Movie Review: Paul

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Are you the type that believes in conspiracy theories? Do you listen to Art Bell and George Noory late night on Coast to Coast AM? Do you have different colors and styles of tin hats as part of your permanent clothing collection? Have you even remotely thought of trying the Klingon dish gagh, going to Comic-Con, or chuckling at Galaxy Quest? If so, then Paul is the movie for you!

Just as Galaxy Quest pokes fun at the fans of Star Trek writers Nick Frost and Simon Pegg poke fun of both people who believe and don't believe in extraterrestrial life. Frost and Pegg also take the lead roles as science fiction writer Clive Gollings and illustrator Graeme Willy. The blokes are best friends from the UK who have come to America to be part of the greatest geek fest going on planet Earth, Comic-Con. For any red blooded geek male they had to have the shots of a group of ladies dressed up as slave Princess Leia. Be still my foolish heart!

Where were we? Oh yeah...So Comic-Con was the first part of the big journey. The next part was renting a mobile home RV and doing a road trip to hot spots of alien folklore like the Extraterrestrial Highway, Groom lake and the Black Mailbox , Little A'Le'Inn, Area 51 and of course, Roswell, New Mexico. Something that surprised me was two guys from England driving this big vehicle sitting in the left side and heading down the highway in the right side lane. They seemed to pick that up pretty easily!

Of course the story wouldn't be funny if the total believers in aliens don't come across a real alien. All of a sudden they now really have to believe in aliens. This one is named of all things, Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen). Turns out the government has known about him since 1947 and he's been helping them thinking that he was their guest. He made a run for it when he discovered he was not a visitor getting the star treatment, but a prisoner who is now trying to escape and get back to his mother ship. He enlists the two nerds to help him out and they agree.

What worked is that Rogen didn't play the part over the top vocally. What the animation of Paul did with his behaviors was a bit over the edge. Between his need for food, sleep and smoking pot Paul is just one of the guys. The movie parodies and skews so many parts of the alien genre you can get in a few good laughs. Crash landings, mother ships, body probes, mind melds, healing abilities, snacks, men in black, cover ups....it's all there. There are numerous references to all sorts of movies within the genre. See if you can pick them out. There is even one special scene where Paul is talking to a certain someone (wink) on the phone. Turns out that someone (wink) was actually on the other end of the line.

The one part of the movie I didn't like was the language, it went over the top for no reason. It seemed like they were trying to have a swearfest to see who could come up with the most nonsensical combination of words to try to describe things. That just didn't work. It became a distraction rather than an addition to the movie. For the language including sexual references, and some drug use the movie received an R rating.

The ending was not what I was expecting. The actresses selected for two pivotal (well, as pivotal as you can get for a parody movie) were great choices. The 104 minutes passed quickly. Don't leave the theater before the credits start to roll, once they do then go ahead and leave. While I might need to wash out my ears with soap, there was a smile on my face as I walked out of the dark into the light. Between the movie and the free small popcorn that Regal made available via a coupon on their Facebook page, it was a good movie day!

The Movie Monkey

To subscribe to the audio podcast of the reviews via iTunes click here. Audio versions are released the following Wednesday.

Movie Review: Battle Los Angeles

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Every week I battle in my head as to where to spend my $8.50 for a matinee show of the movie that I will review for the week. The preview for this week's cinematic presentation had me intrigued and had me hopeful. It's fun to watch a city taken out by a volcano, earthquake or Godzilla. Unfortunately, I lost the war in seeing Battle Los Angeles.

Let me point out right up front that I wasn't even sure of the title of the movie. I saw the title with the name Los Angeles spelled out and in the abbreviation of LA. I also saw it with and without the colon between Battle and the city name. Since my title already includes a colon, I decided not to have a double colon in there!

When I walked into the theater, I had some hope. Due to the tsunami that hit Hawaii earlier that morning, many people had the day off and the theater for a 2pm matinee show was at the point of getting uncomfortable. You know the place where there really aren't those extra seats between you and your neighbor to give you that zone of protection. There were only a few of those spacer seats left.

Once again Los Angeles and the world is in trouble. We're being invaded by aliens. If you've seen Independence Day, War of the Worlds, Battlefield Earth, Cloverfield or Skyline, you've pretty much seen this movie. Nothing new was covered here. Just offshore of major cities around the world "meteors" have crashed into the ocean and the hordes of technically advanced invaders come ashore.

To rescue civilians behind enemy line, Marines from Camp Pendelton including SSgt Michael Nantz (the square jawed Aaron Eckhart) are sent in. They battle the enemy not knowing anything about them. In the background we have snippets of news reports to help us fill in information gaps.

Camera shots are shakey. They are very shakey. It was harder to watch this movie than Cloverfield. Towards the end the camera shots did settle down a bit, but it was still tough to watch.

Like Skyline, there were some impressive computer generated images, but the detail are hidden between the quick shots, looking through view finders, or heat plumes. Lots of things go boom!

Even though Nantz was the main focus of the story, writer Christopher Bertolini had too many extra characters between civilians and marine. The 116 minutes wasn't enough to give meaning to the stories of the rescuers or rescued. While battling to get to a safety zone the question remained, can these invaders be taken out by a virus or bomb or something the enemy underestimated?

With the battles and dealing with marines, the movie was rated PG-13 for sustained and intense sequences of war violence and destruction, and for language. I would dare suggest that this will be a Razzie nomination in 2012 for worst picture. Let's just hope they don't plan on Battle Washington DC or Battle Rio de Janeiro.

The Movie Monkey

To subscribe to the audio podcast of the reviews via iTunes click here. Audio versions are released the following Wednesday.

Movie Review: Rango

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Gore Verbinski is back with Johnny Depp. They worked together on the three live action Pirates of the Caribbean movies and now they team together for the computer animated Rango. Depp provides the voice for the main character, a chameleon. Verbinski wears multiple hats including director, producer, writer AND voice talent. From the pirate genre to the western. Dusty main street, high noon show down and the rolling blowing tumble weed going across the screen set the stereotypical western scene after a slight detour from reality. The whole 107 minute movie was a nice little departure from reality!

As Rango, Depp with the voice and the animated actions reminded me of the Don Knotts movies, specifically The Ghost and Mr Chicken although not quite as high strung. A chameleon who wants to be more than he is, just as Luther Heggs wanted to be more than he was. Chameleons by nature want to blend into their surroundings and here he is wearing a bright red aloha shirt with a vibrant yellow hibiscus print. The result, he sticks out like a sore thumb!

Right from the start, the visuals are detailed and eye popping. The little pits and bumps of chameleon skin, smooth plastic, water fluidity, desert dirt and cacti pins are rendered with great details. Our story tellers are a mariachi band of owls playing the trumpet, accordion, guitar and violin. The visuals of the birds, the instruments, their colors and the outfits make the cuts to their narration a joy to watch.

Once our protagonist heads into the desert town of Dirt, yah, that's right the name is Dirt, not a euphemism meaning unclean, broken down and not worth much the eclectic collection of towns folk spy through their building doors and windows the stranger that has rolled into town. As we meet rabbits, moles, horny toads, gila monsters, desert spiny lizards, hawks, bats, tortoises, rattle snakes and coyotes, we see details of both the animal and the detail that make them unique like eye colors, hair textures, skin lesions and clothes that bring the character to life and give them personalities.

When the stranger arrives in town he bellies up to the saloon bar. Through a series of unintended actions and some pretty bold stories that get rid of the bad guys who have been pestering the simple town folk of Dirt, our now hero is asked his name. He declares it is Rango and becomes the new sheriff in town. But something is unclean in Dirt and it's more than just the main street. Can the new law man clean up the town when the water supply is drying up?

There weren't many people in the theater with me, maybe twenty for a noon time matinee showing but that didn't stop the space from being filled with laughter. All throughout there were some good laughs generated both by visual jokes and funny dialogue. The movie is rated PG for rude humor, language, action and smoking. There were a couple of small children in the theater and the scene with Rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy) for them was a little too intense causing them to cry. Here's a giant snake with giant fangs dripping with venom moving quickly shooting with a Gatling gun of sorts on his tail, you can understand why they might have gotten slightly frightened.

The one point of the movie that I did catch as an error, sort of was Rango's eyes. His head was basically a Jackson Chameleon's head set on a skinny neck. Their eyes are orbital eyes meaning that they work independently of each other. One eye can be looking forward and the other backward or one up and the other down. His eyes were too human. They would both look in the same direction at the same time, which after owning a Jackson, having the eyes work together felt wrong. But, given the scope of the entire movie, that was a minor point.

I plan to go back and see it again using my free movie coupon. It was fun to watch and listen too and filled with a lot of visual detail which I'm sure I missed more than I caught.

The Movie Monkey

To subscribe to the audio podcast of the reviews via iTunes click here. Audio versions are released the following Wednesday.