Alvin and the Chipmunks

How to stay awake during Alvin and the Chipmunks...

Grade: C –
Starring: Jason Lee, David Cross, Cameron Richardson, and the voices of Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, and Jesse McCartney
MPAA Rating: PG
Running Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

It is difficult to argue that a movie about a trio of talking & singing chipmunks lacks internal logic. However, in the live-action/CGI hybrid update of Alvin and the Chipmunks, how is it exactly that Alvin, Simon, and Theodore (voiced respectively by Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, and Jesse McCartney, although there is no way to tell) are inadvertently transplanted from their lifelong woodland home to the big city already equipped with an awareness of Christmas, the ability to operate sundry household gadgets, and a working knowledge of the lyrics to songs by Daniel Powter and Pussycat Dolls?

Brought to us by Tim Hill, director of Garfield 2: A Tale of Two Kitties and writer for the small and big-screen versions of SpongeBob SquarePants (repeatedly referenced throughout the film), we already know the titular rodents’ harmonizing sparks the career of struggling songwriter Dave Seville, whom a live-action Jason Lee imbues with an Earl-esque idiocy. David Cross does his best to harvest a few laughs from this DOA script, but all his nefarious record producing character does is give Alvin & Friends another platform for vapid Diddy-lite ditties.

Novelty aside, the unfortunate truth is that the original Alvin and the Chipmunks had limited appeal and even less potential for long-term expansion. Moreover, aside from the obligatory fart/poop jokes and general ineptitude, the overarching problem is that the storyline hypocritically casts as its principal villain the very financial profiteering and hat-to-the-back, pop-cultural capitulation this film actually represents and embraces.

Sleuth

If you just think about
remaking Jaws: The Revenge...

Grade: C –
Starring: Michael Caine and Jude Law
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour, 26 minutes

Perhaps Redux might be a more appropriate – and equally banal – title for the 2007 incarnation of “Sleuth.” This is director Kenneth Branagh’s revision of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1972 prestige act of the same name, itself adapted from Anthony Shaffer’s Tony Award-winning play. Michael Caine, who costarred alongside Laurence Olivier in the 1972 film, assumes Olivier’s part of millionaire mystery novelist Andrew Wyke in Sleuth 2.0, while Jude Law takes on Caine’s erstwhile role of unemployed actor Milo Tindle. And, oh, after 2006’s Alfie, this is the second time Law has reprised a Michael Caine film role.

Moreover, while we always operated on the assumption that Branagh’s directorial career was focused primarily on film adaptations of Shakespeare plays, the larger truth seems to also include his aim to remake as many Olivier-starring vehicles as possible (Henry V, Hamlet, and As You Like It previously). The unfortunate reality is that, outside the realm of the Bard, Branagh has never fully realized the filmmaking potential he flashed sixteen years ago in Dead Again, the underrated, Scott Frank-penned neo-noir.

Even sadder is the fact that all these confluences and coincidences are the most interesting reasons to watch Sleuth. The crux of Shaffer’s original remains intact: the older Milo invites upstart Andrew, who is embroiled in a romantic relationship with Milo’s estranged wife, to his country estate. There, Milo proposes a scheme wherein Andrew would carry out a phony heist of Milo’s priceless jewels; Andrew could keep the gems, and Milo would pocket the insurance proceeds. Milo harbors more diabolical intentions, and suffice it to say that each man engages in a course of humiliations and reprisals against their foil. Any further elucidation would only spoil the plot for any hapless souls who subject themselves to this claptrap.

Nobel laureate playwright Harold Pinter, tabbed with updating the screenplay for modern audiences, amps the venom of the verbal jousting, emphasizes Milo’s Italian heritage, and fleshes out an incongruous homoerotic subtext. However, these pointless exertions still provide us with two unlikable characters struck with chronic logorrhea and confined to a hyper-mod milieu that Branagh infuses with dark blue hues, reflective surfaces, and other visual gewgaws.

The allure of two fine actors engaged in oral tug-of-war may entice some audiences. However, Caine may as well be taping another installment in his “Acting in Film” video series, while Law impersonates a shrill, preening poodle paddling wildly to keep his head above the thespian riptide. Sleuth fails to solve the biggest mystery of all: why this movie was greenlit in the first place.

Neil Morris

The Golden Compass

Are you the one who married my ex-husband?

Grade: D –
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Blue Richards, Sam Elliott, Eva Green, Ian McKellen, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Kathy Bates
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 1 hour, 53 minutes

The Golden Compass is adapted from author Philip Pullman’s 1995 award-winning children’s novel Northern Lights, the first in the His Dark Materials trilogy. The best advice for fans and novices alike, however, is to hit the books. Anyone looking to fall in love with the series via its film adaptation might need a compass to first locate the plot, and then the exit door to the theater.

Perhaps I am getting too old, but I have had my fill of fantasy films full of creatures with unpronounceable names trekking throughout unpronounceable places in search of mystical rings, relics, and sundry other baubles. Newcomers to Pullman’s source novels (including myself) will find mind-numbing the endless prattle about “Gobblers,” “gyptians,” “dæmons,” and mysterious particles of “Dust” bombinating about the parallel Earth setting.

The story, such as it is, focuses around Lyra (newcomer Dakota Blue Richards, and it shows), an 11-year-old orphan who, like all children, is constantly accompanied by her dæmon, an animal-formed, shape-shifting manifestation of her soul (hers is voiced by Freddie Highmore). For some reason, children are being kidnapped by a group called the Gobblers, who are transporting them to a facility in Arctic facsimile Bolvangar to develop ways to separate the moppets from their outer-dæmon. For some reason, everyone, especially Gobbler heavy Marisa Coulter (Nicole Kidman plus her vacillating English accent), really wants to get their hands on Lyra and a truth-saying alethiometer (or compass) only she seems able to divine. For some reason, Daniel Craig plays a scholar and Lyca’s relative who gets pinched during the film’s first half and is barely heard from again.

I have not even gotten to the brood of eternally youthful witches, an aw-shucks aeronaut played by Sam Elliott, and a pack of talking armored bears led by lorek Byrnison (voiced by Ian McKellen) who, thanks to the subpar CGI throughout the film, usually resemble the Coca-Cola polar bears. And, do not forget the sinister Magisterium, the omnipresent controlling authority we know is evil because their leaders wear long, dark robes and look like Derek Jacobi and Christopher Lee. Even the film’s main controversy turns out to be mundane: the book’s infamous anti-Catholic subtext has been watered down from its fairly direct indictment of organized religion.

Confused yet? Do not worry – you will actually know less about the storyline after the film than you did before the opening credits began rolling. Much of the blame lies in a chaotic production history and lazy filmmaking. Two directors took the reigns three different times until settling on Chris Weitz (About a Boy), whose lack of epic special effects experience shows in virtually every scene. Even at nearly two hours, the pacing is erratic and the editing is choppy. Characters and concepts are barely developed past the point of introduction and there is little coherent scene transition.

The entire spectacle feels both perfunctory and derivative – echoes of Lord of the Rings, Oz, Harry Potter, and Narnia reverberate, the latter being ironic since Pullman has referred to his book series the “anti-Narnia.” Moreover, Weitz moved the final three chapters of Northern Lights to the beginning of the film sequel, The Subtle Knife, leaving a finale that is not only unsatisfactory but highly presumptuous. Golden Compass did leave me longing to journey to a parallel universe – the one where this is actually a good movie.

Neil Morris

Enchanted

I've a feeling we're not in
a low-budget indie flick anymore.

Grade: B
Starring: Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Susan Sarandon, Rachel Covey, Idina Menzel, and Timothy Spall
MPAA Rating: PG
Running Time: 1 hour, 47 minutes

The ironic calling card of the “for all ages” movie is that it is usually skewed sharply in favor of one age-group or another: they are too sugary for adults or too mature for children. Although Disney’s nostalgia-filled Enchanted almost falls within the former camp, there is enough well-developed humor and charm to captivate all audiences.

The backstory is introduced within the traditional two-cell tableau of Disney’s animated past, a world full of frolicking woodland creatures, trolls, Princes Charming, and winsome damsels. Here, a princess-in-waiting named Giselle (Amy Adams), with cascading red hair and an unfaltering chirpy voice, is one day into her betrothment to the dashing Prince Edward (James Marsden). The prince’s mother, Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), fearing a commoner as heir to her throne, changes form into the old hag from Snow White and shoves Giselle down a well and through a literal and figurative sewer onto the live-action streets of Times Square.

Giselle’s naïve optimism collides with the Big Apple’s mean streets, setting the stage for some rote fish-out-of-water gags. Now channeled through Adams’ body and voice, Giselle enjoins the help of a local divorce attorney and single-dad named Robert (Patrick Dempsey) and his cherub-faced moppet, Morgan (Rachel Covey). They take in the distressed damsel (rather inexplicably) while she waits for Edward to gallop in and whist her away.

It is difficult to imagine a plot like this holding any internal logic. Still, I quibble a bit with the live-action Giselle’s ability to marshal rats, birds, and roaches into performing household chores, as well as her talent at choreographing large song-and-dance numbers on the fly in Central Park. And, the plot does become a bit unsteady when the schmaltz starts outweighing the fun.

Still, one part of Enchanted’s strength rests in its sheer willingness to view society with both wide-eyed innocence and sober cynicism. It is a dangerous world, whether from poisoned apples and dragons or the searing loneliness of a life lacking true love or friends. The other part is Adams, a former Oscar nominee for Junebug who furthers her budding career here with a splendid performance that maintains an internal sweetness without playing down to the character. She provides the pulse for a movie full of heart.

I'm Not There

Elizabeth: The Drag Queen

Grade: B
Starring: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw, David Cross, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bruce Greenwood, Julianne Moore, and Michelle Williams
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 2 hour, 15 minutes

To both its credit and detriment, Todd Haynes’ Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There is an utter cinematic manifestation of its subject—elusive and surreal, yet strangely calculated and manipulative. The film’s structure is nearly as abstruse as a free-associating Dylan ditty: Six actors, each cast under a different pseudonym, portray distinct stages of the singer-songwriter’s life. The first chronological bookend to this narrative is a character called “Woody” (Marcus Hope Franklin), an 11-year-old black boy who rides the rails and, like Dylan, spends his early singing career emulating the musical stylings of dust-bowl folk idol Woody Guthrie. At the other end of the line, there’s “Billy” (Richard Gere), an older, self-imposed recluse patterned loosely upon Dylan’s country songs and his retreat from the modern world.

Confused yet? Director Haynes has a high-art reputation, but his films usually bear the distinct influences of others, from Velvet Goldmine (based on David Bowie’s alter-ego Ziggy Stardust and sharing the narrative structure of Citizen Kane) to the Douglas Sirk-inspired Far From Heaven. Haynes’ new film, with its Hydra-headed Dylan, is an echo of Todd Solondz’s Palindromes, and he also employs a menagerie of styles to represent each chapter of his story. For example, a rather tepid faux-documentary tells the tale of Jack Rollins (Christian Bale), representing Dylan during his early-1960s protest period, while the Billy tableau is drawn from Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, in which Dylan appeared and wrote the score.

The two strongest segments reveal the most emotionally accessible Dylan and, not coincidentally, the film’s two best performances. Heath Ledger plays Robbie, a countercultural screen actor embroiled in a tumultuous relationship with Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), a stand-in for Dylan’s real-life marriage to and divorce from Sara Lowndes. More James Dean than Dylan, Ledger’s complex, brooding interpretation is framed within the backdrop of a French-cinema romance, with references to Godard and Truffaut.

The most captivating chapter is unquestionably Haynes’ nod to Dylan’s mid-1960s struggles with fame and his folk persona, filmed in black and white as a Fellini-esque pastiche. Under the moniker of Jude Quinn, Cate Blanchett – in a near tour de force – offers a version of Dylan that is both ethereal and childlike in its mischievousness, sparring with the press (embodied by Bruce Greenwood’s Mr. Jones, the notorious object of “Ballad of a Thin Man”) and carousing Warholian drug dens with the likes of Allen Ginsburg (David Cross) and an Edie Sedgwick doppelganger (Michelle Williams). This is also Dylan during his controversial electric stage, taking a figurative howitzer to his folk fanbase and executing perhaps his most brilliant act of nonconformity by embracing the strictures of pop-cultural conformity.

The overarching spirit of I’m Not There is in its enigmatic portrait of an enigma. Still, while the inherent contradictions of Dylan and this vehicle are undoubtedly intentional, at some point they become less provocative than debilitating. Moreover, it is worth noting that Dylan’s hipster indifference to celebrity has now been punctured by two officially sanctioned motion pictures this decade (the previous being 2003’s woeful “Masked and Anonymous”) that promote and capitalize on Dylan’s iconography. Ultimately, Dylan has always been what he claims to be—a master songwriter and storyteller—and what he will not admit to being—a brilliant, strategic self-marketer. During this holiday season, you can log onto www.bobdylan.com and purchase Dylan-embossed hats, shirts, plush robes, coffee mugs and $20 teddy bears. The times might be a-changin’, but some things never do.

Neil Morris