The Boxtrolls (2014)

Director: Graham Annable, Anthony Stacchi

Cast: Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Elle Fanning, Ben Kingsley, Toni Collette, Jared Harris, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, Tracy Morgan

Screenplay: Irena Brignull, Adam Pava

96 mins. Rated PG for action, some peril and mild rude humor.

Academy Award Nominee: Best Animated Feature Film of the Year

Today, I have the pleasure of talking about the seventh-best film featuring Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead, The World’s End) and Nick Frost (Paul, Cuban Fury). This is the kindest I’m going to be on this.

In The Boxtrolls, we get to meet…well, the Boxtrolls, a group of creatures similar to the Borrowers or the Underpants Gnomes in that they sneak up to the surface and steal objects from the humans. Also, they wear boxes. It is also the story of Eggs (Isaac Hempstead-Wright, TV’s Game of Thrones, The Awakening), a boy left in their care as a baby and raised by the creatures. Eggs heads up to where the humans reside in an attempt to keep his family safe from the diabolical Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley, Schindler’s List, Dragonheart 3: The Sorcerer’s Curse). In doing so, he meets Winnie (Elle Fanning, Maleficent, We Bought a Zoo) and the two team up to save the Boxtrolls.

I struggled through this film. It was tough. I kept telling myself it must get better; it was nominated for an Oscar. It didn’t get better though. The only scene that blew me away was the end credits in which Mr. Pickles (Richard Ayoade, TV’s The IT Crowd, The Watch) and Mr. Gristle (Tracy Morgan, TV’s 30 Rock, Accidental Love) discuss the meaning of life as the filmmakers construct the scene around them. It is a testament to the hard work and dedication by the animation team, and that part I will agree comes through. The animation is amazing. The technology has improved even upon the impressive ParaNorman.

Beyond the animation and visual look of the film, there really is nothing left in this casket of a movie. The voice work is fine enough to get by, but this story just goes nowhere. It feels like someone threw several plot pieces onto the screenplay just to see if it would come off as quirky. Quirky it is. Good it is not.

The Boxtrolls is a technical marvel indeed, yet it isn’t an animated film worthy of the statue or even really the nomination. It looks good, but like an aged cheese, it leaves an odd taste in the mouth.

1.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

March 19, 2015 1

[#2015oscardeathrace] Maleficent (2014)

Director: Robert Stromberg

Cast: Angelina Jolie, Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Lesley Manville

Screenplay: Linda Woolverton

97 mins. Rated PG for sequences of fantasy action and violence, including frightening images.

Academy Award Nominee: Best Achievement in Costume Design

Disney has taken on the recent trend of flipping their fairy tales into live-action extravaganzas. The most recent inclusion here is Maleficent.

Maleficent (Angelina Jolie, Changeling, Kung Fu Panda 2) has only ever been seen as a villain. Now, she is represented as a supernatural being of good who resides in The Moors. She fell for a boy named Stefan (Sharlto Copley, District 9, Oldboy), who ends up betraying her to become king. In retaliation, Maleficent brings forth a curse upon Stefan’s daughter Aurora (Elle Fanning, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Boxtrolls) that she will fall into a deep sleep when she pricks her finger on a spinning wheel, and you know the rest. Or do you?

My major problem with this film it is supposed to humanize Maleficent, but not only does it get the character wrong, it also makes a villain into a hero by passing the buck and making another character the villain. So in 55 years, they will make a film about that villain being a hero and creating another villain. You see what I’m getting at here?

The actual character herself is very flat. Angelina Jolie plays her like a prankster and very much a non-villain with very little villaining going on. She is a menace in the sense that Dennis was a Menace.

Sharlto Copley is pretty good as Stefan, but his motives are written to fit the script but not to fit the character.

Elle Fanning is given virtually nothing to do.

The screenplay by Linda Woolverton (The Lion King, Alice in Wonderland) is rather bland and presents us with a rudimentary retelling of the story from Maleficent’s point of view that only seeks to demonize the original film. So either the two films exist in separate continuities or they contradict each other. Not sure which theory is worse.

First time director Robert Stromberg gives us a visually stunning vision of Sleeping Beauty’s world, but not much more than that. I like the fact that this is mildly entertaining if completely flawed, and I think parents will find some enjoyment with their kids, more so than most other “family” films. The film just isn’t all that good.

What wins the film has are visual: the costume design and the visual effects. These costumes stand a good chance to take the Oscar this year, and the effects work is rather stunningly beautiful and dark.

I get the feeling that Maleficent will not be a remembered film, except for all the copies that people nabbed on Black Friday (seriously, it was pretty cheap) collecting dust on movie shelves. I get the feeling.

2/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

January 24, 2015 7

Tammy (2014)

Director: Ben Falcone

Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Susan Sarandon, Allison Janney, Gary Cole, Mark Duplass, Toni Collette, Sandra Oh, Nat Faxon, Dan Aykroyd, Kathy Bates

Screenplay: Melissa McCarthy, Ben Falcone

97 mins. Rated R for language including sexual references.

Melissa McCarthy (TV’s Gilmore Girls, St. Vincent) has the acting chops for both comedy and drama, yet she chooses to write comedies that just aren’t very good. Thus is the case with Tammy, her newest effort from husband-director Ben Falcone.

In Tammy, McCarthy plays a down-on-her-luck food server who has just lost a car and a job and now decides to just leave town with her elderly grandmother Pearl (Susan Sarandon, Thelma & Louise, The Big Wedding). I know, it doesn’t make much sense. Along the way, she meets Bobby (Mark Duplass, TV’s The League, Mercy) and his father Earl (Gary Cole, Pineapple Express, The Town That Dreaded Sundown) who both take a shine to ladies. Somehow. There isn’t a whole lot of chemistry, but apparently they do. They also meet up with lesbian lovers Lenore (Kathy Bates, TV’s American Horror Story, Titanic) and Susanne (Sandra Oh, TV’s Grey’s Anatomy, Rabbit Hole) who are also related to Tammy but it doesn’t seem that way. Again, I must say that it isn’t a good plot.

Essentially, this story was terrible. These characters were flat and unlikable. Melissa McCarthy isn’t funny. Susan Sarandon is disappointing. Also, the ages kind of mess with you. How is Susan Sarandon the mother of Allison Janney (TV’s The West Wing, Get On Up) who is also the mother of Melissa McCarthy? Seriously, how?

Then there is the terrible chemistry or lack thereof with Mark Duplass. I mean, c’mon, there wasn’t a single moment when I believed these two.

Let’s not forget the misuse of Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense, The Boxtrolls). That’s right, she is in this movie, but look fast or you’ll miss it. The same is true with Dan Aykroyd (Ghostbusters, Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return).

All in all, Ben Falcone’s absent directing of a bad screenplay between himself and wife McCarthy does nothing to make this movie anything more than a turd. Yes, I said it, a turd.

1.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

December 28, 2014 3

A Long Way Down (2014)

Director: Pascal Chaumeil

Cast: Toni Collette, Pierce Brosnan, Imogen Poots, Aaron Paul

Screenplay: Jack Thorne

96 mins. Rated R for language.

I like Nick Hornby. I saw him at a writer’s conference some time ago and had the opportunity to just sit and listen to him muse about life and writing. I like Nick Hornby.

I did not like A Long Way Down. I’m speaking about the film here, which is a conflicted little tale about suicide for four people. First we have Martin (Pierce Brosnan, GoldenEye, The November Man), a shamed talk show host who has become a social pariah for sleeping with an underage girl. Then there’s Maureen (Toni Collette, The Sixth Sense, The Boxtrolls) who struggles with being a parent for a child with special needs. We get Jess (Imogen Poots, Need for Speed, That Awkward Moment), a young girl with daddy issues and a need to prattle. Finally, there is JJ (Aaron Paul, TV’s Breaking Bad, Exodus: Gods and Kings), who has cancer. These four fail to kill themselves on New Year’s Eve when they accidentally pick the same building to jump off. Then they make a pact to stay with each other until Valentine’s Day, when they would try again.

This story is offensive even on the surface. We get characters that make light of the decision to kill themselves, and even regularly joke about it. I found none of this funny. I can stomach a lot, but it even felt like the actors were having troubles with the line reading, stemming from a bad script by Jack Thorne (TV’s The Fades, The Scouting Book for Boys) from the novel by Nick Hornby. Poor Nick, he has his name attached to this piece of garbage. Everything after the first scene just falls short of remembrance and the plot meanders from one unimportant event to another.

With disappointing work from pretty much everyone involved, especially Imogen Poots, who acts as though she will vomit if she can’t get her line out right now, and an ending that you see coming a mile away, A Long Way Down is a dreadful piece of dreck that belongs in a furnace somewhere. Haven’t read the book, but I can bet it is streets ahead.

1.5/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

November 28, 2014 0

Cuban Fury (2014)

Director: James Griffith

Cast: Nick Frost, Rashida Jones, Chris O’Dowd, Olivia Colman

Screenplay: Jon Brown

98 mins. Rated R for language and sexual references.

Nick Frost has spent a lot of time with Simon Pegg onscreen. We as viewers haven’t seen much around starring work for him to know if he is able to carry him own film. Until now. Cuban Fury is about Bruce (Frost, Shaun of the Dead, The Boxtrolls), an ex-salsa dancer who lost his thunder when he was a teen. Now an adult, Bruce is nuts over his new coworker Julia (Rashida Jones, TV’s Parks and Recreation, Celeste & Jesse Forever), who has another suitor in the form of all-around asshole Drew (Chris O’Dowd, TV’s Moone Boy, Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel). Bruce finds that he has one major thing in common with Julia that could give him an edge: salsa dancing. Unfortunately for Bruce, he hasn’t practiced salsa in decades. Cue the inspirational Rocky score.

This film is cute. It isn’t laughably perfect like Hot Fuzz or The World’s End, but it is cute. I would like to tell you that it contains top notch writing like the previous collaborations with Pegg, but it doesn’t. Nick Frost gives a nice but not special performance as Bruce, while Jones and O’Dowd add a few laughs but mostly stay out of Bruce’s main plot. I just didn’t believe the chemistry from any of these characters. I didn’t believe that any of them loved or hated anyone of the others. I didn’t believe that Nick Frost could salsa dance. I didn’t believe that Julia would even go on one date with Drew. I didn’t believe that Ian McShane could teach salsa.

I thought the film was somewhat likable but mostly forgettable, which doesn’t bode well for Nick Frost considering his Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy with Pegg and fellow collaborator Edgar Wright has come to a close. I hope the next attempt will be more outlandish and comedic, for I see very little room for Frost to fail alone again.

2/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

So what did you think of James Griffith’s Cuban Fury? Did you dance or drop at first viewing? Let me know!

November 15, 2014 1