I wrote a review of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs when it came out here in January 2010, four months after its release in the United States, on my now-defunct Multiply page. I felt it was fun, visually exciting, but ultimately disposable. I have enjoyed re-watching it on DVD with my kids since then, and as a result we were all looking forward to watching the sequel. We were willing to forgo watching it in 3-D to save some money, but unfortunately it was the only available format where we watched it.
The story of the sequel picks up from where the first film left off, although it retroactively negated the after-credits sequence of the first film which suggested events that followed the destruction of Swallow Falls. This film immediately begins in the aftermath of the destruction of the town, which was caused by a food hurricane generated by a machine invented by Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) which turns water into food.
Here, Flint, his weather-reporter girlfriend Sam (Anna Faris), his dad (James Caan) and various friends are relocated from their island by a think tank known as Live Corp., run by Flint's childhood hero, super-inventor Chester V (Will Forte). Chester hires Flint to work at Live Corp., where Flint has the time of his life, not realizing that the real plan of Chester and his assistant, a talking orangutan named Barb (Kristen Schaal) is to recover his food generating machine, the Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator (FLDSMDFR) while Flint is distracted. When Chester's extraction teams disappear during their attempts to find the machine, Chester decides to send the expendable Flint over to the island and find his machine. Flint brings along his dad and his friends, and what they find is not at all what they expected.
I love cartoons, whether they are hand-drawn, stop motion or computer-generated. I love their sense of whimsy, and how they basically make me feel like a kid again, especially the silly ones.
The first film had the benefit of being based on a kids' book that my children and I enjoyed, as well as the novelty of giant food falling from the sky. This novelty was always going to wear off, but to the filmmakers' credit they've expanded on an idea that was briefly explored in the first film (e.g. the flying pizzas, fighting chickens and killer gummi bears) and have introduced an entire ecosystem of creatures made of food, including a giant cheeseburger spider, shrimpanzees, tacodiles, and a whole host of outrageous looking concoctions that have come to life. Considering that so many animals are made into food it was visually engaging to see that turned around this movie. Also, as a 3-D experience this film was pretty striking. Chester V's nose poked at us every time he looked into the screen.
In terms of writing, though, the film left quite a bit to be desired. The first film was hardly a masterclass in scripting, but the second film, with its thoroughly forgettable villain who vaguely feels like a cheap shot at the late Steve Jobs (though probably more because of how he looks than anything else) and a hero who seems every bit the idiot he was in the first film, really skimps on the story and characterization here. The writing feels like it developed just enough to justify the various visual gags that punctuate the humor, and that's about it.
It was still a lot of fun for the kids, but the adults should prepare to be patient while sitting through this.
3/5
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Plummeting to One's Death...In 3-D! A Review of Gravity
In the three weeks since its release, critics and audiences the world over have apparently embraced director Alfonso Cuaron's 90-minute thriller Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts in extreme peril. I saw the film myself over two weekends ago but have had little time to churn out a review.
The story is simple; a group of astronauts including Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) and Lt. Matt Kowalski (Clooney), and a number of actors who basically just lend their voices, are on a mission in space installing new hardware on a satellite when they are struck by the falling debris of a Russian satellite that has been destroyed as part of Russia's efforts to clean the skies of its derelict satellites. Chaos and death ensue, and before they know it Stone and Clooney find themselves falling to earth and basically scrambling around for other satellites to board in order to ensure that they can survive their return to earth. They have the benefit of Kowalski's jet pack but not for very long.
I admit that I was not altogether impressed by the trailer. It appeared to be a cast of two people in peril, and I asked myself, right off the bat, how long the filmmakers could possibly sustain such a thin premise?
I will also readily admit that the answer I got to that question was: for 90 nail-biting minutes.
Full credit goes to Cuaron, Bullock, Clooney, the amazing team of visual effects artists, and composer Steven Price for managing to squeeze so much action and tension out of what was basically a reed-thin plot.
It's been a full twenty years and one Academy Award since Bullock played Sylvester Stallone's sidekick in Demolition Man, and apart from looking great for someone pushing fifty, she has really shown some serious acting chops in this film, especially considering that she and Clooney are the only actors who actually appear onscreen. I think it's fair to say that she basically carries this film (with all due respect to Clooney). Consider this Sandra Bullock's Cast Away (the 2000 Robert Zemeckis movie which, for the most part, starred Tom Hanks and a volleyball).
To my mind, the crew, especially the visual effects people and the aforementioned composer, deserve special mention, for creating an utterly believable space environment, no mean feat considering that most of the film's 90 minutes takes place in space, thus creating the very real possibility of the seams in the digital effects showing at one point or another. They never do, at least no as far as I can see. Also, unlike most blockbusters in which the visual effects are needed mainly to prop up the massive action set pieces, this film relies on sterling effects to carry the story, and the crew are up to the task.
It may seem strange that the composer gets such special mention, but there's a reason for it; this is one of the rare Hollywood films (and off the top of my head, I cannot think of any other) in which the filmmakers actually depicted the fact in space, there's no sound. There's no crashing sound as the debris hammers the space shuttle, no exploding sound as one satellite or another disintegrates upon impact with hurtling satellite fragments. Basically, it's all up to composer Price to replace all of the tension that explosions and crashes usually creates, and he does a sterling job.
It's also worth mentioning that this is the best IMAX 3-D experience I've had since Avatar. Granted, it's only the third IMAX 3-D movie I've seen since then (the other two being The Amazing Spider-Man and The Adventures of Tintin), but unlike either of those two, it made the absolute most of the format, just like James Cameron's visual feast.
I've already kind of hopped on the bandwagon of people impressed by this movie, but I will stop short of calling it a masterpiece, as technically impressive as it is. There's something oddly perfunctory about the writing; Stone's back story, which she discusses during the film, feels like an afterthought, which matters, considering that the audience is supposed to care whether these characters live or die. Kowalski's story, apart from one humorous anecdote he repeats throughout the film, is just about nonexistent. It is fortunate that the actors make up for the script's shortcomings with utter conviction in their performances, especially considering that they were probably acting against green screens most of the time.
My favorite astronauts-in-peril movie remains Ron Howard's Apollo 13, but for sheer urgency and visual effects splendor, Gravity has set a new standard. Kudos to everyone involved.
4.5/5
The story is simple; a group of astronauts including Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) and Lt. Matt Kowalski (Clooney), and a number of actors who basically just lend their voices, are on a mission in space installing new hardware on a satellite when they are struck by the falling debris of a Russian satellite that has been destroyed as part of Russia's efforts to clean the skies of its derelict satellites. Chaos and death ensue, and before they know it Stone and Clooney find themselves falling to earth and basically scrambling around for other satellites to board in order to ensure that they can survive their return to earth. They have the benefit of Kowalski's jet pack but not for very long.
I admit that I was not altogether impressed by the trailer. It appeared to be a cast of two people in peril, and I asked myself, right off the bat, how long the filmmakers could possibly sustain such a thin premise?
I will also readily admit that the answer I got to that question was: for 90 nail-biting minutes.
Full credit goes to Cuaron, Bullock, Clooney, the amazing team of visual effects artists, and composer Steven Price for managing to squeeze so much action and tension out of what was basically a reed-thin plot.
It's been a full twenty years and one Academy Award since Bullock played Sylvester Stallone's sidekick in Demolition Man, and apart from looking great for someone pushing fifty, she has really shown some serious acting chops in this film, especially considering that she and Clooney are the only actors who actually appear onscreen. I think it's fair to say that she basically carries this film (with all due respect to Clooney). Consider this Sandra Bullock's Cast Away (the 2000 Robert Zemeckis movie which, for the most part, starred Tom Hanks and a volleyball).
To my mind, the crew, especially the visual effects people and the aforementioned composer, deserve special mention, for creating an utterly believable space environment, no mean feat considering that most of the film's 90 minutes takes place in space, thus creating the very real possibility of the seams in the digital effects showing at one point or another. They never do, at least no as far as I can see. Also, unlike most blockbusters in which the visual effects are needed mainly to prop up the massive action set pieces, this film relies on sterling effects to carry the story, and the crew are up to the task.
It may seem strange that the composer gets such special mention, but there's a reason for it; this is one of the rare Hollywood films (and off the top of my head, I cannot think of any other) in which the filmmakers actually depicted the fact in space, there's no sound. There's no crashing sound as the debris hammers the space shuttle, no exploding sound as one satellite or another disintegrates upon impact with hurtling satellite fragments. Basically, it's all up to composer Price to replace all of the tension that explosions and crashes usually creates, and he does a sterling job.
It's also worth mentioning that this is the best IMAX 3-D experience I've had since Avatar. Granted, it's only the third IMAX 3-D movie I've seen since then (the other two being The Amazing Spider-Man and The Adventures of Tintin), but unlike either of those two, it made the absolute most of the format, just like James Cameron's visual feast.
I've already kind of hopped on the bandwagon of people impressed by this movie, but I will stop short of calling it a masterpiece, as technically impressive as it is. There's something oddly perfunctory about the writing; Stone's back story, which she discusses during the film, feels like an afterthought, which matters, considering that the audience is supposed to care whether these characters live or die. Kowalski's story, apart from one humorous anecdote he repeats throughout the film, is just about nonexistent. It is fortunate that the actors make up for the script's shortcomings with utter conviction in their performances, especially considering that they were probably acting against green screens most of the time.
My favorite astronauts-in-peril movie remains Ron Howard's Apollo 13, but for sheer urgency and visual effects splendor, Gravity has set a new standard. Kudos to everyone involved.
4.5/5
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