The Secret Life of Pets Review

The Secret Life of Pets should have been named "Pet Story," as it is about the same movie as the Pixar favorite: two characters with one owner, one being new to the owner's life, they fight, and go on an adventure of redemption. They end up forgiving each other, and the owner shares their time with each of the newfound friends. Seen this one before?

Louis C.K. and Eric Stonestreet play Max and Duke, respectively, and at first they do not get along. Max a small dog, wants nothing more than to play with his owner, and ponders what humans do five days a week (i.e. their jobs). That alone is interesting, and the gang of animals could have been a deeper look on how pets need more attention. Then his owner brings in Duke, a big dog, who wants to share the apartment, toys, food, and owner. Max says no, plot happens and they get loose, and now they need to find their way back to the tall apartment building in New York City.

Max has friends in and across the building, from cats to guinea pigs to other dogs. They get along, despite their species discrepancies, and band together, along with a bird and an old dog, and head out to rescue their friend. This is the best part of the movie, focusing little on character growth (I mean, how much depth can a near-sighted elderly canine have?), and the film flies through scenes with a penchant for well-staged slapstick and visual puns. And featuring animals, it failed to escape the feeling I was watching an updated Looney Tunes cartoon. That is a compliment, as there is a dearth of decent slapstick since the death of John Hughes' writing career. But the film's best joke is not explicit, and it is the only moment of subtlety or social commentary in the entire ninety minute movie: the unnamed people walking around in the busy streets of the city are on their phones.

Kevin Hart voices Snowball, a former magician's rabbit who was discarded when his owner abandoned the top hat. He lurks in the sewers along with alligators, turtles, cats, dogs, snakes- you name it, and the plot to kill humans for revenge. But Snowball's character is an old joke, where a tiny, loud-mouth, and ironically named individual is the leader of a deadly gang.

He is out to "get" Duke and Max, so there are three groups the film follows, and the idea and execution of an animal underground is pretty good. It is when the movie focuses on our leads that it bogs itself down. They two have little growth, no honest reason to dislike each other and it is obvious they will befriend each other by the time the credits roll. Oh, sorry, spoiler alert.

For example: at one point, they duo visit Duke's quondam owner, only to discover that he has past away. Heartbreaking, isn't it? Unfortunately, there is zero grace with how the situation is handled, and the entire sequence of visiting the old owner is just suddenly mentioned, then they find the owner has died, and then it is forgotten. It is like the filmmakers had a Pixar writer for one day, and shoehorned their idea into the plot last minute.

The trees are pleasantly orange and brown, implying it is fall but serving no point to the plot. Why is it fall then? Coming out in the dead of summer, maybe the leaf-color artist was not memoed the film's release date. The film is never boring, for long at least, but I still should not have noticed, then wondered about, the leaf color.

Ghostbusters (2016) Review

Ghostbusters, the reboot of the classic 1984 film and its slightly less classic 1989 sequel, is much worse than the sum of its parts. This film, gender swapping the four paranormal exterminators, and secretary, seems fresh. And admittedly, it can be amusing, but gone is any chemistry and any witty script, sterilizing what should be a unique take on a unique franchise into your generic big-studio blockbuster.

The film's stars, Melissa McCarthy as Abby Yates, Kristen Wiig as Erin Gilbert, Kate McKinnon as Jillian Holtzmann, and Leslie Jones as Patty Tolan. Those are our Ghostbusters, and only Leslie seems to be giving it any effort. Actually, she gives it her all. She talks with her body, and devotes 100% of her energy to everything she says, whether or not the script gave her anything actually amusing to say. Unfortunately, it rarely does, but there is so much sass and attitude that you laugh at how she says something, not what she says. She is the civilian here, much like Ernie Hudson in the original two movies, and does a good job acting aloof at the several encounters with the paranormal.

Melissa's character is passively charming, sure, in the way all of her characters are, but she lacks any energy, creativity, or sense of fun, reading from the script instead of believing in it. Kristen plays her lifelong friend, reconnected suspiciously coincidentally at the beginning of the movie. She imitates Bill Murray for most of the film, staring unamused and dryly giving her lines, but her and Melissa have no chemistry, and spit out technical jargon together that is neither original nor funny. When Egon and Ray coyly discussed all the nuance of ghost-adventuring, you believed that they believed in everything they said. Here, the girls read a script. That is it.

That leaves us with Kate's character, the tech wiz of the group who builds much of the ghost-catching equipment. Her unkempt look and initial entrance locks her as the group's weirdo, but every facial expression, line, and body movement is artificial, awkward and artificially awkward. She seems to be riffing on Rick Moranis' character, only her performance has the most overacting since Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor.

Chris Hemsworth is their dimwitted secretary, you know the type, where he says stupid things and acts even stupider, only here it does not really appear to be acting. He gets the best lines, like when he exclaims that fish tanks are submarines for fish. I laughed. But I am not sure if I should be proud.

The plot is a retread of the original, where the group of characters lose their jobs and decide to hunt ghosts professionally. They rent an office above a Chinese restaurant, where much of Melissa's best lines involve her wanting soup in a refreshing rip on Seinfeld. The villain performed by Neil Casey, perhaps one of the worst in recent memory, just lurches around looking weird. Playing Rowan North, his plan honestly makes no sense. Under the guise as a custodian of a large hotel, he designs and builds ghost-creating machines, and erects a giant "dooms day" like device in the basement. It is also briefly discussed that he has been alive for centuries. How he got the job, if he really has been alive that long, is never explained (most jobs require at least one reference, and everyone he meets either does not like or even acknowledge him). Neither is how he can build all of the ghost machines on a custodians' salary and hide it in the basement (I mean, I might stop writing and do janitorial work instead).

Thus the film insinuates that all the specters spotted around the city are caused by his little devices we watch him plant. The movie does not elucidate that there have been any true sightings before he began placing these devices, so are there actually ghosts, or do you need those devices?

Once his plan is discovered by the Ghostbusters, he becomes a ghost by killing himself, and takes possession of the secretary, who has a much more physically capable body. How, if he has been along for so long, he is able to kill himself so easily is one of the other elements never explained. His big powerful machine is then activated and all hell breaks loose. This is when the film becomes a special effects picture, much like the original. Neither movie had particularly special special effects, but at least the original one had charm, wonder. Here, everything is CGI, we know everything is done on computers, and we sit back and watch a video game like cut-scene instead of photo-trickery or anything much actually in front of the camera.

The film gets most of its comedic mileage out of the scenes where the ghosts move on the loose, where one in a trench coat flashes a woman (ripped straight from Gremlins, but hey, if you are gonna steal jokes, at least steal funny ones), and ghost rats pour out from the subway. Then the Ghostbusters show up, and bust up the ghosts. Not using traps, like they demonstrated earlier in the movie, but with just hitting them hard enough. Consistency is not one of the film's strong suits.

But perhaps most egregious is the climax. The malefactor, surrounded by police and military personal, all with guns pointed towards him, freezes them in a dance-like pose, then the Ghostbusters show up. Why, if he can control people's movements, he did not have the gun-touting group shoot the Ghostbusters, or freeze the the Ghostbusters as well, is never explained. And then, when the villain begins to take its final form, all four Ghostbusters watch, guns cocked and pointed at the baddie. But they do not fire either, instead they wait until he grows to biblical proportions, and they run away. So instead of destroying him when they had the chance, there is more special effects. I guess audiences need that.

The BFG Review

The BFG, based on the book I have never read, makes we want to go back and time and read the book. This film, directed by Steven Spielberg, is an amazing experience, a tender one, one without the obnoxiousness of you typical blockbuster (unfortunately, at the box office, this is no blockbuster). Heartwarming in the tradition of an early Disney picture, with the youthful energy of The Goonies and the silly humor of Hook. The plot, in a nutshell, concerns an orphan named Sophie kidnapped by the titular giant. Things get a lot more whimsical from then.

Achieved via motion-capture, Mark Rylance plays the BFG, a soft, and poor, speaking outcast amongst the giant community. He diets on smelly vegetation rather than humans, unlike his taller associates, and only takes the young girl because she is an insomniac who spotted him while she should have been in a slumber. Perhaps she should cut down on the coffee. She is played by newcomer Ruby Barnhill, a tremendous little actress who is sweet overall with a revivifying dose of realism. Curt when she needs to be, she raises concern over how the other tall men treat the BFG. If it all sounds like trite child-movie fare, then you are right. But Spielberg handles these scenes with the finesse only a director of his talent can, giving the two actors unbridled attention while they interact with delicate dedication in a grandiose cocktail of practical and computer-generated set pieces. You believe every word they say, and believe that she really is dwarfed by him, and everything just works during moments like these.

The other giants, on the other hand, feel artificial in the story, giving unnecessary conflict to what could have been a smaller, and more satisfying, story. Having nine other giants, opposed to perhaps two or three, detaches any personality from them; they look wonderful sure, but darned if I could tell any of them apart aside from their leader.

So what does a gentle giant do in his spare time, if he is not munching on little children? He collects dreams, and runs about the streets of (just?) London exchanging them to humans for a sort of distant interaction he so longs for. There is such magic when they enter this dream country, however brief of a visit it is, showcasing Spielberg's ability to extract a wild sense of "awe" not unlike the first shot of the Brontosaurus' in Jurassic Park.

If there was any moment the mean giants add something natural to the film, it is when they become keen on Sophie visiting the BFG's home and wreck the place in search of the little lady. This scene shows growth for the BFG, as he finally releases the rage and fends off the intruders with a hot iron, saving not only his new friend but also sending a message about standing up for yourself. What would have stumbled other less capable directors, here you feel the emotion in the big friendly giant, and you watch a man, in this case an imposingly tall one, broken with the passion he has for a friend. It is not exactly heartbreaking, but if there was any time I showed sentiment for a computer generated giant and a little girl, it was in this scene.

Sophie then devises a plan to go see the Queen, yes the Queen, by implanting her a nasty dream about the giant baddies, the BFG and herself. The plan works, and her majesty not only welcomes the girl and the BFG, but also brings in her armed forces to send the giants to a faraway island with nothing to eat but plants, and yuck, these carnivores want none of that. But none of this happens before an admittedly bizarre ten minutes or so of the BFG eating breakfast with the Queen, and the film makes all the giant-related jokes it could think of. It is a cheesy scene sure, but it is done so gingerly and charmingly. It would not have had the movie without it.

Without ever explaining itself too much, or giving much detail, The BFG is a tremendously fantastical film, and while watching it, felt as if I was a child watching what would be one of their favorite movies.

Independence Day: Resurgence Review

Big, loud, and dumb, with dumb characters doing dumb things, Independence Day: Resurgence is the (long waited?) sequel to the 1996 hit, augmenting the career of Will Smith and cementing Jeff Goldblum as a bonafide unlikely action hero. Twenty years later, Will Smith is too expensive, and Mr. Ian Malcolm is, well, no longer staring in big-budget films, for better or worse. This movie proves why he should be, though.

The film, who's plot is an excuse for excessive CGI-explosions and chase sequences, is serviceable, especially when the original's was nothing unique. Among the returning characters are David Levinson, his dad (Judd Hirsch), the now former president of the United States (Bill Pullman), and the wacko scientist who is in need of a nice comb or hair cut, Dr. Okun (Brent Spiner). There are others, some played by the same actor from the first, some by a different actor, but the film is more interested in its brand-new characters.

Liam Hemsworth, the less famous brother of Chris Hemsworth, plays our hero here, who spends most of his time looking smug and yelling "wahoo" when flying his aircraft. Lacking any of the nuance or subtlety of the former film's hero, it proves that Thor's younger brother in real life, and his younger brother in the Thor movies, is little more than a pretty face with a distinct chin. Jessie Usher plays Will Smith's son, looking the part, sure, and outside a few surprisingly calm moments, tries far too hard impersonating the wonderful actor. Two other young actors are involved, rounding out our pentamerous group of generic youngsters. One is a boy, and the other is a girl; the boy likes the girl and flirts and asks her out; she says "no;" then the aliens die, and she says "yes;" oh, spoiler alert.

But little time is spent wasted on either the old or new characters, and for good reason, because the plot allows the camera to zip from explosion to explosion, introduction of a returning character, funny line, then explosion then explosion. Its breakneck speed leaves you little to think of the many mistakes, or at least, oddities, because it is either think or wait in suspense for Jeff or Brent's characters to say something goofy. The latter is the most fun.

The finale, ripped right out of James Cameron's Aliens, complete with a certain "mother" character, is fun and spectacularly stupid, a sort of SyFy Original Movie with big name stars onscreen alongside the silly looking monster. But all of the action is filmed with fluidity, slow camera pan allows for you to see what is happening, save for a few egregious moments of quick cuts and pans.

When the film, who is shorter than the original, and certainly feels like it, comes to an end, and our new characters walk into the camera ripped right out of the first movie, which, honestly, ripped it right out of Top Gun, but there is a distinct lack of cigars. I'm a little disappointed they weren't "vaping" here.