The summer blockbusters notwithstanding, the Thanksgiving/Christmas season is the biggest time of year, not just for big-budget buzz movies, but the smaller art-house flicks looking for steam heading into Oscar season. And just like every other industry, Christmas starts earlier every year, so now that those pesky scary Halloween movies are out of the way, we get our first round of big movies for the holiday season.
The first big movie coming out is Due Date, the much anticipated reunion of Zach Galifianakis and Todd Phillips, his Hangover director. Starring Robert Downey Jr. as a dad-to-be who has to get home to witness the birth of his child, the only ride he can hitch is with Galifianakis, the John Candy to his Steve Martin in this Planes, Trains and Automobiles update. Expect the laughs you got from other Phillips movies, but with a touch of schmaltz, as the odd couple of Galifianakis/Downey Jr. is bound to culminate in a touching meeting of the minds, most likely in the delivery room.
Next is Megamind, the animated 3D superhero movie from Dreamworks, that looks suspiciously like Pixar’s The Incredibles. Never mind that, and just focus on what it has – Will Farrell and Tina Fey doing the voices in a hero movie where the bad guy wins. With Farrell voicing the super-villain Megamind, and a sidekick role going to David Cross, look for hilarious banter between the two, as having the run of the city turns out to not be quite as fun as it seemed. And Fey turns everything she touches into comedic gold, so don’t be bothered if the plot seems a bit familiar.
And the third film opening this week in limited release, and our Will It Suck? pick of the week, is 127 Hours, the true story of hiker Aron Ralston, who if you remember got his arm stuck under a boulder for five days, and was forced to cut his own arm off to survive. The heavy topic is taken on deftly by Danny Boyle, the edgy youthful director behind Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, and the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire. He picks James Franco to play Ralston, sticks him under a giant rock, and lets the cameras rip, in what promises to be one of the best films of the year, and could potentially nab Boyle his second Oscar in two straight films. Keep an eye on this one.
Other openings: Fair Game, the story of leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame, played by Naomi Watts, is hitting a number of theaters, and For Colored Girls, the latest Tyler Perry movie starring a who’s who list of black actresses, from Janet Jackson, Thandie Newton, Whoopi Goldberg to Phylicia Rashad (Clair Huxtable!).
MTV recently reported that a script for ‘Zoolander 2’ is in the works and almost ready for submission. Justin Theroux, who starred in the original as the evil “break-dance fighting” DJ, is pegged to pen the working script with Ben Stiller, and is expected to direct. Theroux, who says the script is “in really good shape right now,” wrote with Stiller for 2008’s Tropic Thunder, and got top credit for drafting the Iron Man 2 script. Details are still a bit sketchy, but Theroux assures that returning will be Owen Wilson as free-spirit Hansel, and Will Farrell’s Mugatu, plus a role specifically written with Jonah Hill in mind as a villain. The story is still in the works, but Theroux says they’ll have Derek Zoolander and Hansel start off in a “bad place.” – “They’re about to ring 40’s bell. They have to claw their way back into the fashion industry in some way or another.”
This is good news for ‘Frat Pack’ fans who have been waiting around for a real reunion for years. While Stiller has been off in kiddie land with the ‘Night at the Museum’ movies, and Wilson (Drillbit Taylor) and Farrell (Land of the Lost) in less than stellar vehicles, Judd Apatow and his band of vulgar jokesters (Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, the aforementioned Jonah Hill) have taken the comedic reins for the second half of the 2000’s. Stiller had success with 2008’s Tropic Thunder, and has the next ‘Meet the Parents’ installment Little Fockers coming out this Christmas, but a new Zoolander movie could mean a revival for the stars, and possibly pave the way for the rabidly anticipated ‘Anchorman 2’, which, in the words of Derek Zoolander, would be “cooool.”
After years of hand drawn Disney classics, and some lame knock-offs by other studios, Hollywood finally entered the digital age when Pixar released Toy Story in 1995, and they’ve been making it hand over fist ever since. While there’s still lame knock-offs, Pixar no longer has a lock on the digital animation market, with the release of a couple stinkers themselves (Cars), and DreamWorks has made a push backed by 4 Shrek movies, to nip at the title. It’s that studio that has the most buzzed about animated flick opening this fall, and after a strong debut at ComicCon, the Will Farrell voiced Megamind trailer is hitting theaters and TV, as the latest attempt to prove that Pixar isn’t the only game in town.
A nice long trailer that gives us a movie that turns the superhero drama on its head – what happens when the bad guy wins? Will Farrell is the voice of Megamind, an evil genius with the prerequisite neurosis, Tina Fey is Roxanne Ritchie, the reporter/Lois Lane archetype, and Brad Pitt is the voice of Metro Man, the toothy-grinned Superman of the fictional Metro City. But, not your average superhero cartoon, as we see that fairly early on in the movie, Metro Man meets his ultimate fate at the hands of Megamind, and the bad guy finally, once and for all, gets the run of the city. But, unlike Superman II, this superhero doesn’t just lose his powers or disappear – Metro Man’s bone-white skeleton comes crashing to the ground, and it’s clear, he’s not coming back. As Megamind begins to live out an old joke – he soon gets bored with his long sought-after prize – he appears to create a new superhero out of Roxanne Ritchie’s overweight and desperate cameraman, voiced by Jonah Hill. Battle scenes ensue between the two new enemies, and we can only guess that the newly created superhero begins to live out his nerd fantasy a bit too much, and Megamind has to come to the rescue to save the day.
The first thing that comes to mind when watching the trailer is how similar it looks and feels to Pixar’s The Incredibles. Now that’s not fair to say, just because they’re both digitally animated superhero movies taken askew, located in clean metropolitan cities, with giant robot henchmen and flame haired antagonists that take out their unrequited hopes and dreams on the innocent citizens below, doesn’t mean it’s the same movie. See, this one has Will Farrell and Tina Fey. And that might be the thing that saves it. I hate to say, but it’s impossible to go into a DreamWorks animated movie and not be a little skeptical. With Pixar, we know their track record, and even if the idea is dumb (how are kids supposed to relate to anthropomorphic automobiles? – they don’t even have any arms!), or the voice actors aren’t carrying the film with their charm (essentially, Wall-E doesn’t have spoken dialogue until forty minutes into the film), you can always count on a good movie coming from the studio, normally a really good movie. Aside from Shrek, and possibly Madagascar, DreamWorks hasn’t really garnered a reliable reputation in the animation field, and has yet to produce a truly great feature. So why make a suspiciously similar knock-off of arguably one of the greatest animated movies of all time? A really good question, but like I said, you put Tina Fey and Will Farrell together, and I’d probably watch anything.
The jokes in the trailer are kind of funny, and it hits a peak in the banter between Farrell and his fish sidekick voiced by David Cross. And the sight gags with the Obama-esque “No You Can’t” posters, and the homage to Marlon Brando’s “Jor-El” are pretty good too. But it’s the unoriginality that keeps popping up here. Aside from the entire plot line, the scene where Megamind struts down the street to AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” is just groan-worthy, and possibly the greatest sin of all – casting Brad Pitt as the voice of Metro Man. Now, I can admit that Brad Pitt has gotten considerably better as an actor since he made me want to claw my eyes out in Legends of the Fall, and I dare say he was pitch perfect as Tyler Durden and that gypsy from Snatch, but I will never say that Brad Pitt is a great actor. Nor will I say that the man hasn’t gotten through acting gigs coasting on his looks alone. Casting Brad Pitt as a voice actor is like hiring Erin Andrewsto do radio – it’s just not playing up your strengths. And I for one don’t care for Pitt’s voice or overly-cocky delivery here. I can see them wanting to make Metro Man a less that stand-up guy, but they would’ve done better in getting Pitt’s friend George Clooney, a man whose voice fits the superhero mold.
So, will it suck?
No. Of course, the plot is derivative, and some of the jokes are kinda lame, but it’s got Will Farrell and Tina Fey! Oh, and David Cross – how could I forget?! – a knockout combo of three of the funniest people working today. Any movie that has these three is going to be entertaining on some level, so if only we can block out Brad Pitt’s voice for the first half of the movie, and Jonah Hill’s in the second, we’ll probably be in pretty good shape. However, I get the feeling we should have The Incredibles queued up at home for afterwards, to see how a real movie does it.
The summer blockbusters notwithstanding, the Thanksgiving/Christmas season is the biggest time of year, not just for big-budget buzz movies, but the smaller art-house flicks looking for steam heading into Oscar season. And just like every other industry, Christmas starts earlier every year, so now that those pesky scary Halloween movies are out of the way, we get our first round of big movies for the holiday season.
Will It Suck?
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