Epic Movie

 

1/2-a-star/****     EPIC MOVIE (PG-13)

Right off the bat, I believe it is important to note that last year I managed to laugh once or twice at the abysmal Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector. Monique’s dreadful 2006 comedy Phat Girlz even drew a chuckle out of me on one occasion. So you have to realize how disastrously bad Epic Movie is when I say that I did not once crack a smile during the entire film’s 86 minute running time.

Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer are two guys who like to pride themselves on being two of the six creative minds behind the success of the satirical movie franchise Scary Movie. But since the release of the original Scary Movie film in 2000, the two decided to split ways from the Wayans family and instead branch out on their own.

The two released the highly successful, yet utterly painful to watch Date Movie in February of 2006. The design of that film was to spoof several recent romantic comedies like Meet the Parents and My Best Friend’s Wedding. It was evident when watching Date Movie that the days of excellent farces from the likes of Mel Brooks and David Zucker were long gone, with the laughs in Date Movie so few and far between that the spoof they made appeared like it needed to be parodied more so than the film’s they were attempting to lampoon.

Yet, the box-office success of Date Movie is undeniable and opened the door for Friedberg and Seltzer to tackle another genre of film — the epic movie.

The barely existent plot revolves around four orphans who come together after each orphan receives a golden ticket promising them admission to an epic adventure. After a failed comedic romp aimed at the Tim Burton version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the foursome stumbles through a wardrobe and into the world of Narnia where they learn it is their destiny to free it with the guidance of a mystical lion.

Epic Movie pulls out every stop on its way to becoming one of the worst parodies in film history.

Characters getting punched in their naughty bits? Check.

The mocking of Paris Hilton? Check.

A Carmen Electra cameo? Check.

Terrible musical sequences involving terrible songs from terrible musicians like Bubba Sparxx and Fergie? Check.

Horrid gags centered around urine and feces? Check and check…and check and check…and check and check.

Actors who deserve much better work? Like Jennifer Coolidge, Kal Penn and Fred Willard? Check.

Spoofs towards Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean and X-Men seem too forced and are merely just thrown into the story without reason, resulting in the gags being unfunny. And other shots taken at P. Diddy and MTV shows like Cribs and Punk’d are not only unfunny, but also untimely.

I got the feeling when listening to the audio commentary on last year’s Date Movie DVD that both Friedberg and Seltzer realize they are creating nothing more than worthless drivel, and have become surprised over the years by the financial success of their films.

But as audiences continue to flock to theatres to watch their latest disastrous mess, critics will have no choice but to suffer from another one of their unpleasant offerings.  A hapless and hopeless film, Epic Movie is one of the more dire entries in the world of comedies.

Catch and Release

*/****     CATCH AND RELEASE (PG-13)

Jennifer Garner rose to popularity playing Agent Sydney Bristow on the ABC drama Alias.  That role landed Garner four Emmy nominations, as well as a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild award.  But Garner’s cross-over success into cinema has failed to achieve that same type of recognition for the young actress.

She starred opposite future husband Ben Affleck in 2003’s comic-book adventure film Daredevil, which eventually led to a leading role in the spin-off movie Elektra.  Garner also took her first stab at being a leading lady in 2004’s utterly predictable, sappy romantic commedy 13 Going on 30.

After an impressive run on television and a remarkable cameo appearance in Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me if You Can, Jennifer Garner is still looking for that first movie role that will make her a star.

And she didn’t find it with Catch and Release.

In the film, Garner plays Gray Wheeler, a woman trying to cope after the accidental death of her fiance during his bachelor party trip.  While trying to rebuild her life, Wheeler soon discovers secrets about her would-be-husband that turn her life upside down.

The movie sounds like a drama, and would have been a much better film had it been played as such.  But instead, writer and director Susannah Grant (writer of Erin Brockovich, In Her Shoes) forces the film into a much different direction that centers around an abrupt, dull tale of love where the attraction of the two characters is never developed and hardly ever explained. 

Yet, Garner and the attraction of her desire Timothy Olyphant are the only two characters the audience is ever truly invested in. 

Olyphant, who has shown he can be a decent actor with his recent work on HBO’s Deadwood and as sleazy porn producer Kelly in Luke Greenfield’s 2004 film The Girl Next Door, is restrained to a one-dimensional character in Catch and Release.  At times, you even find yourself rooting against him in his efforts to woo Wheeler.

Sam Jaeger and Kevin Smith play Wheeler’s best-friends, with Smith providing the failed comedic punch.  Independent writer and director Smith talks more with his mouth-full in this film than he does as Silent Bob in all of his movies combined.  Jaeger is barely noticeable until mid-way through the film when an interesting plot development arrives, but then is quickly escorted out the backdoor without rhyme and reason.

Fiona Shaw and the unsexy Juliette Lewis round out the cast, as Grant’s directorial debut misses every note except one — the casting of Jennifer Garner.  But, in turn, Garner misses another big break at becoming a movie star.

Arthur and the Invisibles

*/****     ARTHUR AND THE INVISIBLES (PG)

From The Incredibles to Shrek, from Ice Age to Happy Feet, movie studios have found a way to make animated films a box-office success with beautiful images and a host of household names providing the voice-work for wacky and irreverent characters who spout-off pop culture references and feature enough comedic elements for both kids and adults to enjoy. Yet, Arthur and the Invisibles elects to avoid nearly all of these commonly-used approaches in the modern world of animation filmmaking, and instead the filmmakers have created a film that fails on nearly evel level imagineable.

Fourteen year old English actor Freddie Highmore stars in this part live-action/part animated story about a young boy named Arthur who, neglected by his parents, lives in the country with his lonely grandmother, played by Mia Farrow (Miami Rhapsody, The Omen). Arthur’s grandfather has been missing for years, and his grandmother’s financial woes have opened the door for a real-estate developer to foreclose on their farmhouse.

Arthur soon discovers details on a treasure of rubies in the backyard of the farm, but they are hidden in an area of the backyard populated by an animated African tribe of people known as the Minimoys. Arthur soon gains access to the Minimoys’ kingdom and his hunt to save the farmhouse begins.

Director Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, La Femme Nikita) and his excellent editing team do a fine job transitioning from the live-action segments of the movie to those of animation, as it has a less jarring effect than that of the beforementioned Happy Feet. But the film’s animation is truly second-rate, coming off less of a companion piece for recent DreamWorks and Pixar offerings, and just appears to be a more lively version of the puppet work in Team America: World Police.

Highmore is a wonderful young actor who has shined in his previous roles in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Finding Neverland, and while he remains likeable in this film, he is also poorly developed and misused in the role. Farrow’s role of grandmother is the only other live-action character worth noting, but she is simply a set-piece used to deliver a couple of lines of scripted dialogue.

Jimmy Fallon is boring as the voice of Betameche, while Madonna is uninspiring in her voice-work of Princess Selenia. An odd appearance from rapper Snoop Dogg — including one of the oddest musical sequences to ever appear in an animated film — and unrecognizable work from Jason Bateman, Emilio Estevez and Harvey Keitel does nothing to help Arthur and the Invisibles come off as anything more than a generic and lackluster picture.

Plus, outside of Highmore, the audience is not asked to care about any of the characters introduced throughout the film, as they are used simply as filler material so we can stretch out our arrival to our hackneyed conclusion.

Arthur and the Invisibles  is neither heartwarming nor original, and ranks with Doogal as one of the more disappointing animation films in recent memory.

Freedom Writers

**.5/****     FREEDOM WRITERS (PG-13)

Every year, movie audiences are bombarded with mediocre offerings from studios hoping to cash-in with their latest naive stories — or as the studios refer to them, “inspirational tales” — about adult influences who manage to break through the proverbial wall and reach the unreachable. But, by avoiding the trite moments that film goers have become accustomed to over the years, Freedom Writers is able to succeed in less conventional ways.

Two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry, Million Dollar Baby) plays ambitious first-year teacher Erin Gruwell, who enters a difficult world at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California where racial tensions remain high two-years following the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The integrated school is divided into four camps where whites, blacks, Latinos and Cambodians are forced to co-exist, but rarely do, in their underpriveleged life.

The daughter of a civil rights activist, Gruwell is able to connect with students after an unexpected discussion about the Holocaust leads the students to open up about their own personal struggles and they begin writing their own journals in resemblance to that of “The Diary of Anne Frank.”

Swank does a fine job in her portrayal of Erin Gruwell, although she is simply just the motivational factor for discovering the students who make-up her high school English class. The most notable of which is Eva, played by newcomer April Hernandez, who makes the most life altering choice of any of the students in Gruwell’s class. Hernandez is very convincing in her role as the hardcore Latino who wants something better for herself, but is uncertain as to what kinds of sacrifices she must endure in order to attain her goals.

Several other students’ hardships outside of the classroom are addressed, but are quietly muddied through in order to accomplish the big picture.

Patrick Dempsey (TV’s Grey’s Anatomy, Sweet Home Alabama) plays Gruwell’s neglected husband Scott, while Scott Glenn (The Shipping News, Training Day) is Gruwell’s former activist father Steve. Both are good in their roles, but are so underused that they have very limited importance to the story.

Imelda Staunton (Nanny McPhee, Vera Drake) and John Benjamin Hickey (The Anniversary Party, Infamous) play the film’s villians — two longtime faculty members at Woodrow Wilson High School who do not appreciate and are one of the few who are not flattered by Gruwell’s unorthodox, albeit effective style of teaching.

Yet, it is that unorthodox style of teaching and the unusual way in which Gruwell is able to connect with the students to get them to open up that makes the authentic climax of Freedom Writers something that’s endearing and genuine.