[Review] Earth to Echo
I've never been a huge fan of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. Sure it paved the way for lighter science fiction films (and help popularize TV shows like Alf, Mork & Mindy, and most of later 80s wacky sitcoms), but for as much wonder the film had, E.T.'s design itself is dreadfully ugly. As a child I wasn't a fan of the walking poop monster, but I liked what the film represented. It encapsulated childhood with a point of view kids really could connect with. But through the years, science fiction films have lost that zazz, that childlike mystery. Every film about aliens and kids now is a cynical mess that's tantalizing in theory only.
That's why Earth to Echo piqued my interest. A found footage film about a group of kids stumbling on an alien? And it's only rated PG? That meant I'd be able to enjoy it without waiting for the other cynical foot to drop. Thankfully, Earth to Echo delivers on that promise.
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Earth to Echo
Director: Dave Green
Rating: PG
Release Date: July 2, 2014
Earth to Echo is about a group of neighborhood kids whose lives are going through some dramatic changes. Alex (Teo Halm), Tuck (Brian "Astro" Bradley), and Munch (Reese Hartwig) are best friends who are being forced to separate when they're neighborhood is being torn down for a new highway. When a mysterious electronic signal makes their phones "barf," the trio decide to use their last night all together to track down where it came from. When the trio find the source of it all, a small electronic alien they name "Echo," the resulting adventure leads them on the wildest night of their young lives.
I'm usually not an advocate of found footage films due to wild perspective changes and excuses for shoddy work, and unfortunately, Earth to Echo isn't a strong argument for the genre either. Although the reason Tuck carries around a camera the entire film makes sense (he's a kid with a YouTube account who wants more hits), it leaves so many questions unanswered. How can a 12 year old kid afford multiple GoPro cameras? How can he afford spy glasses with cameras built into them? Sure there's a nice kid friendly logic that permeates through the film (suggesting you're not supposed to pay close attention to this stuff), but it's these little technical details that take you out of the moment. It's hard to stay invested in a scene when the POV is constantly shifting between the many cameras these kids have at their disposal. The worse part of this is there's an explanation for this that adds a nice layer of realism (the film is Tuck simply editing all of his videos together on his desktop), but it's completely dropped shortly after it's brought up.
To be fair, the real bulk of the film isn't concerned with how the story's being filmed but the content. And on that front, Earth to Echo is just wonderful. Although the dialogue can be a bit heavy handed when delivering plot details (there's a scene where Tuck just repeats the next beat of the story over and over until the kids actually do it) and it has something against silence (no room to soak in the atmosphere as someone needs to say something at all times or they explode probably), these kids all sound and behave like real kids. There're subtle bits like when Tuck is filming a particularly interesting scene he yells, "Hey Munch, get out of my shot!" or every one of Munch's lines being delivered with a lovable awkwardness (such as when they lie to their parents about their plans for the evening). And Brian "Astro" Bradley is not only a former X-Factor contestant, he can act. The script doesn't admittedly ask much of him, but he's miles ahead of the other three kids in the ensemble (with Ella Wahlestedt being especially awful).
Earth to Echo really captures the essence of discovery. The plot may only be thinly stitched together fetch quests, but it's entirely nostalgic because of its sincerity. Reminiscent of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, the alien Echo just wants to get home (and it's much better designed), and even when generic government officials step in (complete with wonderfully awful dialogue), the goal remains the same. It's light hearted, the stakes are only as big as a PG rating (or a kid's narrow point of view) allows, and it follows through on one of the bigger plot lines set in the beginning. It's not always acted out or filmed in the best manner, but the story is genuinely entertaining. It's rare that I get swept up in a movie like this, but I sure love when it happens. I just wish the rest of the film was as good as Echo's animation is. Seriously, the visual effects are pretty great.
Earth to Echo is full of more problems than I'd personally like, but it's not necessarily bad. It's something to watch with the kids that won't bore you to death, will entertain you as long as you don't constantly question why things happen, and it's a movie where kids are kids instead of shells full of lines written by a 40- year-old man.
Earth to Matilda, this is a good movie.
[Trailer] Horrible Bosses 2
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Horrible Bosses is an interesting comedy. It's not particularly funny or groundbreaking, but it's entirely memorable because it's one of the few times Jennifer Aniston gets desperately half naked for a film. Also, it brought together a trio of good folks who had a nice rapport with one another. I laughed a bit (namely at Charlie Day singing a Ting Tings song), liked the premise enough, and was fine when they announced the inevitable sequel, Horrible Bosses 2.
Horrible Bosses 2 brings the gang back together (Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day, and Jason Bateman) as they plan to kidnap a rich guy's son (Chris Pine) when he refuses to invest in their start up company. This first trailer is fine, and has some pep (namely the kicker at the end), but hopefully we'll get more substance in later trailers.
Horrible Bosses 2 releases November 26th. Here's a handy synopsis:
Fed up with answering to higher-ups, Nick, Dale and Kurt decide to become their own bosses by launching their own business in “Horrible Bosses 2.” But a slick investor soon pulls the rug out from under them. Outplayed and desperate, and with no legal recourse, the three would-be entrepreneurs hatch a misguided plan to kidnap the investor’s adult son and ransom him to regain control of their company.
[Trailer] Mall
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Now that Linkin Park is no longer the headlining band for the Transformers series (as Imagine Dragons takes that crown), it's time for them to find something else to do within the cinemascape. Their search has led them to Mall, a terribly generic and frankly awful looking film. Maybe I'm being a bit too harsh given that this is only the first trailer, but nothing about this screams "must see."
Directed by Joseph Hahn of Linkin Park (who's done a few of their music videos, actually), Mall is about five people who come together during a shooting spree in a shopping mall...although you probably couldn't tell since the trailer sees fit to have so many weird music video effects like after images and bad character design. Hey, maybe the final product won't be so bad? I don't have high hopes, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
Mall releases into theaters (?) this fall.
English Remake of Audition in The Works
For those of you who don't know of Ryu Murakami's novel, Audition, you might be more familiar with Takashi Miike's adaptation. That film, which went on to be a cult hit, is about a widower who starts a fake audition process in order to find another love. When he finally chooses a woman, he gets a one way ticket to crazy town (instead of the more popular Funkytown). Miike's adaptation has some of the most hair tingling scenes in film, and it looks like someone in the US wants to attempt to do the same.
According to Deadline, Mario Kassar (Rambo, Terminator) wants to produce and English language version of the story with a US setting. And from the looks of the logline, it seems only the names have been changed:
In this version, to be directed by Richard Gray (The Lookalike), Audition‘s unlucky protagonist is Sam Davis, who lives alone with his son following the death of his wife seven years prior and is convinced by a filmmaker friend to stage the fake auditions. The former ballerina with a mysterious past he falls for is now named Evie Lawrence, but otherwise details fall closely in line with Murakami’s best-seller.
If the US version is just a straight remake of Miike's adaptation without taking liberties of its own, then we'd have a problem. Either way, I'm sure it's going to be chilling. We'll have more news as this develops.
[via Deadline]
[Review] Transformers: Age of Extinction
The Transformers films and I have a sordid past. While I'm not a big fan of the property (my only knowledge of the series comes from a slim memory of the Beast Wars/Beast Machines cartoons on Fox Kids), the first Transformers was my initial break into nerd films and their hype machines. It was the first film I bought a poster for, the first film where I had watched every trailer, and the first film where I anticipated a sequel. While others walked away confused, I loved the heck out of it. But two dubious sequels later, the Transformers name doesn't garner as much good will as it used to.
But when the first trailer for Transformers: Age of Extinction released, I let myself get wrapped up in the hype machine again. Regardless of their overall quality, the Transformers series is always a visual feast. I knew going in that even if I didn't like what anyone was saying or doing, it was going to look super rad.
Thankfully, if all you're looking for is slick looking action and shiny things without caring whether or not Transformers has things like "plot," "pacing," or "characters" than you're going to have a great time. Just be willing to sit for three hours.
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Transformers: Age of Extinction
Director: Michael Bay
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: June 27, 2014
Transformers: Age of Extinction takes place several years after the events of the third film, Dark of the Moon. Gone are the plucky Sam Witwicky and his family, and in their place we have a small town inventor from "Texas, USA (Yes, that's really the location)" Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg), his daughter whose name I forget (Nicola Peltz), and her boyfriend whose Irish but lives in Texas who also races cars for some reason (Jack Reynor). Because of the destruction in Chicago during the Autobots and Decepticons' last battle, the US government, headed by Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) has begun hunting down all the robots for their materials. When Cade stumbles upon Optimus, a larger and more befuddling plot is revealed. To go into further detail than that, I'd have to use the entire length of this review.
If it seems like I'm being overtly harsh on Trans4mers from the get go, that's because it hardly even cares about itself. I'll be blunt here. While not as bad as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Age of Extinction is a shoddy mess of a final product. It's like Bay took criticisms of the first few films to heart and fixed some problems, but then decided to add a whole host of brand new issues. It's just haphazardly thrown together into a Frankenstein's monster of focus group decisions, corporate branding, cartoon fandom, and toy sales. To be fair, that's technically what the rest of the series is, but for some reason it's far more noticeable here. The tone is more cynical than before.
The "plot" is just several thousand locations thrown around aimlessly. It's chaotic and almost entirely random how we'll go from an Alien spaceship to Optimus Prime and Cade having a little chat about the struggles of parenting. The more interesting aspect of all of these locations, however, is how "Anti-American" the entire film feels. I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but underneath the overt need to please its overseas Chinese audience, we have a wonderful film where America is the bad guy. Taking the same eschewed American Dream mentality from Bay's Pain & Gain, Kelsey Grammer's Attinger (and his "I will protect America" rants) makes America the bad guy. When you contrast the final shot of Dark of the Moon with the American flag billowing proudly in the background to Attinger's speech about creating American products to save American lives in the middle of a Chinese factory, it's almost as if Bay is giving a little wink to let you know he's in on the joke.
But that'd be giving Age of Extinction too much credit. One of the biggest issues audiences have had with the last few films are the humans. That's exactly the same issue here. In fact, Extinction seems to think throwing more humans in there will fix the problem. Mark Wahlberg does have the charisma of a leading man, but he's totally out of place as a genius, yet super ripped inventor. Nicola Peltz is there to be window dressing as her scantily clad self slow motion runs from one dangerous situation to another (which gets all the creepier when the film makes a point to emphasize she's a minor), Jack Reynor comes off as a total jerk when he's supposed to be the "cocky guy" type, Stanley Tucci tries to make it work but comes across as goofy, and Kelsey Grammer has played better villains. With Grammer, we got more Sideshow Mel than Sideshow Bob. Okay so the humans are bad, but what about the Transformers? They have to be cool, right? Robot dinosaurs are cool, huh?
The designs of the Transformers themselves are much slicker than in series past, and go very well with the film's darker tone. And although he's spitting mostly nonsense, Peter Cullen brings a heft to Optimus Prime that no one else can. In fact, Cullen's voice work is so great, I kind of want another Transformers film just to hear him scream "I'll kill you!" again. The weird standout, however, is John Goodman as the newest Autobot, Hound. Replacing the human comic relief character, Hound is a one-liner spewing machine. This would've been fine had any of those one liners actually worked. Every scene he's in he says about three thousand words, and by hour three of this whole debacle I was hoping he'd bite the bullet. Oh, that's right. Transformers: Age of Extinction is a bloated two hours and 45 minutes.
Remember how I mentioned Age of Extinction seemed like a cynical sequel? That also goes with the technical stuff. Bay is a maestro of explosions and I was expecting some good looking ones here, but there's an odd hiccup with a lot of them. It might've been the switch to IMAX cameras, but there are a few golden spots that undergo a dip in quality when action is blurred (as Bay didn't shoot full scenes with IMAX and instead focused on a few key shots). And as good as the action might look, it's very hard to stay invested when the last 45 minutes are a nonstop action sequence featuring characters you don't care about. When you think the film's over (and it even gives you a suitable ending), it just keeps on going. Dinobots and proper film editing be damned, Age of Extinction did not need to be this long.
At the end of the day, Transformers: Age of Extinction is yet another Transformers film we'll all see. And it should be the last. For fans, they'll enjoy the darker tone, will accept that an alien bounty hunter who hates Earth is also a Lamborghini, and will get a kick out of the dinosaur robots when the rest of us want to go home already.
Transformers: Age of Extinction will truly test your mettle. Ask yourself a few questions. How valuable is your time? How important is that ten or fifteen dollars you'd spend on a ticket? Are cool cars enough for you?
It truly is the "age of extinction" for the Transformers series. Let's bury it once and for all.
[Trailer] The Prince
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Remember when Bruce Willis headlining a movie was a sign of quality? Sure Red and Red 2 have their charms, but it seems the years haven't been kind. The more and more I see of him, the more he seems tuned out in every film he's in. I'm sure he might be tired of the action genre (and thus shows his fatigue in his performances), but he also doesn't shy away from them either. Which is why the first trailer for his latest film, The Prince is mindboggling.
The Prince stars not Bruce Willis, but Jason Patric as a 40/50 something year old man who fights to take back his daughter after she's been kidnapped by a crime lord (Bruce Willis). So it's basically a less fun, low budget version of Taken (featuring 50 Cent for some reason). If it were releasing to something other than Video On Demand, I'd be more inclined to criticize, but I'll let the trailer speak for itself.
Bruce Willis needs a paycheck when The Prince releases on VOD (and limited theaters) August 22nd.
North Korea Declares The Interview an "Act of War"
Whoa, this might be getting serious. North Korea has gone from badmouthing Seth Rogen and James Franco's latest film, The Interview (where the two play a talk show host and producer hired to assassinate the North Korean Dictator, Kim Jong-un), a few days ago to outright declaring war on America. Earlier today, a spokesman for N. Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs had the following statement for the film:
If the United States administration tacitly approves or supports the release of this film, we will take a decisive and merciless countermeasure...[the film] is the most blatant act of terrorism and an act of war that we will never tolerate.
While this is certainly frightening, it also isn't the first time North Korea has gotten mad at someone speaking up against the regime. Threats like these seem to come out of their news everyday since the government controls the media. This also isn't the first time an American film openly mocked North Korea (Team America: World Police being one of the more famous examples) and nothing happened then. So until Jong-un speaks for himself, I think we're okay. But as they say, it's all fun and games until the nuclear apocalypse.
The Interview releases October 10th.
[via New York Times]
[Trailer] The Wedding Ringer
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Kevin Hart's been on quite an upswing lately. I may not be a fan of his particular brand of yelling/comedy, but it's definitely hard to ignore the man's presence in almost every media within the last few months. Here's the first trailer for a film coming next year, The Wedding Ringer, a film I already don't like because the title reminds me of a better film, The Wedding Singer.
The Wedding Ringer stars Josh Gad as a guy with no friends who's getting married. He goes to an agency and hires Kevin Hart to be his Best Man. And then shenanigans happen. Sorry if you wanted a more in depth synopsis, but there doesn't seem to be a lot here. To be fair, I did laugh at some of the gags (the Goonies joke) but as the trailer rolled on I didn't like where it ended up. But maybe you do. Different strokes, different folks.
The Wedding Ringer releases January 16, 2015.