Unlikely Hero!

Will Smith returned to movie theaters this past 4th of July weekend proving once again that he, along with fireworks and backyard barbeques are essential to celebrating our nation’s birthday. “Hancock” is an unlikely superhero careless in his execution of superhuman deeds and miserable in his own life filled with public drunkenness and foulmouthed exchanges with the public he is charged to protect. Will Smith has a blast portraying the title role of John Hancock, who is as clueless to the origins of his own special powers as those mere mortals around him. His penchant for destroying millions of dollars worth of public property while trying to save those in peril have finally caught up with him at the film’s opening. The news media (including Nancy Grace) have called for his arrest for outstanding warrants for the millions in damages he has caused for the tax payers of Los Angeles. After inadvertently saving the life of PR man Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), Hancock is forced to give into Ray’s attempts to reinvent the disgraced superhero’s public persona. Those efforts lead to much of the first hour of the film’s comic genius at times turning the formula of the superhero genre completely over on it’s head. Hancock’s short temper and often crude sense of justice make his attempt to clean up his act not only difficult but extremely entertaining for the audience. Through most of the film, director Peter Berg borrows from Richard Donner’s Superman playbook in attempting to give “Hancock” a realistic look or what Donner called his use of verisimilitude in making an unbelievable story believable. Berg’s Hancock is a superhero whose actions have consequences something that even Donner failed to realize in his classic 1978 Superman film. After a short stint in prison, the reinvented Hancock appears on the scene to stop a bank heist, during which echoes of John William’s Superman march can be heard ever so slightly in composer John Powell’s less bombastic approach to scoring of a superhero movie. It’s only in the second half of the film’s short 92 minute running time that things bog down as the superhero’s origin is somewhat explained. When Ray’s wife, Mary (Charlize Theron) cast doubt on Hancock’s ability to reinvent himself, we later learn that her concern for her husband and son are not the only interest she has in mind. This complicated relationship with the film’s star leads to a most unexpected plot surprise which although welcomed tends to interrupt the rhythm of the film to a fault. What started as a unique and fresh take on the superhero film genre slowly evolves into a conventional comic book style story. The short running time and likeability of it’s star manage to keep it from completely falling apart. Smith who provided last year’s sci-fi thrill-ride in “I Am Legend,” once again through charm and pure onscreen charisma delivers the goods in this tailor-made role. One only hopes that although the film’s ending leaves plenty of room for a continuing franchise of sequels, that the capable star will deliver more challenging roles that have lead to his two Oscar nominations in years past.

Kung Fu Fighting Panda

Kung Fu Panda is the latest offering from the animation wing at Dreamworks studios, who in the past brought us the likes of "Shrek" and last year's "Bee Movie." "Panda" steers clear of the pop-culture references that permeated those other animated tales in favor of a more traditional story this time around with a lovable flawed character at it's center. Jack Black's Po, a Kung Fu loving Panda in the Valley of Peace, is part Curly Howard, Spanky McFarland and Elmer Fudd all wrapped up in a fuzzy Panda Bear costume, albeit a digital one. The animation is at times breathtaking, coupled with a sweeping music score by John Powell and Hans Zimmer, but at the core of the film lies a touching and funny performance by it's star, Black. Jack Black is no stranger to animation, having voiced Lenny in 2004's "Shark Tale," but he's grown as an actor since then and his Po stirs both pathos and belly-laughs (quite literally). Po works in his father's noodle shop, Mr. Ping (voiced by the prolific Asian actor James Hong) but all the while dreams of his heroes "the furious five," a collection of Kung Fu warriors voiced by the likes of Angelina Jolie and Jackie Chan to name a few. After a hilarious hi jinks accident, Po is mistakenly chosen as the "Dragon Warrior," and is enlisted to battle the film's bad guy, the dreaded Tai Lung. A fallen hero in the body of a white tiger with an axe to grind, Tai Lung is voiced ferociously by English actor, Ian McShane. Po of course has no formal martial arts training, but with the help of Dustin Hoffman's Shifu, a "Jedi-like" master, Po is trained in the ways of the great warriors. Po's journey is a touching one. He doubts himself at first as does master Shifu, but when Po's stop-at-nothing penchant for finding food is discovered, the old master finds the key to training this most unlikely of warriors. The martial arts fighting sequences are often reminiscent of the old Warner Brother's cartoons, where no one gets hurt when falling great distances and suffering such violent brawling, but it's all for laughs and completely harmless. And laughs are frequent and genuine thanks to Po's narcissism and self-doubt and just being so darn lovable. Black finds funny little asides that are animated quite realistically by a team of animators listed at the films end who all deserve credit for the final performance. The relationship between Hoffman's Shifu, Hong's Mr. Ping and Po respectfully, is completely believable and often touching. Po is completely honest in his own way, and his constant efforts to please make him all the more likable. With fine direction by animators-turned directors, John Stevenson and Mark Osborne, Panda paints a broad portrait in beautiful wide-screen of an ancient Chinese world inhabited entirely by animals prevalent in Asian culture. Even it's closing credits are beautifuly animated all to the sounds of 1974s "Kung Fu Fighting," sung here by Cee-Lo Green and Jack Black. Written by a team of writers with backgrounds in TVs "King of the Hill" and martial arts films like "Bulletproof Monk," it's story may seem simplistic and not one hundred percent original, but it takes you in hook, line and sinker thanks to charming and credible performances by it's stars. I found myself laughing hardily throughout right along with the dozens of kids-of-all-ages who also found it's title character irresistible.

Indy's Long Awaited Return

In the summer of 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark took movie theaters across America by storm. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg had delivered a roller coaster ride of an adventure movie, deeply inspired by the Saturday morning movie serials of the 1930s and 40s. With it's massive success at the box office there was no surprise that a sequel would soon follow and in 1984 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was released and quickly disappointed fans of the first film. What Temple of Doom got wrong was a more slapstick style script with a muddled plotline too bizarre to follow, and the fate of any further sequels was in question. And then five years later in 1989, Spielberg and Lucas surprised us all by getting the film franchise back-on-track with what was then thought to be it's final episode. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade had forgone the silliness of the Temple of Doom and brought back a more recognizable villain in the form of the Third Reich, who along with the addition of Sean Connery to it's cast made for a great movie adventure. So now, nineteen years later, Lucas and Spielberg have decided to squeeze another offering out of the franchise by releasing Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull this past Memorial Day weekend. It's a project that has been rumored and talked about for several years now, with everyone from Frank Darabont to M. Night Shyamalan taking a crack at the Crystal Skull script. In the end screenwriter David Koepp who worked previously on Spielberg's remake of War of the Worlds, won the task of writing the script based on Lucas' original story and what ends up on the screen is a literal mish-mash of all three previous films.
Harrison Ford reprised his role as Indiana Jones who now in his sixties moves a little slower than in previous adventures. Ford has great fun exploring the older Dr. Jones and the effect age has on his ability to go up against forces of evil, this time represented by the Russian Communist party of the 1950s. During the film's opening, the sound of Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" can be heard blasting over a car's radio, thus setting the film apart from it's earlier 1930s and 40s-themed films respectfully. When costar Shia LaBeouf shows up as a young 1950s greaser, his entrance is a complete homage to Marlon Brando's famed entrance in 1953's The Wild One. LaBeouf wears the exact same style hat, shirt and leather jacket as did Brando in the now iconic image from that decade. Spielberg has a lot of fun with the cold war of the fifties, following the opening chase at the Area 51 air force base, a humorous although unbelievable escape from an atomic bomb test in the Nevada desert soon follows. Shades of the silliness abound in the Temple of Doom film, make appearances throughout Crystal Skull, but never enough to completely destroy the adventure as some feel it did in that second sequel. Spielberg throws in some nice homage’s to the earlier films by paying tribute to both Connery's elder Jones character as well as the late Denholm Elliott's befuddled Marcus Brody. Even Karen Allen returns as Marion Ravenwood, Indy's love interest from the first Raiders film, back this time to explain the existence of the Shia LeBeouf character! Allen has a few light scenes with Ford, but fails to capture the same feistiness she brought to the role back in 1981. It was nice to hear John Williams' Marion's Theme played once again although briefly in the film's score. At the heart of the film's story is the adventure brought about by the search for the Crystal Skull and it's relationship to an ancient culture that may have it's roots in other-worldly influences. And unlike the strong mythologies rooted in the first and third films, this muddled mess of an ancient Amazon culture somehow relating to inter-dimensional beings just doesn't payoff. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the strong influence of the Nazi's grasp for power by way of the Lost Ark of the Covenant or again in Last Crusade's search for the Holy Grail offered far-greater tension and believability to an already unbelievable genre.

Steven Spielberg Movies