So it may surprise some of you that I am actually a fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. However, I am a fan of them back when they were actually ninjas who killed people, not scooter riding kiddie cartoons throwing pizzas at each other. The very first TMNT movie almost captured that, at least to an extent, but everything afterward, especially the cartoon, has basically been pap for soft brained kids. Actually, it’s pap that soft brains kid’s parents all think their kids should love. In my experience most kids are totally cool with ninjas killing guys.
Anyway, I read this morning that they are rebooting the movie series, and Michael Bey will be filming it. Unlike Dave I don’t really have a problem with Bey as long as he doesn’t keep putting in whiny little girls as the male protagonists. My hope is that he manages to bring the turtles back to when they were kind of kick ass and dangerous, as seen in this image from the Comic Boot T-Shirts. With the advances in CGI and Beys skill with it the action could be pretty good, and odds are he will find some brainlessly super hot girl to have his camera linger over every scene. However, if he caves into the modern pressure to produce inoffensive crap expect to see a lame PG film with nothing actually resembling blood or drama.
Jason
Marvel sometimes sucks.
So I read something disturbing today. The comic book character Ghost Rider, shown here from the Marvel Comic T Shirts, was created by an artist named Gary Friedrich. When the lame Ghost Rider movie came out he tried to sue, claiming that while he did not have the rights to the Ghost Rider comic book he should have the rights to the movie. He lost, which is what happens when you go against a major corporation in this country.
However, I just found out that he has been supporting himself in retirement by going to comic book conventions and signing autographs as the creator of Ghost Rider, just like any number of other artist do. The thing is, Marvel has sued him for the right to claim he created anything, and want him to pay them the $17,000 he has made over the last couple years. The thing is, they are not denying that he created GR. They just don’t want him telling anyone that he did.
The other part that sucks about this is Marvel is worth billions and probably spends more than $17 grand a day in executive toilet paper. All that and they still want to take money away from a 68 year old retiree? Really? Personally I see this as a sign of the negative influence Disney has had on them. “When you dance with the devil the devil doesn’t change. The devil changes you.” That quote was from 8MM, by the way.
Bottom line, Marvel is showing themselves to be pretty heartless here. I would say don’t go see the new Ghost Rider movie. The first one sucked anyway, and it still stars Nicholas Cage, who for some reason can’t seem to play any role well lately.
Jason.
Safe House Movie Review
Decent, in a standard way.
I am a Denzel Washington fan, and something I learned while watching his best (in my opinion) movie Training Day is he is way more entertaining as a bad guy than a good guy which is why Safe House works for me. However, I think one of the main reasons I like Denzel Washington is he actually has a really good eye for scripts and manages to stay away from obvious dogs. His discriminating tastes is the main reason I will see anything he opts to work on.
That being said, the script for Safe House is on the far end of the good script spectrum for Denzel, almost bordering on the mediocre. Honestly, if this movie hadn’t had Mr. Washington’s precise delivery and perfect acting ability the flaws in the script would have risen up like scum on the surface of a stagnant pond and filled the theater with the odor of decaying organic matter. The story latches onto every spy movie cliche like a remora eel and the events connecting the assorted action sequences are tenuous at best, with plot devices so far removed from what would actually make sense that it sometimes feels like you are watching them through a telescope in another solar system.
As for Ryan Reynolds and his performance, I am torn. On the one hand, in his last few efforts (Green Lantern in particular. Green Lantern shirt image courtesy of the Comic Book T-Shirt category) I have railed against him constantly playing Van Wilder over and over again; the sleezy pretty party boy who can’t help but smarm and sleep with anything remotely attractive in the movie and to be fair in this film he manages to avoid that role completely. He is a serious and career minded CIA operative with a girlfriend he loves deeply. On the other hand, he seems to alternate between looking completely helpless and being a young James Bond. I can’t even say this was the result of a decent character arc, with him being inexperienced at the beginning and developing into a hard case by the end. Instead the movie changes gears back and forth without warning, with his character either hiding in a dark corner (literally) or ruthlessly gunning down whatever gets in his way.
The story is of young Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds-Green Lantern, the Change Up, Buried), a CIA operative who is basically a hotel keeper at a secret safe house in Cape Town. Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington-Training Day, Man on Fire, Inside Man) is a traitor and super spy who gets himself captured. He is placed in Matt’s safe house where a team of Aryan Army looking CIA guys are going to water board and torture him for whatever he was doing in Cape Town (selling some top secret information, but honestly the actual reasons for most of the movie seem pretty inconsequential). While they are in the process another team of guys attacks and kills pretty much everyone. Watson takes Tobin out at gunpoint and the long, long chase begins. He is being pursued by some bad guys while being ordered by his superiors to do different dumb stuff. Tobin is a master of human manipulation and works on getting into Matt’s head.
Honestly, I can’t get much more into the story without more or less giving it all away. Spy hijinks ensues. Stuff blows up. Guys get shot. There are about as many cliches as bullets fired, including the ending.
The stars. Denzel Washington. Two stars. Denzel Washington playing a villain rather than a hero. One star. The action was all pretty good and exciting, if a little repetitive. One star. The romance subplot, which normally would I find distracting and worthless, actually added a lot to the story. It gave Tobin a real tool to get into Matt’s head and screw with him, which added a lot to the story. One star. The interaction between Tobin and Matt was really well done, and pulled you into the story in many ways that the plot did not. Two stars. Generally entertaining. Two stars. Total: nine stars.
The black holes. Weak script. Two black holes. Inconsistent tone from Ryan Reynold’s character. One black hole. Spy story cliches we have all seen in about fifty movies, including the ending. One black hole. Some pretty gaping plot holes. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
A grand total of four stars. Not bad, but to be honest not what I expect from a movie Denzel Washington chooses to star in. Also, if anyone else had been cast in his role the movie probably would have swung into the black hole zone. Worth seeing? Sure, if you don’t want to follow the plot too closely. The action is the best part after Denzel’s performance, so it might be worth seeing on a big screen. Date movie? Meh. Maybe, if she is into this sort of thing, or Denzel Washington (or, for that matter, Ryan Reynolds). On the other hand odds are you will suffer in comparison to either of those two guys, so consider it carefully.
Thanks for reading. More movies coming out this weekend. I will probably see the Vow, about as chick flick as a movie can get. If I am feeling the need to expel mass quantities of bile I might see Mysterious Island 2 but I can already tell how that is going to suck. I am torn regarding seeing The Phantom Menace 3D. On the one hand I don’t want to give even a dime to support such mediocre movie making or George Lucas. On the other hand, since I did not have this blog going when I first saw it I might enjoy doing the review. I think what I might do is buy a ticket for a movie that I like (Chronicle, for example) and then just sneak in to the other theater. I have some 3D glasses lying around here somewhere. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. I’ve noticed I don’t get a ton of comments for specific requests or blog ideas so if you would like to contact me without posting simply email me feel free to do so at [email protected]. Talk to you soon.
Dave
The Avengers Trailer is looking pretty damned cool.
Already I can tell you all must think I am the guy who craps on everything, and for the most part you would probably be right. However, I have to say the trailer I saw this morning for the Avengers is looking pretty amazing. I will leave the whole reviewing business to Dave, but I have a good feeling about this movie. I am pretty sure it is going to rule.
The only weird thing is, as you can see from this image of the classic Avengers from the Marvel Comic T Shirts, the Hulk was never really featured much, and in fact I think he left the Avengers after the first few issues. The whole question of how to actually control him or write in a reason for him to just happen to be pissed off at whoever the Avengers were fighting I think seemed a little awkward. In the trailer I just saw Tony Stark seems pretty confident about the teams ability to keep the Hulk under control, but personally I think that sounds a little optimistic. Part of the thing that made the Hulk so cool was the fact that he could fly off the handle at any given moment.
Other than that, I think this movie is looking pretty amazing, and will probably at least go with Dave on opening night to watch it. I just don’t want to listen to him bitching about pacing and other dumb movie stuff.
Jason
Chronicle Movie Review
Pretty much the senior year in High School I always dreamed of.
How does this sound familiar? A introverted high school geek is abused by his alcoholic father and all of his so-called peers. Ignored by girls, pushed around by bullies, and spending each day in an alienating Skinner box of loneliness. Then, through some set of mysterious (and blatantly unexplained) phenomenon he gains super powers and uses them to wreck most of his town and punish all who had ever wronged him. To be honest, I really didn’t have to see Chronicle as I wrote the script for it pretty much every day in my head throughout high school and for a bunch of years after that.
First off, this movie is pretty freaking amazing. Found footage is a little overplayed these days, but in this case it is used to present some pretty amazing concepts and really good characters, each with their own personality and priorities. Plus it is about kids with super powers. Additionally I was really impressed with the acting and performances of the three kids, and the found footage aspect of the movie felt incredibly organic and real.
It’s usually at this point in one of my reviews where I say something like “That’s not to say the movie doesn’t have it’s faults, which we will go into detail shortly”. However, as I sit here reflecting on my cinema experience I honestly can’t think of anything that bugged me about this film. I’ll try to think about something before I get to the black holes, but overall I think this was an excellent movie.
The story is of Andrew (Dane DeHaan-In Treatment, True Blood, the Front), an introverted geek treated with abuse and contempt and disregard by pretty much everyone around him except for his cousin Matt (Alex Russell-Almost Kings, the Best Man, Wasted on the Young). He buys an old camera to document his life but it is also implied he is using it as a defense against his abusive father (Micheal Kelly-Adjustment Bureau, Dawn of the Dead, Unbreakable) and the people around him, as well as film the last days of his dying mother (Bo Peterson-the Wooden Camera, Endgame, the Bone Snatcher). Matt drags him to a rave in a barn somewhere. After a few minutes of him looking and acting painfully out of place (lots of deja vu there for me as well) he gets dragged out of the parking lot by the most popular kid in school, Steve (Micheal B. Jordan-Friday Night Lights, House M.D., Red Tails) who wants him to use his camera to film something weird in a field. It is a tunnel leading down. Matt, Steve, and Andrew all descend, where they see a big glowing thing that gives them all telekinetic ability.
At this point the film turns into a documentary of the three boys as they develop and strengthen their abilities, as well as their friendships. They run around doing what teenage boys would given God-like powers: play pranks on people and laughing their asses off. As things develop they gain more and more powers, including flight and invulnerability. Meanwhile, Andrews friendship with Steve helps him gain popularity, at least until he gets drunk at a party and embarrasses himself in front of a girl, who blabs it all over the school proving once again that women are evil (oops did I type that part out loud?).
Anyway, things take place that many people may interpret as a dark turn but which I saw the inevitable conclusion of an abused geek gaining powers, showing once again that geeks are to be feared and respected, not abused. Paybacks are a bitch, and he starts dealing it wholesale. He also is motivated to find money to help his sick mother. I don’t want to get too much into the rest of the story. Nothing will really surprise you too much, but I found it enjoyable nevertheless.
The stars. Really well done found footage movie. Two stars. The character development was really strong for all three guys, and the interaction between the three felt very real and believable. Two stars. Good acting from the three main guys. One star. While the film was found footage, the directors managed to find really clever ways of making it not suffer from the usual gremlins of found footage films: Captain Shaky-motion-sickness-inducement and his sidekick Corp. There’s-always-one-main-character-missing-from-the-scene. I thought the use and placement of the cameras really clever and well done. One star. For being low budget the special effects were pretty cool. One star. Dialog was good and real also. One star. Overall a lot of fun. Two stars. Total: ten stars.
The black holes. I think I did come up with a couple, but the really cool thing about the way this film was filmed was there doesn’t really feel like you need any of the missing information explained to you. For that matter, the missing information and unexplored sub plots actually adds to the story in this format. I will say that while the movie was good I think it would have been better if they had gone for the R rating. The PG-13 choices they were forced to make left a lot of the scenes feeling a little flat. One black hole. I will also say I was hoping Andrew would do more to his miserable class mates. That is really just me, but there it is. One black hole. Total: two black holes.
So a grand total of eight stars, and the best movie I have seen so far this year. I thought this was really good, and odds are you will enjoy the heck out of it. It is more of a superhero film than anything else 
(and about 1,000 times more entertaining than big budget bomb Green Lantern. GL image courtesy of the Comic Book T-Shirt category) so treat it as such when trying to decide to bring a date to this. If she is looking forward to seeing The Avengers then she might enjoy this. If not she will be bored and in that case see it with your other nerd friends.
Thanks everyone for reading. These blogs are getting to be more and more fun to do, and I am now using my daily stats as a measure of my worth as a human being. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Thanks again, and talk to you soon.
Dave
Movie Review: The Zookeeper
Maybe there is a reason animals can’t really talk.
Check this out on my YouTube video review.
Before I start ripping into this execrable film, can I state that I for one am sick of Kevin James? I can see him as possibly funny in stand up, but his film presence has just gotten overused and unpleasant. He seems to always play the same role he pioneered in King of Queens: fat loser who through the machinations of fate has somehow managed to land one or more stunningly hot women. I am not sure what dimension this is a viable possibility in, but for those of us who remain firmly ensconced in this reality it is actually a really annoying insult. I don’t consider myself fat or a loser and I can’t pull that kind of action on my best day. I’m stuck in the Bizarro world version where I get rejected constantly by the hot girls and seem to end up with the female Kevin James’s of the world. Unfortunately, he seems patently unqualified for any other type of role (could you really see him as a villain of in a serious role?) so it looks like we will be inundated in future moronic rom-coms like this (mor-rom-coms?)
Which brings us to the Zookeeper. Kevin James stars as a fat loser who works as a zookeeper and, for some ungodly reason, dates the stunning Leslie Bibb. Her character, Stephanie, is in all regards a one dimensional, self centered, shallow bitch who rejects the most awkward marriage proposal of all time simply because he works as a zookeeper. Apparently his lack of fitness or financial status are not really a concern. Anyway, she crushes him in a manner so cruel that it is likely banned by Geneva convention. Fast forward five years and he is now the lead zookeeper who works with the even more stunning Rosario Dawson, who is an “eagle enclosure expert” (does that seem a little specific to you? How many jobs are there for such a person) with a heart of gold. SPOILER ALERT: in a plot “twist” so cookie cutter I could smell ginger she turns out to be the girl he should have been into the whole time and ends the movie with. I normally would hesitate to give away something that crucial to the story, but within the first 30 seconds of her being on the screen I said” Yep, she’s the one he’ll end up with.”
By the way, I would like to point out that I am totally into Rosario Dawson. She is super hot and can actually act. What she can’t do is find a movie script that doesn’t suck. Before doing the Zookeeper, she has starred in any amount of crud. Her best movie to date (IMO) would have to be Unstoppable. She was in Death Proof, but as much as a fan of grind house theater as I am I can’t really see it as a vehicle (haw) for advancing your acting career. Percy Jackson sucked, as did Sin City, Clerks II, the Adventures of Pluto Nash, Josie and the Pussycats, Kill Shot, Eagle Eye, and Seven Pounds. When she was younger she did Kids, which is a good movie in the “looking for something to watch while killing yourself” category, but other than that she needs to find a new agent. (Josie and the Pussycats image courtesy of the comic book t shirt category)
Anyway, the guy states that he should leave working for the zoo in order to get a job that better appeals to the most shallow woman on the planet. We also start getting subjected to some truly painful and hard to watch physical comedy. At that point we find out that the animals can not only understand everything the humans are saying, but can speak perfect English too when they want to. They decide they need to help Kevin ‘mate” with Stephanie and end up giving him dopey advice with dialog so cliche and hackneyed that it made me wish that the animals only speak in barks and roars, as well as the humans in this flick.
So, romantic animal hijinks ensues. Kevin James urinates into a potted plant at a fancy restaurant to “mark his territory” and doesn’t get arrested. He more or less ruins his brother’s wedding and physically assaults the bride. He ends up toe to toe with another ex boyfriend of Stephanie, played horribly by Joe Rogan. I’ve seen Joe do some funny stuff, but the combination of his stiff delivery and the flaccid, depthless character he was handed made every scene with him in it feel like waiting on line at the DMV. Kevin’s character does a Peter-Parker-in-Spiderman-3 transformation into a suave, sophisticated urbanite who sells exotic cars to the thousands of millionaire who reside in his city. Stephanie plays the shallow, cultureless girlfriend to the hilt. Somehow Ken Jeong managed to land a roll as the creepy reptile guy. Is he going to have a bit part in every movie? Eventually Kevin discovers he really loves Rosario Dawson but apparently forgets how to use a cell phone as the only way to intercept her on the way to her new job in Nairobi (no joke. I guess they need an eagle cage there too) is a “hilarious” chase sequence in a stolen van.
Ok, the stars. The animation for the animals was as good as you are likely to see. One star. There were a few funny moments. One star. Rosario Dawson was looking hot throughout the movie, and when she dressed up super hot. One star. While the animal dialog sucked, there were a couple voices that made me laugh (Adam Sandler and Sylvester Stallone, for the most part). One star. For the extremely brief amount of time he was on screen, Ken Jeong managed to amuse me and more or less stole every scene he was in. Also he had a really cool car. One star. There was one scene where Kevin takes a gorilla out to TGI Fridays that was actually fun to watch, mainly because it was Kevin James cutting loose with a guy in a gorilla suit. One star. Total: six stars.
Now, like a tiger who has taken down an antelope and is ready to dig into the succulent entrails, I move to the black holes. The animal dialog was as bad as human language can get. Two black holes. Painful to watch physical humor. One black hole. For some reason, the director of photography seemed to feel that Kevin James’s moon face was the most appealing thing in the movie and thus we are subjected to a lot of it. Also, at one point we see him naked in a bathtub. One black hole. I’d like to give a black hole for every awkward moment that seemed to drag on forever (starting with the opening one), but will hold myself back. Two black holes. There was a completely irrelevant tangent that added nothing to the movie about Kevin’s character interacting with the high fashion world. One black hole. What extremely little character development the film had was extremely predictable. One black hole. In fact, the whole movie was excruciatingly predictable. One black hole. While pretty much all the animals except the gorilla annoyed me (there’s something you don’t say every day), the interaction between the two bears seemed to actually cause me physical pain. One black hole. Implied and described animal cruelty. One black hole. Joe Rogan bringing whatever momentum the film had to a screeching halt. One black hole. And two more black holes for just not being as much fun as it should have been. Total: fourteen black holes.
So a total of eight black holes, a fairly miserable score but not as bad as the score I gave Green Lantern. I can hear some of you asking if I might be being a little unfair to this film, critiquing it as an adult when it could possible just be a kids film. Well, honestly that is one of the issues here. This movie is a romantic comedy with talking animals. It can’t really decide if it is going to be a kids film or an adult film. Some of the dialog is too sophisticated and adult themed for kids, but some of it is just too dumb for grown ups. It sits right in the middle, which means it will inevitably be relegated to the mediocrity archive of all time. I’m actually curious as to where video shops (assuming any still exist) end up placing it. Honestly, don’t waste your time with this dog, unless you are one of those rare individuals who are enraptured by a Geico commercial.
I did experience something weird while watching this. For the first time since I started these reviews I found myself wondering if I am really qualified to do them. I am very rarely plagued by self doubt, but while I was praying for a film break or merciful death most of the audience was laughing their asses off. I worried that maybe I am too out of touch with the general movie going audience, but I thought about it a lot on the way home and came to the conclusion that this is an example of cultural Darwinism. If, for example, I were to open a retail shop that specialized in left handed scissors and the like, than I would not be surprised to find that most of my customers were left handed. Likewise, if Hollywood sets out to create a film designed to appeal to the true idiots of our society, than I should not be surprised if I sit in a theater full of idiots. I have found that when I go to the movies on $5 night the bar seems to be lowered considerably. Odds are this movie will make a disappointingly large amount of money, leading us inevitably to the next bad rom-com staring Kevin James with yet another super hot girl.
