Rush

Wait a sec ... didn't you win the Asgard Grand Prix?

Grade: B +

Director: Ron Howard

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Brühl, Olivia Wilde and Alexandra Maria Lara

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 2 hr. 3 min.

His toys are more sophisticated, his scripts are more polished and his budgets are larger. But even as he pushes 60, Ron Howard is still trying to prove his mettle with a car race movie. Long before he won a Best Director Oscar for A Beautiful Mind (and the one he should have snared for Apollo 13), the 23-year-old Happy Days star was cutting a deal with Roger Corman to direct his own movie for no salary. Howard’s critically maligned first feature was Grand Theft Auto, and 36 years and 20 films later, perhaps he’s trying to settle the score with his latest, Rush.

Howard reteams with his Frost/Nixon scribe Peter Morgan to track the rivalry between British driver James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Austrian champion Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl), culminating in their epic back-and-forth battle during the 1976 Formula One season.

The film has two main attractions. Meticulous period set design and grainy, ‘70s style cinematography plant the audience firmly the era, which Howard and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (Slumdog Millionaire, Antichrist) supplement with exquisite race camerawork that spins the viewer outside, inside and around the cockpits. Digital effects occasionally lacquer a layer of artificiality on the action. Mostly, however, the blend of reality and F/X is seamless.

But Howard astutely realizes that the racing only accents the human drama. With flaxen locks and rakish charm, Hunt is a talented, daring driver whose main adversary is usually his lack of discipline off the track. On the other hand, Lauda is a wealthy auto design savant who is nicknamed “the Rat” due to his slight overbite and overconfident, even obnoxious personality. (It’s equally off putting that Brühl’s clipped accent sounds like Mike Myers’ Goldmember character from the third Austin Powers film.)

Morgan mostly avoids the loose treatment of facts seen in his previous sports-themed screenplay, The Damned United. Still, Rush implies that the 1976 season was the first time Hunt and Lauda raced each other on the Formula One circuit, which in fact it was their fourth.

The most daring maneuver in Rush isn’t the high octane racing, but instead the way Howard flips the easy classifications of hero and villain. After the cocky Lauda nearly dies in a fiery crash at the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring—a race Lauda wanted to boycott because of unsafe conditions but was outvoted by his fellow drivers, led by Hunt—his improbable return to the cockpit a mere six weeks later elevates the Austrian to a fan and audience favorite. Howard spares few details in detailing Lauda’s grueling recovery; a scene in which he painfully and stubbornly attempts to slide a race helmet over his burned skin is the most daring and uplifting moment of the film.

Howard’s execution isn’t perfect. Some irregular narration adds little beyond distraction, and as the drivers’ significant others, Olivia Wilde and Alexandra Maria Lara are given little purpose beyond being pensive onlookers. But the biggest misstep might be not releasing this adrenaline rush during the summer, when it could have been a surprising bit of high-minded counter-programming, instead of slotting it in early fall, in what the filmmakers imagine must be the pole position for the awards season.

The Words

Don't sorry, honey. Hangover III comes out next year.

Grade: C –

Director: Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, Dennis Quaid, Olivia Wilde, Ben Barnes and Jeremy Irons

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hr. 36 min.

I like to envision the developmental scene behind a film self-indulgent enough to call itself The Words. It starts with a couple of fresh-faced, first-time writers/directors, Lee Sternthal and Brian Klugman (nephew of Jack), serving up their romantic-drama about anguished writers to be ground through the Sundance sausage maker. Enter a trio of young actors—Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana and Olivia Wilde—looking for the right portal for their entry into “serious moviemaking.” Snare a fading name like Dennis Quaid, looking for one more prestige project en route to a latter-day career of supporting roles in G.I. Joe sequels, ‘80s remakes and TV series. Hire Marcelo Zarvos—a poor producer’s Alexandre Desplat—to wind up the Oscar Trax 2000 and crank out an incessant, string-laden score that practically wails, “This is important!” And finally, imagine the day they all find out that a bona fide Oscar winner had signed onto the project: “We got Irons…We got Irons!”

But, a funny thing happened on the way to the Kodak Theatre. Although blessed with an intriguing premise rife with ethical and morality conundrums, The Words never becomes more three-dimensional than, well, words on a page. The principal storyline dovetails off a book reading by celebrated author Clay Hammond (Quaid) to an adoring audience that includes Daniella (Wilde), a comely, college-age literati groupie.

Hammond’s titular novel is about Rory Jansen (Cooper), an aspiring writer looking for his big break and also in the throes of newlywed bliss with his wife, Dora (Saldana). During their Parisian honeymoon, the couple pays homage to a plaque honoring Ernest Hemingway just before Dora buys her husband a tattered satchel that, unbeknownst to anyone, contains a yellowed, unsigned manuscript that Rory immediately recognizes as transcendent literature. Circumstances contrive to have Rory innocently type the story into his computer and then not-so-innocently present it to a literary agent who leaps at the chance to publish the book to great acclaim.

Rory’s new-found high life is upended when an old man (Jeremy Irons) follows Rory to Central Park and reveals that not only does he know of Rory’s subterfuge, but that the geezer is the actual author of the mysterious tome, the lost chronicle of the old man’s life and star-crossed marriage to a young French girl named Celia (Nora Armezeder) in post-WWII Paris.

It’s emblematic of Sternhal and Klugman’s erratic editing that I went a long time believing Rory’s misappropriated manuscript was actually a long lost Hemingway; maybe that’s also because Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, once lost a suitcase full of the author’s manuscripts at a Paris rail station, an event duplicated in the film. Instead, we get The Old Man and his Celia, one of three diffuse plot strands held together with muddled melodrama, prosaic narration and some of the least convincing scenes of fake crying seen in cinema (from Bradley and Ben Barnes, as the younger Old Man).

There’s a good story lurking in The Words. Unfortunately, the only words most viewers will use to remember the film are, “Wait, isn’t that the one with the guy from The Hangover?”

Neil Morris

The Change-Up

Call Child Protective Services ASAP!

Grade: F

Director: David Dobkin

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Justin Bateman, Leslie Mann, Olivia Wilde, and Alan Arkin

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hr. 52 min.

During the opening minutes of The Change-Up, a baby projectile poops into his dad’s mouth. It’s the most telling scene in this revolting rehash, which apparently believes that a familiar formula becomes instantly edgy simply by smearing it with figurative (and sometimes literal) excrement.

The “body switcheroo” movie has been done (1940’s Turnabout) and done (Like Father, Like Son) and done (18 Again!) and done (Vice Versa) and done (Freaky Friday). The only discernable changes brought by The Change-Up are that the swap occurs between best bro buddies and the comedy is the hard-R variety.

Dave (Justin Bateman) is a ladder-climbing lawyer, husband and father of three who is weary of his pressure-cooker job and domesticated life. His friend, a profane, pothead lout named Mitch (Ryan Reynolds), is also a struggling actor living in a filthy bachelor pad who quit school plus pretty much everything he ever tried.

During a drunken night out, Dave and Mitch proclaim in unison that they wish they had the other’s life whilst urinating into a magical public fountain…you know, that old yarn. Presto chango, the next morning they awaken to the discovery that they have switched bodies.

Bateman and Reynolds are reliable comedic actors who cleverly portray two distinct characters. However, their performances are as creative as this tired gimmick gets. The rest of the film is an endless array of scatology and profanity foisted without wit or purpose, including when Dave’s booty call turns out to be a gravid nympho (Mircea Monroe), a startling number of race/religion-based wisecracks, and director David Dobkin’s predilection for showing as many characters using the toilet as possible.

A late stab at sappy sentimentality feels phony because writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (The Hangover) spend most of the film hurling hostility towards the very values they eventually try to prop up. Dave and Mitch don’t want to live each other’s lives until they decide they do, which only lasts until they decide they don’t again. In the meantime, Mitch abandons his desire to shag his best friend’s wife (Leslie Mann, natch) after witnessing her bout with diarrhea, while Dave declines to hookup with his gorgeous, sports & tattoo-loving secretary Sabrina (Olivia Wilde) only after going on two all-night dates and getting her naked.

At one point, Dave (as Mitch) finds himself trapped on the set of a lorno (light porn), forced by its demanding director to simulate sex with a busty, aging actress and a middle-aged lecher. The shame and disgust Dave feels can’t be much different than the cast of The Change-Up, or its audience.

Neil Morris

Cowboys & Aliens

Blondie...James Blondie

Director: Jon Favreau

Starring: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Keith Carradine, and Paul Dano

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hr. 58 min.

The titular juxtaposition of Cowboys & Aliens portends an unfortunate stylistic clash first born at the crowded writers table. As the last of a revolving door of contributors throughout the film’s gestation, “Lost” creator Damon Lindelof’s penchant for character development over narrative symmetry proves a toxic mix with Transformers/Star Trek scribes Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman’s outlook that characters are mere window dressing for visual razzle-dazzle.

The dissatisfying result is a rather passé alien invasion flick populated by Old West archetypes that you end up knowing/caring less about the longer you’re around them. Director Jon Favreau (Iron Man and Iron Man 2, spanning the spectrum) uses the opening half-hour to establish an engaging Western tableau. Amnesic Man With No Memory (Daniel Craig) awakens in the 1873 Arizona desert with a stab wound in his side and a laser gun mysteriously strapped to his wrist. He wanders into a town named Absolution, where the real power broker is gruff cattle baron and ex-Army colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (gruff Harrison Ford).

Their mounting conflict, along with any plot intrigue, evaporates as soon as the alien abductions begin. From there, Cowboys & Aliens is a meandering rescue mission punctuated by the back-story of a doe-eyed mystery woman (Olivia Wilde) and action sequences that pause frequently mid-battle for cloying moments of redemption – e.g., Dolarhyde eventually grows to regard Injuns, including his noble ward (Adam Beach), as real people, too.

As the film lumbers along, it becomes alarmingly apparent that the story the audience is writing in its collective head is far more interesting and original than the one that ends up onscreen. Favreau gets trapped between embracing the story’s dark elements and preserving a popcorn-munching crowd-pleaser. He accomplishes neither, demonstrating he knows the paces of each genre but can’t find their rhyme. Even by the time it rides off into the sunset, Cowboys & Aliens still remains a title in search of a movie.

Neil Morris

TRON: Legacy

I'm sorry, I thought I heard the space baby crying

Grade: B –

Director: Joseph Kosinski

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Bruce Boxleitner, and Michael Sheen

MPAA Rating: PG

Running Time: 2 hour, 7 minutes

Tilt your head to the side, close one eye, and squint through those polarized spectacles, and you might just glimpse a mirage of deeper meaning in TRON: Legacy, the once unforeseen sequel to Disney’s 1982 sci-fi original. Gimcracks about the creation and evolution of life, religion, and God are encrypted throughout this executable extravaganza. The notion than an entire world can be condensed into terabytes on a jump drive is no less thought-provoking – or loopy – than the kicker to Men in Black in which galaxies are being thumped around a game of marbles.

Frankly, the more you try to think about the plot, the greater the chance of crashing your mental hard drive. Twenty-some years after computer programmer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) vanished without a trace, his son Sam (Garrett Hedlund) tracks a mysterious page back to his father’s old video arcade. A little Journey and a few keystrokes later, Sam finds himself uploaded onto the grid, where an aging Kevin has been usurped by his power-hungry avatar Clu (a digitized Bridges circa 1982), who is bent on attaining his creator’s goal of perfection, and world domination, by any means necessary.

A chase to derez baddies and access portals ensues, but dopey plotlines are not the aim here. TRON: Legacy is visual and aural masterwork, a marriage of eye-popping special effects and a vivacious, orchestral soundtrack from the French electro duo Daft Punk that combines classical and electronic elements – think Vangelis meets Moby. At its best, debut director Joseph Kosinski emulates Kevin Flynn’s aspirations by creating a bold new cinematic frontier.

Unfortunately, neither the storyline nor the performances keep up with the film’s sensorial mega-processor. Most of the younger actors, including Hedlund, are as lifeless as computer-generated automatons. On the other hand, Bridges morphs the elderly Kevin into a Lebowski-esque Zen-master spouting New Age bon mots. And, as the only one seeming to grasp the inanity of it all, the always-terrific Michael Sheen pops up as Castor, a flamboyant, alabaster-colored night club owner.

Unlike others films where 3D is an alternate or even favored viewing option, the only reason to ever see this one is in a 3D theater, preferably of the IMAX variety. Disney succeeds in creating an event film that triggers the primordial impulse that first drove us to movie houses. Once the bombast wears off, however, experiencing TRON: Legacy is rather like watching someone else play a video game. What you get is what you see.

Neil Morris