Cars 2 (4/5 Stars)

A Bait-and-Switch Sequel

Technically speaking “Cars 2” is a sequel to “Cars,” the 2006 movie by Pixar, but not really. If anything it is the feature length version of a series of Pixar shorts entitled “Mater’s Tall Tales.” These shorts starred a side character of “Cars” called Mater the Tow Truck (Larry the Cable Guy) telling grandiose stories of his daring exploits that took place all over the world and almost certainly never happened. The shorts were true cartoons, limited to fast paced joke telling and brilliantly animated action. If Pixar was being totally honest with us it might have named this movie, “Mater the Super Spy, Ka-Chow!” But here they are having it both ways. They get to cash in on sequel box office while at the same time telling a completely original story in a completely different genre. It’s sort of like a “bait and switch sequel.” It’s very clever of them.  

The first “Cars” was about a big-headed race car named Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) that got lost on the way to a big race in a small town called Radiator Springs. He gained wisdom by the simple folk there and gradually learned all about small town values. By the end of the movie he was a much nicer car. “Cars 2” is basically a James Bond movie and follows quite the same structure. It starts with a British spycar named Finn McMissile (Michael Caine doing a superb Michael Caine) infiltrating an offshore oilrig run by a car with a monocle named Professor Z. Professor Z is smuggling some sort of weapon, Finn takes pictures, Professor Z notices Finn, a chase ensues, spy car gadgets help achieve a daring escape, and all of this is before the opening credits. Later this plot line intertwines with an ex-CEO of Big Oil, Sir Miles Axelrod’s (Eddie Izzard) plans to put on a three race around the world Grand Prix to demonstrate his new alternative fuel, Allinoil. Lightning McQueen and his buddy Mater head on over to Tokyo for the first race. There Finn McMissile and his fellow spy Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) mistake the uncouth rust-covered Mater as an American agent with an elaborate cover. Several car chases later, Mater is embroiled in the spy world. Somehow and why Big Oil is sabotaging the Grand Prix and they have to find out what its all about.

So this is Mater’s story all the way and whether you like the movie or not perhaps will rest on whether you like the bucktoothed hillbilly Mater. I liked Mater. He had plenty of good one liners and on top of that is uncannily smart, at least about cars. A good example of this is why the British agents thought he was the American agent in the first place. The spies had this code set up for meeting the agent they had never met. One car would ask a question about why the old Volkswagon engines didn’t need some very technical thing. The answer is because they have a some kind of air-cooled engine block (I don’t remember the exact words, but it was very technical). Supposedly this question was chosen because a normal car would never know such an obscure fact. Well, Mater knows it and finds nothing strange about the question. He answers it without hesitation in breathless kind of enthusiasm typical of geeks with finally someone to talk too and then goes on to describe the cooling blocks of several other like cars from that time period. There are plenty of examples of this high level of car knowledge “Cars 2” and it suggests that the people who made the movie really love cars and know everything about them. I know absolutely nothing about cars and do not harbor any fond feelings for them. In fact a big reason I like living in NYC is that I don’t need a car here. My driver’s license actually expired almost a year ago and I haven’t bothered to renew it. What I’m trying to say is that I hate cars. But I do take vicarious pleasure from watching a movie that is in love with its subject matter. “Cars 2” definitely is. If you enjoyed Pixar’s “Ratatouille” without having any knowledge of French cuisine, than you should have a fun time watching “Cars 2” whether or not you know about cars. I suspect people who do like cars will love this movie.

Much of the humor and creativity in this movie (and there is quite a lot of it) has gone into creating our human world in a way that is totally inhabited by cars. They are doing everything that we do just in car fashion. This leads to some really clever spectacles. One of my favorites is the Popemobile inside a Popemobile. Another is when the cars go through airport security and have to take off their tires to go through the metal detectors. These little details fill the movie end-to-end. One weakness in the jokes however is that a person might have to be a world traveler to get them all. In the Tokyo segment, I would think that the viewer would have to be knowledgeable of Japanese TV shows, those compartments that people rent to sleep in, and the fact that you can get everything in a vending machine over there, to get the jokes about them. The same goes for the jokes that are ingrained into the scenery in Paris, London, and a coastal Italian city that looks a lot like Cinque Terra. If you were familiar with these places, I would think your viewing pleasure would be enhanced a great deal.

The same goes for the evil scheme that is being perpetrated by Big Oil in this movie. It reminded me of the water scheme that the last James Bond movie, “Quantum of Solace,” featured. Most people thought that scheme was totally lame. I loved it, but I think that was mostly because I had just read a book about water wars (Cadillac Desert) and had known the scheme was based on something that actually happened in Bolivia. I can see people having the same reaction to the evil plot here as well. Before seeing “Cars 2,” it might help to watch the documentary, “Who Killed the Electric Car?” the utterly baffling tale of how a “business” named General Motors designed and manufactured an arguably superior product only to go to rather extraordinary lengths not to market or sell it. With that knowledge, the scheme in “Cars 2” may not seem so unrealistic because it isn’t really. Similar things have happened. Pixar has once again done their homework. One thing that this scheme does get right in line with James Bond movies is the car equivalent of the bad guys. In this movie they are lemons, really bad working cars, bent on perpetrating an evil plot because they’re so bitter about their inferiority. Surely, if there is anything I’ve learned from watching James Bond movies, it’s that you shouldn’t trust people with physical deformities.

Not that Pixar is up on a soapbox here about environmentalism. This movie is mainly about car chases, jokes, and cool spy car gadgets. There is a subplot that deals with McQueen and Mater’s friendship getting strained by Mater’s spy stuff, but it isn’t heavy stuff. Unlike the last several Pixar movies, this one isn’t about to make you start crying in the theater. Apparently that level of pathos (as opposed to say intelligence, wit, or creativity) is now what solely defines a Pixar movie as its omission in this movie is the primary reason why it is scoring a completely uncalled for 33% on RottenTomatoes. It should be noted that audiences leaving the theater have given “Cars 2” a Cinemascope rating of A-. I would give it a B+ but yes that is far more accurate than the tomato rating. “Cars 2” is not a masterpiece but it is as good as any decent James Bond movie, a worthy comparison because it is the gold standard of the genre this movie takes place in. At the very least, “Cars 2” is a better movie than “Cars” was. 

Some extra thoughts on the ingenious marketing strategy of "Cars 2," and the meaning of the term "Bait and Switch Sequel."

What do people want when it comes to movie night? I would argue that it is different depending on when you ask them.

When a person is deciding which movie from many to see, they generally try to make the safest choice possible. This is especially true if you are choosing a movie for a group of people. You don’t want to be the guy who suggests an obscure movie that everyone ends up hating. A sequel from a very popular movie has at least a decent chance of being mediocre. If it is awful, then there is always an excuse. I thought it would have been like the first. The people with you will understand because they were thinking the same thing before heading into the theater. That excuse is not available when bringing people to see a movie that doesn’t have a track record.

But what will you have wished you had seen once you leave the theater. Well, supposedly you will have wished you had seen a good movie. Fill in your definition of that here. In the case of a sequel to “Cars,” I think I would have liked to see, at the very least, exciting action sequences I had not seen before and funny jokes I had not heard before or, in other words, a good original story. 

A “Bait-and-switch sequel,” is a movie that baits people into the theater by marketing something recognizable but than switches into an original story once the money has been paid and the people are sitting down. If all goes to plan it would be the best of both worlds, both in terms of box office and artistic credibility. So the rule: the “2” helps get people into the theater. It doesn’t help tell the story. Like “Cars 2” it should be used accordingly. 

The Hangover: Part II (2/5 Stars)

“10: The author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. But the reader of the “Deerslayer” tale dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.”

- Mark Twain, Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses

Comedy happens when somebody gets exactly what they deserve. Tragedy happens when bad things befall good people. If you do not have the ability to grasp this very simple basic difference than you might just be one of the makers of “The Hangover: Part 2,” a movie that discards nearly everything that made Part I a superior comedy and leaves behind a mess of awkwardness, unpleasantness, and a story that, if it took place in the real world, would be really sad.

The original conceit of the first Hangover movie was nothing short of brilliant. Four guys go to Vegas for a bachelor party. The next morning, Alan (played by Zach Galifinakis), Stu (played by Ed Helms), and Phil (played by Bradley Cooper) wake up in a trashed hotel room with disastrous hangovers. The groom is missing and nobody can remember where they lost him. But there are several clues around: a hospital band, a receipt from an ATM, a tiger, a chicken, a baby, and a police car. The rest of the movie concerns the three trying to piece together the mystery and meeting many different comic characters along the way. “The Hangover: Part II” follows this formula but in a vastly inferior way. This time it is Stu getting married. The wedding is taking place in Thailand. A couple of nights before the wedding, the four guys plus the bride’s 16-year-old nephew, Terry, have one beer by a campfire. Stu, Alan, and Phil wake-up the next morning with disastrous hangovers in a vagrant apartment in Bangkok and Terry is missing. But instead of a multitude of clues there is but two, a monkey and a severed finger. Both are dead ends and don’t lead to anything. In fact, whenever a clue or lead is finally brought to light it is usually entirely explored in the very next scene. Thus, there is very little mystery to Part II and that is a huge problem both in terms of the movie’s pace and comedy.

One of the more brilliant things about the first movie’s structure was the way it efficiently set up subplots. A clue was shown at the beginning and this gave the movie an excuse to switch tracks from one comic situation to another via some hilarious shock moments. Some good examples are the cops busting into a room, Mike Tyson waiting for the guys in their hotel room, or an Asian gang purposefully ramming the guys’ car. These moments don't exist in Part II because nothing is ever set up. So instead of quick comical transitions we are left with the guys walking around in depressed moods to locations that seem arbitrarily chosen. This movie isn't nearly as intelligent nor as interesting to watch unfold.

But this wouldn’t be nearly as big a problem if the movie were funny. And this is where “The Hangover Part II” inexplicably fails consistently. For one thing, all the characters have turned into jerks. The most notable transformation is Alan. What was a very funny weird but well-meaning oddball in the first movie has turned into a total asshole. He is mean to his parents, his friends, and most notably to Terry, who hasn’t done anything to deserve all the insults. This isn't funny. It's awkward. Generally speaking, a movie should make the audience like the good people in the story and dislike the bad. That way the movie is enjoyable when good stuff happens to the good people and bad stuff happens to the bad. (You would think that this would go without saying). But here there is no difference between the good and bad. They are all assholes. This goes for all the side characters in the sub-plots as well. Where Part I had some variability in the types of people the guys met (like say sweetheart Mike Tyson, heart of gold hooker Heather Graham, macho cop Rob Riggle, the annoyed doctor, etc.) everyone in Part II seems to be slightly different versions of the same jerk. The tattoo guy is a jerk. The Buddhist Monks are jerks. The drug dealers are jerks. The father-in-law is a jerk. The crime boss, played by Paul Giamatti, is a huge snarling screaming jerk. Nobody seems to be having any fun. Even the flashbacks of the night before don't show anybody having fun. The one exception is Mr. Chow, played once again by Ken Jeong, and he’s dead for half the movie. The story takes place almost entirely in a dank cesspool of inner city Bangkok. Everything is the color of puke. The funniest lines are spoken by Alan and these are mostly non-sequitors. You know a comedy is in trouble when the best jokes are funny precisely because they have nothing to do with the storyline.

The director Todd Phillips has always been very skilled at casting groups of comedians with different comic styles (Road Trip, Old School, Starsky and Hutch). In the first Hangover he hit the motherlode with the oddball Galifinakis, the neurotic Helms, and the laid back Bradley Cooper. The three played off each other very well. This was especially true whenever things would get too crazy. At that point the movie could depend on Cooper to be a relaxing agent. They wake up in a trashed hotel room. “Looks like we had a bit of fun last night,” Cooper wryly remarks, hardly worried. A valet brings around a cop car instead of their Rolls Royce. Cooper volunteers to drive it, not missing a beat. In Part II, this dynamic falls apart completely and the main reason is that Cooper can’t realistically be a relaxing agent without sounding like an uncaring asshole. The situations the guys find themselves in are far too serious. Do you understand the comedic difference between getting tasered as a punishment for stealing a cop car as opposed to getting shot for no reason whatsoever? Do you understand the difference between a very bad sunburn and a permanent face tattoo? Or how about the difference between cheating on an unfaithful shrew of a girlfriend by accidentally marrying Heather Graham as opposed to cheating on your faultless fiancé via sodomy with a transvestite prostitute? If you do, then I would argue you have a much keener understanding of what is funny and what is not than the makers of this movie. There is a very telling scene in this movie as far as the audience’s laughter level in the theater with me was concerned. It dealt with Stu’s father-in-law giving a toast. It starts with a couple of insults at Stu’s expense, which the audience definitely laughed at. It goes on for several more insults, each one drawing less laughter than the one before. And then the toast just keeps on going for much longer than the movie needed to make absolutely clear that the father-in-law isn’t telling jokes at all. Instead, he is expressing outright hatred of his son-in-law and maliciously intends to humiliate him in front of his bride to be, his entire family, and all his friends. By the end of the toast, the audience had stopped laughing. It wasn’t funny. It was just really fucking mean. 

The Hangover Part II has made so much money already that I’m sure there is more than enough financial incentive to make Part III. I am of the belief that Part III could still be very funny if it stayed competently faithful to the formula of the first movie. The first step I would think is to hire back the original writers, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, and fire the hacks they hired to write this one.

The Tree of Life (4/5 Stars)

He’s the one

Who likes all our pretty songs

And he likes to sing along

And he likes to shoot his gun

But he knows not what it means

Knows not what it means

When I say….

In Bloom, Nirvana

“The Tree of Life,” is a very pretty movie. I admit I didn’t quite understand it, but that still won’t stop me from suggesting other people see it. I would say it is worth seeing just because it exists. Sure, it is probably a good idea to take some time to think about it or read an article or two about the meaning in order to draw your own conclusions. That is something I myself will attempt to do at the end of this review. But I don’t think you have to in order to enjoy the movie. If there is one thing about this movie I can definitely say, it is that it is not the least bit preachy or confrontational. The movie is rated PG. It contains gorgeous images that are flashed onto the screen at a dime a dozen pace. It is lovingly directed, acted, and edited with great attention to artistic detail and is told in a calming, meditative, and above all, spiritual way. There was once this very similar movie called “2001: A Space Odyssey.” It too involved an incredible scope of vision that intertwined the eons of history with a visual odyssey set to an amazing score. Sure it was kind of long at times and had a meaning that was kind of hard to grasp, but the children of the sixties had a good way of dealing with that problem. They got high before they saw the movie. Now I’m not saying that you should do that before seeing “The Tree of Life.” I’m just saying I heard it worked for “2001: A Space Odyssey.” No, I wasn’t high when I saw the movie. I was tipsy on white wine, which is totally fine with Jesus.   

The director of “The Tree of Life,” is none other than Terrance Malick. He has made five movies since 1973. Rounded out, that is about one movie per decade. It shows. A Malick movie is something that always looks like the creator took the time to make as perfect as possible. In most other movies, there will perhaps be a scene or a single shot of great beauty that will catch your eye. Those movies will almost always take the time to really linger on the shot and milk it for all its worth. This happens about every 30 seconds in a Malick movie. If you watch the trailer and then the movie, you will notice that most of the images in the trailer happen within the first half hour of the movie. There is plenty more where that came from and it is just as good. The cinematographer’s name is Emmanuel Lubezki and the composer’s name is Alexandre Desplat. You should remember those names, as it is very likely that they will be hoisting Oscars come next February.

The plot of the story is unconventional to the extreme. After a brief prologue concerning several family members hearing about the death of a 19-year-old son and brother, the movie takes a detour to show the creation of the universe, from the big bang to the formation of the Earth. Evolution takes over in a series of montages that could be described as a biologist’s wet dream. This includes dinosaurs. Finally a boy named Jack is born in 1950s suburbia. At this point, we finally get characters. There is the mother played by Jessica Chastain, the father played by Brad Pitt, and three boys played by Hunter McCracken (“Jack”), Laramie Eppler, and Tye Sheridan. The story of the family is told through vignettes of specific details. The camera flows through the house and surrounding neighborhood in a curious and wonderful way. Most of the time it doesn’t matter what scene came just before or what scene comes right after. When the people speak it has the tendency to break the spell, so most of time the characters don’t speak, or when they do it is whispered in a voiceover or replaced by the lyrical score. In a way, the actors are even really acting. They are more like models in a moving Norman Rockwell painting. The main conflict in the movie is Jack’s relationship with his domineering father, a strict disciplinarian who insists that his sons call him sir, do their chores very perfectly, and learn how to fight him, etc. He is a bully but is deliberately shown as having the belief that he is doing his son’s a service in getting them ready for a hard world. He speaks enviously of neighbors with more money and his failed dreams of being a musician. He has it all figured out for his kids though, that is until the end of the movie where something happens and he doesn’t anymore. Life goes on and the family moves away from their idyllic house in the suburbs. We then see Jack all grown up as Sean Penn. The movie loses reality as Sean Penn looks like he’s taking a journey into the wilderness until we see that he is meeting up with a crowd that contains his already dead parents. They all walk around a big lake together to the tune of a Gregorian chant. Then the movie and the song end with several Amens. I read Ebert’s review and he suggested that the last couple of scenes were some kind of afterlife. I’m going to take his word for it. (Although if heaven we’re walking around a lake for all eternity, I think I would rather be reincarnated.)

So okay, what the hell does all of it mean? I’ll take my best shot at it. We might as well start with the quote at the beginning of the movie. It says “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.”  It is from the biblical book of Job. For those not acquainted, the book of Job is the story of a good person who has many bad things happen to him. Wallowing in self-pity and scorning life, Job is joined by three friends who insist that since God is just, Job must have done something to deserve his situation. Job disagrees. He does not lay blame at God’s feet nor ask for anything back but simply asks for an explanation. If he is guilty than what did he do? This conversation goes on for a while until finally God shows up to put in his two cents. And here is where it gets interesting. God doesn’t explain himself. Instead he chides Job for having the gall to even raise the question. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” God asks. The point being that men do not have the knowledge or experience to understand what God is doing nor does God have the duty to answer the questions of his own creations. The book of Job is part of a series of books in the Bible called the Books of Wisdom (others are Proverbs and Ecclesiastes). These are kind of amazing books because in essence they take an agnostic view of God. They don’t deny the existence of God, but they also quite explicitly reject the idea that God can be fully understood. Ecclesiastes is particularly skeptical. It declares everybody to be wrong and everything done on Earth to be in vain. All of this just goes to show that no matter what your beliefs are, there is a book somewhere in the bible that will support them.  

My best guess is that “The Tree of Life,” is a deeply spiritual agnostic movie. It juxtaposes the creation of the universe over billions of years with the story of how young Jack’s father was really mean to him for seemingly no reason. It assumes that they are connected somehow in some greater plan but does not explain why or how. In other words, a connection between the different parts in this movie is something the audience has to take on faith. Either you believe it or you don’t. The ending of this movie drew giggles in the theater that I was in. I can understand that because I saw the movie and I can attest that it doesn’t make logical sense. But such is spirituality and I believe Malick gets it at least that much right by not trying to prove anything. It is a mistake I would think to look to biblical prophecies or miracles as definite proof of God or his will because basing belief of God on tangible things isn’t exactly faith. It is more of a pseudoscience. In essence, faith is about being presented with a legitimate mystery, attributing it to God, and accepting that you won’t be able to understand it. Science on the other hand is based on the assumption that with enough work everything is knowable and if there is a God, then how that works is knowable as well. The two are completely incompatible no matter what anybody says. Both points of view have their downsides when it comes to living life though. The linchpin in this movie is the conflict within the Brad Pitt character. He is struggling to master a world he doesn’t understand and ruinously brings that fight into his home instead of accepting the mystery and being thankful and enjoying the life that has been given to him. 

I don’t know, maybe.

For those interested in spending more than one restless night thinking about these sorts of things, may I suggest the Coen Brothers movie, “A Serious Man.” It is about a Jewish physics professor who wants a decent explanation as to why his life is turning to shit, just like Job.