Movie/TV Reviews

Susan Granger’s review of “We’re the Millers” (Warner Bros.)

Just after TV’s “Friends” concluded, I had the opportunity – on separate occasions – to interview then-married Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. Pitt yearned to become a father, yet Aniston was determined to be a Movie Star. Pitt has achieved his desire, while Aniston still wallows in the stems and seeds of raunchy, pot-smuggling comedies like this.

After his stash is stolen, David Clark (Jason Sudeikis), a small-time Denver drug dealer, is desperate to avoid the wrath of his distributor/buddy Brad Gurdlinger (Ed Helms). When he’s offered $100,000 to smuggle a ‘smidge’ of marijuana across the Mexican border, David decides his best disguise is as the RV-driving father with an all-American family. So he recruits Rose O’Reilly (Aniston), the stripper-next-door whose ex has left her with financial debts, along with a nerdy, naïve neighbor Kenny (British actor Will Poulter) and Casey (Emma Roberts, niece of Julia), a sullen
runaway. The fact that David is basically lonely is a given, as is the formulaic road trip that can only lead to suburban domesticity.

Hobbled by a hackneyed script assembled by Bob Fisher & Steve Faber (“Wedding Crashers”)
and Sean Anders & John Morris (“Hot Tub Time Machine”), director Rawson Marshall Thurber (“Dodgeball:  A True Underdog Story,” “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh”) makes each subversive set-piece utterly predictable, including the sweet-natured, sappy conclusion.

There’s the stereotypical drug lord (Tomer Sisley), his henchman (Matthew Willig) and horny cop (Luis Guzman). As a strait-laced Christian couple whose marriage needs some sexual spice, scene-stealing Nick Offerman (“Parks and Recreation”) and Kathryn Hahn (“Girls”) add much needed humor.

This is 37 year-old Jason Sudeikis’s first film after leaving “Saturday Night Live.”  From here, hopefully, it’s onward and upward. As for 44 year-old Jennifer Aniston, her streak of crude comedies continues, following “Horrible Bosses” and “Wanderlust.” Perhaps it’s time for a career transition
from cover girl to character actress.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “We’re the Millers” is a distasteful, mediocre 6, concluding with obligatory outtakes that are funnier than the film itself.

Susan Granger’s review of “Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters” (20^th Century-Fox)

It’s been three years since “Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief,” so a bit of exposition reminds audiences that the Percy (Logan Lerman) is the half-human son of the sea god Poseidon. When Camp Half-Blood, the teenage demigods’ woodsy refuge, is suddenly in peril, Percy and his friends Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), a satyr, and Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), daughter of Athena, must retrieve the fabled Golden Fleece from the titular Sea of Monsters (a.k.a. the Bermuda Triangle) in order to restore the Camp’s protective barrier.

They’re joined in this quest by Percy’s half-brotherTyson (Douglas Smith), an insecure, sweet-natured Cyclops with one huge CGI eye. Not surprisingly, they’re in rivalry with highly competitive, self-centered Clarisse (Leven Rambin), daughter of Ares, who has joined forces with Luke (Jake Abel), the roguish, resentfulson of Hermes. Combative Luke is determined to use the Fleece’s restorative powers to resurrect evil Cronos, the vengeful Titan who was vanquished centuries ago.

Based on Rick Riordan’s young adult books, it’s formulaically adapted by Marc Guggenheim
(“Green Lantern”) and awkwardly directed by Thor Freudenthal (“The Diary of a Wimpy Kid”), who has re-cast Stanley Tucci as wine-loving Dionysus, the frustrated Camp director; Anthony Head as the centaur Chiron; and Nathan Fillion as Hermes, god of travelers, messengers and thieves, now serving as manager of a UPS store.  Missing are Sean Bean, Kevin McKidd and Steve Coogan as Olympian brothers Zeus, Poseidon and Hades.

This is the kind of visual adventure popularized, years ago, by animator Ray Harryhausen.
Converted to 3-D in post-production, the most notable special effects include the fire-breathing Colchis Bull, a supernatural taxi ride with three haggling Graeae (Missi Pyle, Yvette Nicole Brown, Mary Birdsong), a  sea-faring jaunt aboard a Hippocampus and a climactic battle with Polyphemus, the Cyclops guarding Circeland, an abandoned amusement park. Problem is: there’s little urgency or peril.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters” is a flimsy 5, fantastical fun aimed at pre-teens familiar with pop-culture Greek mythology.

Susan Granger’s review of “Blue Jasmine” (Sony Pictures Classics)

Cate Blanchett delivers an astounding, Oscar-worthy performance in Woody Allen’s compassionate, yet chilling character study of the disgraced, discarded wife of a Bernard Madoff-like fraud.

For many years,  WASPy, elegant Jasmine has been the trophy wife of Hal (Alec Baldwin), a conniving, mega-rich Manhattan financier. Having changed her name from the more prosaic Jeanette many years ago, she’s a svelte, self-absorbed, snobbish Upper East Side socialite who lives on Park Avenue and spends weekends in the Hamptons. But her lavish lifestyle falls apart when she
discovers Hal’s investment banking is not only dishonest but also he’s a habitual philanderer. When he’s sent to prison and the government re-possesses everything, pampered Jasmine has no choice but to pack her monogrammed Vuitton bags and relocate to San Francisco. Moving in with her adopted sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins), a hard-working grocery store clerk/single mother with two
young sons, unhinged Jasmine self-medicates with vodka and tranquilizers. Financially forced into taking a ‘menial’ job as a dentist’s receptionist, humbled-yet-conflicted Jasmine yearns for the affluent life and to become someone ‘substantial’ again. That’s when she meets Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard), a wealthy  widower/diplomat with political aspirations.

As she gradually slides from grace, luminous Cate Blanchett is masterful, playing her fluttering, delusional, Chanel-clad character with exquisitely fluid precision, while writer/director
Woody Allen adroitly alternates between Jasmine’s memory flashbacks and reality in two distinct timelines.  Like “Crimes and Misdemeanors” and “Match Point, the tone eloquently drifts from light
comedy to dark, psychological melodrama. It’s a cleverly adventurous concept, skillfully done, often evoking comparisons with Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’  “Streetcar Named Desire.” Allen’s
casting is superb, including supporting, caricatured turns by Andrew Dice Clay, Michael Stuhlbarg, Louis C.K. and Bobby Cannavale – and the soundtrack features the Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart 1934 ballad “Blue Moon.”

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Blue Jasmine” is an unsettling, insightful 9. Woody
Allen is 78 years old; this is his 48^th film – and one of his best.

Susan Granger’s review of “2 Guns” (Universal Pictures)

What do you get if you combine two trigger-happy movie stars with lots of weaponry? This summer’s latest variation on the formulaic, mismatched buddy-cop genre in which a pair of bank robbers are, unbeknownst to each other, actually working as undercover government agents.

A cool professional, Robert ‘Bobby Beans’ Trench (Denzel Washington) is dispatched to infiltrate a Mexican drug cartel led by ruthless Papi Greco (Edward James Almos), while impulsive Marcus ‘Stig’ Stigman (Mark Wahlberg) is a Naval Intelligence operative assigned to steal from narcotics suppliers so that the money can be filtered into a fund used for Navy SEAL black-ops missions across the border. But then a bungled bank heist reveals their mutual deception, leaving them rejected by their respective organizations and tracked by Earl (Bill Paxton), a ruthless Southern enforcer who is determined to get back the missing $43 million and resorts to unorthodox Russian roulette.

Based on Steven Grant’s Boom! Studios five-issue comic book series, illustrated by Mateus Santolouco,  it’s simplistically adapted by Blake Masters (creator of Showtime’s “Brotherhood”) and directed by Icelandic actor-turned-filmmaker Baltasar Kormakur (“Contraband”) with emphasis on brutal, action-filled shootouts, explosions and car chases.  What works is the bickering bantering, the comedic macho camaraderie.  What doesn’t work is the absurdly convoluted plot that’s so filled with nefarious complications and double-crosses that it stops making any sense at all. Confusion reigns until the climactic confrontation at Papi’s ranch in Mexico. As the only notable female character,
Paula Patton plays Bobby’s duplicitous DEA cuddle/colleague who contributes some gratuitous nudity. And advocates against animal cruelty will be appalled by the stupid, sadistic ‘sport’ shooting of chickens that are buried in the ground up to their necks.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “2 Guns” triggers a flummoxed, forgettable 5. Bang!
Bang! Boring.

Susan Granger’s review of “Elysium” (TriStar Pictures)

Poverty, racism and social class inequality are creatively propelling issues for 33 year-old South
African-born writer/director Neill Blomkamp, who catapulted into the limelight with his first feature, “District 9” (2009), an apartheid parable nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Set in Los Angeles in 2154, this action-thriller depicts Earth with two distinct societies. Most
of the population is forced to live and work in sprawling, crime-riddled slums on the squalid, overpopulated, polluted planet, while the very wealthy dwell on a luxurious space station called Elysium, hovering high above. When an ex-con/factory worker, Max (Matt Damon), is exposed to fatal radiation, the only way he and his childhood orphanage friend, Frey (Alice Braga), a nurse with
a leukemia-stricken daughter, can survive is to get on a shuttle to Elysium, where medical re atomizers heal all ailments instantly. With only five days left to live, Max teams up with a sleazy gangster, Spider (Wagner Moura), gets fitted with a protective, metallic exoskeleton, and taps into the brain of a corrupt corporate executive, John Carlyle (William Fichtner), in order to
download secret data to overthrow Elysium’s autocratic Defense Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) and her sadistic henchman, Kruger (Sharlto Copley), and open the celestial sanctuary to the suffering masses of humanity.

Making a strong, if heavy-handed, political statement, Neill Blomkamp’s FX visuals are innovative and dazzling but the story is so frustratingly illogical, irrational and fragmented by repeated flashbacks that it’s impossible to suspend disbelief.  According to “Entertainment Weekly,” Blomkamp’s inspiration was a visit to an impoverished area of Tijuana, where hapless Mexicans watched floodlights across the border in the U.S., and he based his Elysium concept on Beverly Hills and Malibu.

Exuding sheer determination as the compassionate, Spanish-speaking Everyman, Matt Damon miraculously survives most of the maudlin mayhem. Armani-clad Jodie Foster speaks flawless French as the cold, calculating villain, but “District 9’s” Sharlto Copley’s garbled Dutch-inflected dialogue is almost impossible to decipher.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Elysium” is an energetic, if sociologically simplistic 6, another violent, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi spectacle.

Susan Granger’s review of “The Wolverine” (20^th Century-Fox)

Set in Japan, this latest installment in the X-Men series is elevated above the ordinary comic-book adaptation by the charismatic ferocity of buffed-up Hugh Jackman, now in his sixth reprise of the indestructible, mutton-chopped, metal-clawed mutant.

As his story begins, Logan (a.k.a. Wolverine) is alone in the Yukon wilderness, haunted by tortured
dreams about Jean Gray (Famke Janssen), the woman he loved-and-killed.  One night in a bar, after he takes revenge on a cowardly hunter who poisoned a grizzly bear, he’s accosted by Yukio (Rila
Fukushima), a mysterious, sword-wielding martial artist who has been dispatched by Tokyo industrialist Shingen Yashida, whose life Logan saved at a P.O.W. camp during the 1945 bombing of Nagasaki at the end of W.W.II.  Yashida is dying and wishes to bid a final farewell. Or, at least, that’s what Logan is told. In actuality, Yashida covets Logan’s immortality, precipitating a family feud as Japanese gangsters, the Yakuza, threaten Yashida’s granddaughter, Mariko (Tao Okamoto), who has been designated to take over his empire.  Brooding, glowering Logan is determined to protect Mariko not only from them but also from her avaricious father, ambitious fiancé and Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova), a mutant geneticist.

Since the Logan/Wolverine’s backstory was established in “X-Men Origins; Wolverine,” screenwriters Mark Bomback and Scott Frank have utilized a romantic encounter lifted from a 1982
Marvel saga by Chris Claremont, illustrated by Frank Miller. Director James Mangold (“3:10 to Yuma,” “Walk the Line”) and cinematographer Ross Emery stage several spectacular action sequences, the most exciting atop a bullet train speeding at 300 m.p.h., although the 3D postproduction conversion doesn’t add much, even when bands of ninja warriors swoop in for a snowy, climactic ambush.

FYI: while Disney now owns much of the Marvel group, 20^th Century-Fox maintains the rights to the Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Wolverine and the X-Men franchise.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Wolverine” slashes a sharp 7 – and be sure to stay
through the credits for a teasing glimpse of next year’s “X-Men: Days of Future Past.”

Susan Granger’s review of “RED 2” (Summit Entertainment)

“RED” is an acronym for “Retired, Extremely Dangerous,” a designation that aptly suits the former
secret agents/trained assassins who are reunited after the surprising success of their 2010 caper.

Bruce Willis returns as retired CIA black ops expert Frank Moses, who’s trying to live a quiet life with his excitement-craving, much-younger girl-friend, Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker).  While pushing a shopping cart at Costco, Frank’s alerted by his wacky cohort Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich) that they’re being targeted to retrieve a long lost Cold War-era nuclear device called Nightshade, hidden somewhere in the world.  That’s confirmed by a phone call from sharpshooting
MI6 Victoria (Helen Mirren), who’s been assigned to kill them, and reinforced by the appearance of a dangerous Korean hit man named Han (martial arts expert Byung-hun Lee, familiar from “G.I. Joe”).

So they’re off to find Edward Bailey (Anthony Hopkins), the deviously deranged scientist who designed the deadly weapon of mass destruction; he’s been incarcerated by the Brits in a locked ward for the criminally insane for the past 32 years. Joining them is sultry Catherine Zeta- Jones as Katja, a seductive Russian spy, along with Brian Cox as amorous Ivan, Victoria’s Kremlin suitor. A Frenchman (David Thewlis) known as the Frog briefly diverts them, while CIA bad guy Jack Horton (Neal McDonough) constantly menaces.

Based on DC Comics graphic novels by Warren Ellis and Cully Hammer, it’s a thinly-plotted thriller by screenwriting brothers Jon and Erich Hoeber and directed by Dean Parisot, who helmed the hilariously satirical “Galaxy Quest” back in 1999.  Humor takes precedence over logic, as the intrepid senior spies dash from one escapade to another. While it’s hard to take your eyes off scene-stealing Helen Mirren, Mary-Louise Parker shows surprising comedic timing, seething with jealousy when Frank is dazzled by Katja, whom Marvin describes as “Frank’s Kryptonite.” The amusingly droll relationship banter between protective Willis, paranoid Malkovich and adventurous Parker propels
the pace.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “RED 2” is a sly, savvy 7, a classy, globe-trotting
action comedy for baby-boomers.

Susan Granger’s DVD Update for week of Fri., July 26:

Set in the Philippines, “Graceland” is an unpredictable, tightly-paced thriller in which a family man (Arnold Reyes), longtime chauffeur to a corrupt Filipino politician (Menggie Cobarrubias), is ambushed while driving both his boss’s 12 year-old girl and his own daughter home from school. Confusion reigns as the ‘wrong’ girl is kidnapped and both families are forced into a downward spiral of deceit and betrayal.

Xan Cassavetes’ (daughter of director John and actress Gena Rowlands) erotic “Kiss of the Damned” revolves around a beautiful vampire (Josephine de La Baume) whose relationship with a handsome, human screenwriter (Milo Ventimiglia) is threatened when her troublemaking sister (Roxane Mesquida) arrives unexpectedly for a visit.

“Welcome to the Punch” is the story of two arch-nemeses:  a detective (James McAvoy) and a master criminal (Mark Strong) whose paths cross in London’s rejuvenated East End and the banking center of Canary Wharf.

In French with English subtitles, Ken Scott’s comedy “Starbuck” has nothing to do with coffee and everything to do with redefining the concept of family. David Wozniak (Patrick Huard), who delivers meat for his father’s Montreal butchery, made 693 donations to a sperm bank between 1988 and 1990 that resulted in 533 births. Suddenly, a class-action suit is filed by 142 offspring, demanding to know his identity.

In Korean with English subtitles and winner of the Golden Lion at the 2012 Venice Film Festival,
“Pieta” is South Korean director Kim Ki-duk’s brutal, perverse, unnerving revenge film in which a strange woman (Cho Minsoo) stalks a merciless Seoul loan shark (Lee Jung-jin), claiming to be his long-lost mother.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Danny Boyle’s trippy, intriguing “Trance” is a surreal, cleverly ambiguous brain-teaser that begins with a London fine art auctioneer (James McAvoy) explaining  the elaborate precautions that galleries practice to protect their multi-million dollar paintings. But when a Goya
masterpiece is stolen, he’s the prime suspect. Problem is: he cannot remember anything – which leads him to a hypnotherapist (Rosario Dawson) who offers to help him try to recover his memory.

Susan Granger’s review of “The Conjuring” (New Line Cinema/Warner Bros.)

Living in Fairfield County, there are few people who haven’t heard of Ed and Lorraine Warren, the renowned “Amityville” demonologists who, back in 1952, founded the New England Society for Psychic Research. Over the years, they’ve assembled an Occult Museum at their home in Monroe, CT, housing a collection of “dangerous” artifacts connected to black witchcraft, sorcery and curses. Based on a true story about one of their earlier exploits, it begins with the Annabel doll, a conduit
for malevolent forces.

After Roger (Ron Livingston) and Carolyn (Lili Taylor) Perron bought an old, secluded farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island, in 1971, they and their five young daughters were terrorized by bizarre, supernatural encounters with a dark, inhuman presence – until they sought help from paranormal investigators Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga), who explained the three demonic stages:  infestation, oppression and possession.

Aptly directed by James Wan (“Insidious,” “Saw”) from a somewhat disjointed screenplay by Chad Hayes & Carey W. Hayes (“The Reaping”), there are horrifying night terrors and a suspenseful investigation into the creepy, creaking cellar, inexplicably using flickering matches instead of flashlights – until the obligatory exorcism in which Lili Taylor turns into Linda Blair, spewing blood and invectives while suspended, upside down, from the ceiling as “The Birds” circle menacingly outside.

FYI: for almost 50 years, the deeply religious Warrens have been obsessed with ghost hunting and filming poltergeists, often in coordination with members of the clergy. A  WWII Navy vet and former police officer, Ed led the investigations, working with Lorraine, a light trance medium who reportedly perceives spirits that exist on a different vibrational field. Their work was the basis for the TV movie “The Haunting” (1991) and the feature film “The Haunting in Connecticut” (2009). For more about the Warrens, go to http://www.ghostvillage.com/legends/warrens.html

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Conjuring” is a silly, scary 6. But I’ll bet you’ll have second thoughts if anyone suggests playing Hide ’n’ Clap after seeing this horror thriller.

Susan Granger’s review of “Turbo” (DreamWorks/20^th Century Fox)

It’s a “Fast and Furious” animated comedy, as a tiny garden snail yearns to race in the Indy 500.

While daredevil Turbo (Ryan Reynolds) and his cautious, older brother Chet (Paul Giamatti) toil at the Tomato Plant, Turbo’s passion is speed. Firmly believing the credo of French-Canadian superstar racer Guy Gagne (SNL’s Bill Hader), “No dream is too big – no dreamer too small,” Turbo ventures into the outside world, where he’s swept off a freeway overpass onto the hood of a sports car. As he’s sucked into the air
intake valve, nitrous oxide explodes every atom of his body, changing his molecular structure. Suddenly, he’s fast, really fast, blazing through the streets of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley like a neon bullet.

Then, Turbo and Chet are captured by Tito Lopez (Michael Pena), who – with his brother Angelo (Luis Guzman) – runs the “Dos Bros” taco truck at the Starlight Plaza, a Van Nuys strip mall. Tito’s hobby is snail-racing, so Turbo joins the Racing Snails –
Whiplash (Samuel L. Jackson), Smoove Move (Snoop Dogg), Burn (Maya Rudolf),
Skidmark (Ben Schwartz) and White Shadow (Mike Bell) – whose tricked-out shells
look like mini-street racing cars. With the es-car-goes as his pit crew and the financial support of Starlight shop owners (Michelle Rodriguez, Ken Jeong, Richard Jenkins), Turbo begins his tenacious trek to the Indy 500, where he learns that persistence is what pays off in the end.

This determined underdog story intertwines the parallel lives of two sets of brothers, and the inventive use of 3D actually enhances the snails’ vulnerability. Since the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.5-mile track draws more than 250,000 spectators, that posed the greatest challenge: lots of seats filled with digital people.
According to director/co-screenwriter David Soren, animators created a card
system allowing them to blend fully modeled, three-dimensional, cheering crowds
with flat cards of more crowds. In one shot, there are 478,000 characters.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Turbo” is a sweet, endearing 8, an astonishing, fun-filled adventure for adrenaline junkies of all ages.