Review: Away We Go

If there’s one genre of movie I despise, it’s the indie “comedy.” In these movies, the main characters lie constantly and for no reason, they have Wes Anderson-like quirks and aren’t funny at all. Fortunately, “Away We Go” avoids this path and ends up being an extremely enjoyable, and funny, movie.

“Away We Go” starts off with the funniest pregnancy discovery I’ve ever seen, and from there, it moves on to tell the story of Burt and Veronica (John Krasinski of “The Office” and Maya Rudolph of “Saturday Night Live”). After Burt’s parents decide to move to Europe, the couple decides to make their own change of venue.

So after weighing where to live their life, they decide to go on a road trip through Arizona, Wisconsin and Canada. At each stop they run in to a family organized in a different way, making Burt and Veronica to ask if that is the kind of family they want to be.

From start to finish, “Away We Go” has its own style. Krasinski’s bearded and bespectacled character starts out as a bit of a Andersonian character, deciding that he’s going to whittle, just so his son can find him whittling on the front porch. Luckily he evolves past his quirks and becomes a very likable character who yells at his girlfriend jokingly to raise the baby’s heart rate.

Each one of the characters the couple visit offer a different angle for the couple, but unlike last year’s “Four Christmases”, they aren’t drawn out stereotypes. Allison Janney of “Juno” steals the show early on by insulting her daughter and bragging about how incredibly large her breasts were before she had kids. Comedian Jim Gaffigan, Jeff Daniels, Maggie Gyllenhaal and a number of lesser known stars all work wonderfully as the extended family of Burt and Veronica.

The dialogue is also great, thanks to the husband and wife writing team of Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. The balance between the charming and the comical is pitch perfect, moving one time from a stuffed animal play to a serious discussion about the couple’s future without missing a beat, and each scene is written without so much as a hit of bad dialogue.

Director Sam Mendes (“American Beauty”, “Revolutionary Road”) does a great job in his first feature comedy. The way he handles the mix of emotions, the large cast and the strange mash-up of characters should have his critics backing off for awhile.

The last comedy of this caliber that I can remember, in both its dramatic and comedic elements, was “Juno.” This won’t be as wide in its audience, but is easily as enjoyable as the 2007 hit, even if its ending is a bit simple.

Review: Land of the Lost

In Hollywood’s attempt to remake every TV show, movie, play or YouTube video, the executives at Universal stumbled upon the 1970’s children’s show “Land of the Lost.” Just write a goofy script, plug in Will Ferrel and bam, there’s your movie. Luckily the movie isn’t quite that simplistic, but it won’t be setting off a new generation of loopy time travelers.

Mad man scientist Dr. Rick Marshall (Will Ferrell) is in a shameful state after being dissed by Matt Lauer on the Today Show. His wallowing stops when British scientist Holly Cantrell reveals proof that his seemingly insane theories have merit. So the two head to a small theme park in the middle of the desert, where their “guide”, Will, takes them to the spot, which just so happens to be in a haunted water ride. Chaos ensues and the group are transported to the Land of the Lost, an area stuck in between time.

Don’t let the word scientist fool you, because this movie isn’t too smart. Relying almost exclusively on dim humor, “Land of the Lost” keeps it simple stupidly. It’s humor is sometimes funny, but mostly just amusing. It also enjoys being on the edge of going too far in its dim-witted attempts, but never crosses the line. But oh, it gets so close.

There’s a “King Kong” feel to the world, with everything being over-sized. Dinosaurs, mosquitos and even crabs are bigger than their Earthly counterparts. The crab, rather hysterically, gets blown up and eaten by the group while the mosquito sucks a fatal amount of blood out of Ferrel, but without consequence.

Rounding out the cast are British native Anna Friel (from ABC’s “Pushing Daisies”) and Danny McBride (“Pineapple Express”). The group ends up working as a good comedy team. Friel is masked by her natural accent and is generally the meat in cheese in the Ferrel-McBride sandwich. Both of the leading men are goofy, but in different ways. Where Ferrel gets to be, well, Will Ferrel, McBride is a bit more of a lone redneck ranger who doesn’t trust people in tunics.

There isn’t much action to speak of, but there are a handful of chase scenes involving a very sensitive T-Rex. It’s not exactly designed to look perfectly realistic, but then again it is a comedy. The CGI does the trick and looks colorful, but is sure to keep the focus on the comedy.

“Land of the Lost” won’t knock you out like it’s competition this week, “The Hangover”, but it is an enjoyable movie. So if you’re not tired of Will Ferrel movies yet, it might just be worthwhile to check this one out, but being in a goofy mood might help.

Review: My Life in Ruins

According to Nia Vardalos’ character Georgia, “2,500 years ago, Greece was a place of philosophy, art and democracy… then they discovered the nap.” You too will discover the nap should you decide to take incredibly boring trip to Greece that is “My Life in Ruins.”

With the entire country of Greece as its backdrop, “Ruins” follows Georgia, a college history professor turned tour guide, who is at the brink of having a gigantic breakdown. Her tourist groups are always the worst, as are her bus and driver. Her applications to universities in Greece and the U.S. are ignored, and everything else is just going wrong.

One of my cardinal sins of writing is to point out stereotypes before a character is even given a chance to utter a line of dialogue. “My Life in Ruins” breaks this rule in the first five minutes and with all of the supporting characters. ALL of them. If you’re making your characters stereotypes, we don’t need you to tell us what their stereotypes are. That’s why they’re stereotypes!

What’s even more unforgivable is the fact that none of these stereotypes are used effectively in the movie. They’re never funny and they never creep out of their three foot shell that their stereotype sets up. The only person in the group who has any depth of character is Irv, played by Richard Dreyfuss, but even he is all too prone to being put in a box at times.

All of this might be somewhat forgiving if the main character was somewhat amicable. Instead, she complains constantly and wouldn’t command the respect of the most curious amateur historian, let alone the ignorant group of American tourists who are more focused on finding cheap trinkets and ice cream than realizing they are at the cradle of modern society.

Those looking for an update on “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” will be sorely disappointed, and a big reason for is that all of the producers are now executive producers, meaning they weren’t as intimately involved in the story. Vardalos, who wrote the 2002 indie hit, is replaced by Mike Reiss and director Donald Petrie replaces Joel Zwick.

“My Life in Ruins” is all over the place and a complete miscue that isn’t really likable except in select scenes where Richard Dreyfus appears. Avoid this movie if you can because there’s very little to enjoy in this movie full of stereotypes and horrid dialogue. Sorry gals, but this summer isn’t looking good for you.

Review: Drag Me to Hell

Sam Raimi may be the best tongue and cheek director of all time. The whimsical, goofy and American as apple pie tone he put on all three of the Spider-Man and the ridiculousness of his Evil Dead franchise are perfect examples of the mastery Raimi has over his movies. With “Drag Me to Hell”, Raimi does it again, this time by perfectly fusing together a straight-faced horror movie with the tongue and cheek that he is known for.

Christine Brown (Alison Lohman, “Big Fish”) is young, gorgeous and on her way to living a full and happy life. All of this comes to a screeching halt when she crosses the disturbingly disfigured Mrs. Ganush, who tries to get an extension on her loan for her house at Christine’s work. Christine’s boss lets her make the decision and, thinking about how her kindhearted nature could hold her back from a promotion, denies the loan, prompting the elder Ganush to place a curse on our heroine, but not before an extensive and hilarious battle in a parking garage.

The bulk of the movie’s humor comes in the torment of Christine, which more often than not involves vomiting directly in the young loan officer’s mouth. Seriously, it happens over and over again, and it never gets old. The other crutch for the humor comes from Christine’s willingness to remove the curse, including the sacrifice of a small animal after she tells her spiritual adviser in the movie, psychic Rham Jas, that she is a vegetarian.  As the curse wears on her psyche, the lengths she’s willing to go get more extreme, but also funnier.

Possibly the most surprising aspect of the movie is how despite the shots of humor, “Drag Me to Hell” is still very much a horror movie. There are a handful of scary moments in the movie and plenty of tense scenes where Raimi lets the tension of the scene build, working slowly and methodically. The balance between these scenes is flawless, delivering both experiences simultaneously and without feeling like two separate movies.

The cast, headed by Lohman and Justin Long (who plays Christine’s boyfriend), works out well and deliver in their respective roles. Lohman, who must have always had a truck load of breath mints nearby for the vomiting scenes, transforms through the movie from a young and kind-hearted girl to one willing to hand off the curse to one of her nemeses, cursing them to eternal torment in hell. Her tormentors also are great and have to have spent hours in getting makeup applied to look the way they did, because they all look terrifying if they were to be put directly in front of you like they are to Christine.

“Drag Me to Hell” is a perfect example of how to do a great horror movie. Not too serious, not too tongue and cheek, but just the right balance. The PG-13 rating doesn’t hinder the movie, but instead lets a younger generation get a taste of how the horror genre should be done from Sam Raimi.

Review: Terminator Salvation

After conquering his fear of flying in “We Are Marshall”, Joeseph Nichol, better known as McG, decided to take on James Cameron’s epic Terminator franchise. Much like “Star Trek”, “Terminator Salvation” looks to reboot the once great franchise by staying in the future instead of sending robots back in time.

“Salvation” focuses on former inmate Marcus Wright (Australian actor Sam Worthington) who was executed decades before Judgement Day, when the military computer Skynet took over via nuclear holocaust. Wright stumbles upon franchise stalwart Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin, “Star Trek”) and helps him get to the human resistance’s base where franchise savior John Connor (Christian Bale) is helping to coordinate the defense against the machines and understand the advice of his mother in the form of audio tapes.

It sounds confusing, but it’s all compacted nice and easily and doesn’t get in the way of what the franchise is known for: its action. The first third of the movie roars onto the screen and doesn’t let up for a good 40 minutes. Car chases, gigantic robots, warlike battle sequences and plenty of airships willing to play along make this section one of the best sequences on screen in years.

Another highlight is the sound, which is loud and gritty. Every gun screams and each explosion sounds brilliant., perfectly mirroring the desert wasteland and metallic prisons the resistance live in. Perhaps the setting is a bit over the top, but what else would you expect a post-apocalyptic future to look like?

Unfortunately, the movie cools down and runs away from the roads in favor of conflicts on foot. These aren’t bad by any means, they just aren’t nearly as spectacular as the encounters at the beginning of the movie.

Not helping things are some of the gaping “plot holes”, if that’s what they could be called. For example, Skynet’s base in San Francisco apparently only has one robot guarding it. There’s also a character caught by Skynet that isn’t killed immediately despite his importance to the framework of the plot against the machines which they know about.

Despite these somewhat gigantic holes, “Terminator Salvation” is still a trip worth taking. The plot will only work to satisfy die-hard Terminator fans, but be enough for casual movie-goers to set the table for the explosive action that can only be expected of the time traveling franchise.