Monthly Archives: June 2011

Reviews

How to Watch: “Mr. Popper’s Penguins”

Step 1: Go ahead and pop this Penguin treat. The Jim Carrey comedy is the kind of brain friendly family entertainment perfect for a summer movie.

Step 2: Add penguins. Seriously, you could be watching the worst movie ever made and if they happen to stick in an adorable penguin, suddenly the film isn’t so bad. Based on a 1938 children’s novel, the Mr. Popper’s Penguins story is simplicity to the point of formulaic. Popper (Carrey) is a workaholic real estate whiz who specializes in getting people to sell their old properties so he can tear them down and build shiny new buildings. Popper has an ex wife (Carla Gugino) and two kids (Madeline Carroll and Matthew Perry Cotton) he doesn’t pay a lot of attention to. Wait, is this sounding a little like Carrey’s other comedy Liar, Liar? Yes, but unfortunately not quite as funny.

Step 3: Don’t fight the penguins. Things start to change for Popper when his late father, a professional adventurer who was never home when Popper was a kid, leaves him six “souvenirs,” aka Gentoo penguins from the Antarctic. Suddenly, Popper’s pristine co-op Manhattan apartment turns into a happy fun place for the flightless fowl, who also begin to take over Popper’s life – for the better. His kids love the little rascals – Loudy, Stinky, Lovey, Nimrod, Bitey and our favorite, Captain – and want to spend more time with dad, as does the ex wife. Of course, his career suffers, but well, it should, right? Popper has to take a hard look at himself, right?

Step 4: Learn something from the penguins. Mr. Popper’s Penguins is about as predictable as it gets, which would have been fine if Jim Carrey has been more on top of his game. He really needed to tap into his good old zaniness as Popper. There are a few choice moments – especially with the penguins, because let’s face it, you gotta have SOME kind of crazy Carrey comedy with those little cuties – but it wasn’t enough; you really crave his facial contortions and wacky impressions. Maybe Carrey is getting tired of all that. I hope not.

Step 5: Let the penguins work their magic. The rest of the cast all do a serviceable job supporting the main players. And yes, I’m talking about the Gentoos. They completely steal the show. What is about penguins that make us all go “Awww”? From the incredible documentary The March of the Penguins to the animated Happy Feet, these lovable creatures are simply cinematic naturals. Mr. Popper’s Penguins uses the real deal for most of the movie (and they DON’T TALK), with only a few up close “reaction” shots generated by computer animation. The winged actors are incredibly smart and as long as you had some kind of fish on your person, you could get them to do just about anything. Apparently, Carrey bonded with his co-stars by literally having fish in his socks. He admits in the press notes he has an obsession with penguins, saying it is physically impossible not to be happy around them. “They are like puppies, times ten!” I wholeheartedly concur. All in all, Mr. Popper’s Penguins will certainly delight the kiddies, but their parents might wish for a tad more Carrey irreverence.

 

Reviews

How to Watch: “X-Men: First Class”

Step 1: Find the mark. X-Men: First Class is first rate. It’s definitely the best in the X-Men franchise, but prequels can be tricky. In the X-Men series, there have been two – Wolverine, which takes a look at how Logan (Hugh Jackman) becomes the knives-for-fingers badass mutant we know and love, and now X-Men: First Class. I thought Wolverine missed the mark a bit, but that is not the case with First Class.

Step 2: Hit the mark. In it, we see how Charles “Professor X” Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik “Magneto” Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) meet as young men in the 1960s. Xavier, who comes from a lonely aristocratic upbringing, hones his telepathic and mind control abilities as an Oxford graduate student, specializing in gene mutation. Along the way, he also meets a young girl named Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), a fellow mutant who has the ability to shape shift and will later become the enigmatic Mystique. Erik, on the other hand, is a Holocaust survivor who uses his power to control magnetism to seek revenge on those Nazis who killed his family and experimented on him — especially one Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), a particularly nasty former Nazi-sympathizer scientist who turns out to be a mutant himself. Xavier, Erik and Raven end up joining a secret sect of the CIA, along with a few other young special recruits, including brilliant scientist Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) who eventually becomes The Beast. Together, these mutants form the First Class of X-Men, guided by the wisdom of Xavier, the brute force of Erik and non-mutant help from CIA Agent Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne). They try and stop Shaw and his mutant lackeys from starting a nuclear war under the guise of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Did you know that whole thing was perpetuated by mutants? I sure didn’t.

Step 3: Mark your territory. The retro First Class feels almost like a James Bond flick, with Shaw hiding out in his submarine “lair,” surrounded by his minions, including January Jones as yet another ice queen, telepath Emma Frost, who can quite literally turn her female form into a diamond. There’s also a guy (Jason Flemyng) who looks like a demon and can teleport objects through another dimension and another (Alex Gonzalez) who creates whirlwinds. There’s a stripper (Zoe Kravitz, daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet) with insect wings who shoots fireballs out of her mouth, and a dude named Darwin (Twilight’s Edi Gathegi) whose body can adapt to any adverse environment. For me, that’s the beauty of the X-Men movies; everyone has a different unique ability or superhuman power, which makes it endlessly fascinating to watch. And First Class has some great mutants.

Step 4: Cast X-cellently. The film is also bolstered by the acting talents of McAvoy (Wanted) and Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds). In order for First Class to work, it was essential to find the right actors to portray pivotal characters Professor X and Magneto as younger men because we had to believe they would end up as the powerhouse adversaries Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen. McAvoy and Fassbender handle it beautifully. There’s such tragedy in Erik’s past, and Fassbender nails that intense anger and deep pain which turns into an overall hatred for humans, while McAvoy displays Xavier as rather cavalier at first, only to see him grow stronger as a true educator – and leader. The young Lawrence, who nabbed an Oscar for her performance in Winter’s Bone, more than holds her own as the conflicted Raven, who thinks she wants to be normal. Bacon serves well as the villain – and there are numerous choice cameos from a variety of well-known character actors (and a few surprise ones as well).

Step 5: X marks the spot. Finally, I must tip my hat to director Matthew Vaughn. As a protege of director Guy Ritchie, Vaughn has only helmed four films so far, including the taut British gangster flick Layer Cake and highly enjoyable Kick-Ass — and continues to show considerable skill with First Class. Of course, he did have some help from producer Bryan Singer, who directed the first two X-Men movies and has always fully understood how to bring these comic-book characters to life. So, with Vaughn, they once again capture the story’s innate conflict of a being a mutant, between wanting to be like everyone else and embracing their own unique abilities even if they seem threatening. I so want more X-Men movies, but I’m afraid nothing might be able to top this one.