Jumanji: The Next Level (3/5 Stars)

I had written in my review of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle that it was the type of movie that you had to take a step back and shake yourself into realizing it was a great film. Jumanji: The Next Movie is the same concept, with the same actors, and the same director, but it is not a great film. Again, one has to take a step back and contemplate what exactly is the different since there is so much in common.

The most obvious difference is the disappearance of the original writers: Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. I sung their praises before so I will not dwell on their greatness here. Notice instead how this movie lacks the sheer efficiency and ingenious character development of the first movie. In particular, the game itself was more fully realized (and more obviously a video game) in the first movie. Here, the video game’s plot is not so clearly constructed. It is hardly to imagine the various scenes as video game levels. Still, this movie has a few good ideas and does its best to exploit them to their most enjoyable.

The best idea of this sequel, and a further confirmation into what made the first movie work so well, is to fully lean in on the actors doing impressions of other actors. Regardless of what the plot is doing, I always find this interesting. This sequel introduces two more real-life characters: Uncle Eddie played by Danny Devito and his ex-business partner Milo Walker played by Danny Glover. When the real people are sucked into the game this time, Danny Devito inhabits of Dr. Smolder Bravestone, played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Likewise Danny Glover inhabits Moose Finbar, played by Kevin Hart. Both are fun impressions. I would give Kevin Hart the upper hand on his though. (Favorite line: “Did…I just kill Eddie…by talking…too slow…just like…he always said I would).

Dr. Shelly Oberon, played by Jack Black, who was the avatar of the mean girl in the first film, is now the avatar of Fridge, the black football player. So Jack Black's impression this time around is a complete 180. This is one of those things that might seem controversial but much like Robert Downey Jr.’s performance in Tropic Thunder has inexplicably not raised eyebrows. Also joining the cast is Awkwafina as another avatar player character in the video game. Near the end she  switches places and becomes the avatar of Danny Devito. She does a great job (dare I say better job than The Rock) in acting like an old short fat outspoken Italian man.

The acting shenanigans are the most interesting part of this movie. So much so, that the action sequences, though packed with special effects, feel like they are get in the way of the performances. In the original movie there was more of a balance (or at least the action sequences seemed to be more intertwined with the character development). What is also lacking from the original movie is any particularly interesting development in the original four teenage characters. The pathos of this movie belongs entirely to the characters of Danny Devito and Danny Glover who have had some bad blood in their previous business break-up and are seeking away to heal old bonds. In effect, this makes them the main characters as they have the more emotional territory to cover. Unlike the first movie, there is not enough for all the characters to do, less balance between the character plots and the character's skills/weaknesses do not pay off as well.

Overall, Jumanji: The Next Level is a decently good movie. It is what a sequel should be in a way: the same, but more of it. I got enough of exactly what I was looking for.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (5/5 Stars)

One has to step back and shake oneself into believing that “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” is one of the year’s best films. After all, the movie itself does not make this kind of demand on its audience. It is marketed and feels like a good time family comedy that aims only to please, not enlighten. But when a movie accomplishes what it sets out to do so well, it is important sometimes to try to deconstruct how it does what it does. There are many levels to “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” and they interact with each other seamlessly to an extent that puts this movie on par with such other great comedies like “Hott Fuzz” and “Tropic Thunder”.

“Jumanji” was written by Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna, both alumni of the TV show “Community”. In particular, it was Chris McKenna who was credited for writing the Emmy nominated episode “Remedial Chaos Theory”. That brilliant episode, and “Community” in general, works in much the same way as “Jumanji”. Here, like in “Community”, the characters are deliberately stock characters. We have four high-schoolers, a nerd named Spencer, a jock known as Fridge, a mean girl named Bethany, and a sarcastic girl named Martha. They find themselves for various reasons in detention, a plot set-up that seems to deliberately recall “The Breakfast Club”. Detention involves cleaning out the school’s basement, wherein the four find a video game named “Jumanji”. Using the plot conceit of a previous “Jumanji” movie from 1995, itself based on an early 1980s board game, the game comes to life as the kids are playing it. In the 1995 version, the game came into the real world. In the 2017 version, the four are sucked into the game.

While in the game the four stock high-schoolers are transformed into archetypical video game avatars that they unwittingly chose before playing the game. The nerd is transformed into Dr. Smolder Bravestone, played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and strong, courageous, and intelligent archeaologist (think “Indiana Jones” type). The jock is transformed into Franklin “Mouse” Finbar, played by Kevin Hart, a side-kick and zoologist. The mean girl accidentally chooses the Avatar “Shelly” Oberon, curvy genius, thinking it to be beautiful woman and not a fat middle-aged man, played by Jack Black, who excels in cartography and other sciences. And finally the sarcastic girl is transformed into Ruby Roundhouse, played by Karen Gillan (the blue robot in “Guardians of the Galaxy”), a scantily-clad femme fatale (think “Lara Croft”) who excels at Karate, Tai Chi, and Dance Fighting.

The video game they inhabit also has its rules. They have to work together with their character’s strengths and weaknesses to find their way through various levels, solve mysteries, and beat bosses in order to win the game and leave. Anyone who has ever played an old Nintendo game will immediately recognize the set-up. One of the cleverer ways this is played out is through a character named Nigel Billingsley, played by Rhys Darby, who serves as an explanatory character that, because of his programming, can only say certain things in response to certain things. This is annoying to the characters and funny to us.

Like “Community”, “Jumanji” uses cliches as a launchpad, not a crutch. By using tropes, it constructs a base of familiarity which it then exploits by developing the story through realistic character choices. We can predict how a stereotypical jock will react in a situation and we can predict how a stereotypical sidekick will react in a situation, but we are less familiar with how a stereotypical jock trapped in the body of a stereotypical sidekick will react. “Jumanji” presents eight familiar characters within four characters and stays true to all of them. Brevity is the soul of wit, and the rate of information thrown at the audience is amusingly efficient.

And how it does this is not just an achievement in writing, but in casting and acting. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is so good at playing a sensitive teenager that the shear believably of it is in and of itself amusing. Kevin Hart, a diminutive comedian who excels at large in-your-face comedy, seemingly didn’t have to change his personality at all in order to believably play the jock in the side-kick role, which in turn itself is a humorous take on his style of comedy comedy. But the best example of the possibilities of combining teenagers with video game avatar is Jack Black’s impersonation of a self-absorbed teenage girl. Not only is it pitch-perfect going one way, Jack Black sounding exactly like a teenage girl, it is pitch-perfect going the other way, a self-absorbed teenage girl inexplicably possessing larger-than-life intelligence. Remember that the teenagers now inhabit the special powers of their avatars. The Jack Black avatar Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon is a curvy genius. This does not make Bethany less self-absorbed, but it does make her especially articulate about her behavior in a way that is almost never seen with this particular stock character trope. This is a great example of how using otherworldly premises with their own special rules of reality can help develop the character of a real person in a way that regular drama cannot. Upon finding herself sucked inside a video game, Bethany complains about not having her phone anymore. The sarcastic girl chides her for being so self-absorbed. Jack Black’s response is so exceedingly reasonable and well thought out you wonder why nobody else is complaining about their phones being missing. Jack Black’s acting in this movie is worthy of an Oscar nomination. There is absolutely no chance of that happening because it is unthinkable that this type of role would result in such a thing. However, I would put this performance alongside Steve Martin’s in “All of Me” as a performance so unexpectedly good, one has to take a moment to realize just how underrated it is.

Finally the movie has great teamwork. There is not a character here that does not have a good role and the movie, directed by Jake Kasdan, seamlessly gives everyone something to do. Even the sarcastic girl who was transformed into the usually thankless role of the femme fatale, has her own touching developments. There is this one particular scene where Martha and Spencer within the bodies of smoking hot Karen Gillan and Dwayne Johnson act in the age-old awkward teenager “I like you” exchange. It is just something special. It is so recognizable, but as it is coming out of middle-aged movie stars, it is also very funny. This movie is something special and can be shown to anyone anywhere.  

Bernie (3/5 Stars)

There is at least one thing we know for certain. Bernie Tiede shot Majorie Nugent, an eighty three year old woman in the back four times, than stuffed her lifeless corpse in a freezer where it stayed for the next nine months. Why he did it is a lot less clear, and amazingly, whether he deserves to be punished for it is also up for debate in this new “comedy” directed by Richard Linklater and starring Jack Black as the title character.

This story is based on events that took place in the small town of Carthage, Texas in the 1990s. The movie even has most of the townspeople of Carthage cast as themselves. They interact with the movie stars who are playing the principal characters and give interviews directly to the camera at other times. So this movie has a novel structure as a half documentary, half movie. It is more weird than effective though and leaves a plenty to be explained and uncovered. 

The story deserves to be on the same newspaper page as “Man bites dog.” Bernie Tiede was just the nicest guy. Everyone loved him. He was the town’s assistant funeral director. His employer describes him as the most qualified employee he had ever had. He taught sunday school. He sang in the church choir. He directed and starred in town plays. He made a habit of giving gifts to everyone he met. He even would visit widows after the funerals of their husbands and console them with flowers. One such widow was  Majorie Nugent, played here by Shirley Maclaine. In addition to being his ultimate victim, she also happened to be the richest person in town.

Majorie had no friends and had not spoken anyone in her family for years. Her sister plays herself in the movie and describes her as a hateful mean person. Bernie basically became her one and only friend. They started doing everything together, even going on trips and cruises to exotic places, (always first class.) Bernie started doing everything for her. She fired her entire household staff. At one point she rewrote her will to give everything to Bernie. Over time it became just her and Bernie in that big house of hers.

Was it romantic? Well, probably not. Bernie was a closet homosexual. The police found several videotapes of him having sex with local married men when they raided his house. Anyway, one day, for no real reason (to hear Bernie tell it), Bernie killed her. Nobody noticed for nine months. In the meantime, Bernie started giving away all of her money. He bought people cars, financed local businesses, and donated a new wing to the local church. In all, it is estimated that he spent 1 million of her money on the townspeople of Carthage. (He never really got around to paying off his own credit cards with her money though.) Finally Majorie's stockbroker became suspicious and got the police to search the house. They found her stiff corpse in a freezer in the garage. Bernie confessed. When they asked him why he never disposed of the body, he said he wanted to give her a respectable funeral someday.

The town district attorney, Danny Buck, had the case transferred to a different town because he feared Bernie wouldn’t get a fair trial. Townspeople started telling him that a local jury would never convict Bernie. “You people are aware that he confessed, you know,” a tired Danny Buck says. Bernie was convicted and is spending life in prison. He teaches four classes and does a lot of good work in the big house now. Apparently people really like him there too. 

The movie isn’t really that funny. This is mostly because it is rather tough to make a joke out of the actual murder of an elderly woman. Her not being a nice person never quite makes it okay. Bad behavior can usually be mined for laughs without any real problems, but there is a line, and this movie crosses it. 

This movie would make a fine double feature with Jim Carrey’s superior “I Love You, Phillip Morris,” another true story of a closeted homosexual from Texas that was just the nicest guy and sang in the church choir and went and stole millions of dollars. What that movie accomplishes and "Bernie" doesn’t is provide some decent motivation for the events that occurred. I thought I basically understood the Jim Carrey character. I never found out who the real "Bernie" was. Sometimes it seems like we are seeing something on the screen that couldn’t have possibly have happened the way it did. For instance, after shooting the old lady, Bernie cries over her dead body. Did that really happen? If so, how do we know exactly how he reacted? These are vague areas that cry out for a treatment usually reserved for an Errol Morris documentary, which is at least clearer about what is uncertain.

Apparently just after shooting her, Bernie went to the dress rehearsal of the town musical he was directing. Ironically it was a production of the “Music Man,” and Bernie played the lead role as the charming con artist that dupes a small town into giving him a bunch of money. Is Bernie a confidence man? The movie never takes a strong stand on this subject and the possibility is only hinted at. In fact, the only person this movie really does not seem to approve of completely is the district attorney, Danny Buck. Matthew McCounaghey plays him in caricature as a slick egotistical sensationalist. His portrayal is debatable to say the least. Bernie killed a woman. I think we could say Danny Buck was justified in prosecuting him in court over it.

An opportunity missed here is an exploration of the tragic elements of this story. This is the second movie based on a true story about closet homosexuals in Texas that end up doing terrible things. I think you can make an argument that the crimes they commit are linked to the marginalization of homosexuality in Texan society. In “I Love You, Phillip Morris,” the man’s wife bluntly asks a doctor if the gay thing and stealing is related. I would argue that it is in the sense that lying everyday to everyone about an essential part of one’s identity will probably aid a person’s ability to lie in general. What was Bernie doing accompanying little old ladies? He was a very nice man who apparently everyone liked. Did he not deserve love or marriage? Bernie’s reasons for being nice to Majorie Nugent in the first place was that he had noticed how she was so lonely. (The money was there as well but that does not seem like his entire motivation.) As a gay man in Texas, he would have probably known quite a bit about that.

Tropic Thunder 08/18/08

Earlier this year, I felt that ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ had sent an ultimatum to the rest of the comedic moviemaking world. Make a movie as fresh and funny as this first time outing by Jason Segal. The youngster had thrown down the gauntlet and one by one the veterans had trouble stepping up to the plate. Some were decent (Carell’s Get Smart, Ferrell’s Step Brothers), some were above par but still fell short (Rogen’s Pineapple Express) and some landed flat on their face (Myer’s Love Guru, Murphy’s Meet Dave.) None could match the quality (laughter and quality of story) quotient of ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall.’ That is until Ben Stiller’s ‘Tropic Thunder’ came out this week. Not only did it match the quality quotient of ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ it was also a demonstration of what can only be done by a seasoned veteran with a hell of a lot of money and connections. 
The two movies couldn’t be more different. Tropic Thunder isn’t a romantic comedy, it a biting satirical swipe at the movie industry. It is impressive the amount of new subject material that has been brought into the comedy forefront by this movie: Vietnam, Blackface, the mentally retarded, heroin withdrawls, environmental disasters. Does that sound like anything that might offend you if treated the wrong way? The incredible thing about this movie though is that all of this material is somehow okay because the joke always ends up on the door of a subject that’s perfectly fine to make fun of: Hollywood, obscene producers, method actors, pretentious directors, gung ho pyrotechnics, and crazy writers. 
Tropic Thunder is the name of an Vietnam movie that stars Ben Stiller as Tugg Speedman the action star, Robert Downey Jr. as Kirk Lazarus the five time Oscar winner, Jack Black as a Hollywood badboy, and Brandon T. Jackson as rapper Alpa Chino. Steve Coogan is the first time director Damian Cockburn. Up and coming character actor Danny McBride is the gung ho explosives expert. Nick Nolte, plays the crazy Vietnam Vet turned writer. Matthew McCoughnahay is Stiller’s overzealous agent. Tom Cruise, in his best role since Magnolia, plays an obscene producer. Bill Hader, who seems to be in everything nowadays, is his assistant. That leaves out a score of other parts, but you get the sense of star power here. All of these parts are juggled effortlessly. Every single person has a great scene, or a great macho line, or a great back and forth dialogue. It’s hard to tell who’s stealing the scene from who. Ben Stiller, as a director here, has produced his finest movie, maybe even the best he’s ever been in. It is simply brilliant how truly an ensemble this movie is when it consists of so many over the top characters. You’d think they’d drown each other out but instead the nuttiness of one complements directly the nuttiness of another. 
The two greatest performances are given by Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr. At last Cruise super focused intensity is put to comic use. His profane producer is truly frightening and hilarious at the same time. You even get to see him dance. This movie has done the impossible. It’s made the guy cool again. Robert Downey Jr. on the other hand, was already super cool. With this movie, he probably will be remembered for many many many years to come as super cool. In the best performance of the movie, he plays a method actor from Australia that becomes black in order to play the part of the African American seargent. When the entire movie goes terribly wrong, his dedication is such that he still stays in character. I got the sense while watching that everyone involved was having a ball the entire time they filmed this. To be in that same room with Cruise or Downey Jr. would have been something to behold. Robert Downey Jr. has got to be nominated for this movie. Between him, Heath Ledger, James Franco, and Tom Cruise, the supporting actor category has filled up fast this year. I’ve got a feeling that this will be the year of the comedy

Be Kind Rewind 03/07/08

There are three fatal flaws in this "want to be Capraesque" movie. Jack Black once and director Michel Gondry twice. The story takes place in a VHS store that has its tapes erased by a magnetized Jack Black. Since they have no money and nobody uses VHS anymore the team of Black and Mos Def remake the movies themselves instead of buying new ones. They soon become neighborhood Gods and business booms and there's that cliche scene where a crowd of people stand below a window and chant for Mos Def to come out of a depression and make more movies.
This is a ridiculously sweet and cheesy premise and Gondry would like to instill in us that warm and fuzzy community feeling. Mia Farrow says at one point, "Here is to movies with heart." Unfortunately this movie doesn't have heart, and it is a grand suspension of disbelief that anyone would turn up to this store wanting their movies or Jack Black's autograph.
Reason #1: Jack Black's character is a deutschebag. He's mean and hard to work with. He complains incessantly and suffers from a bit of crazy attached onto an inflated ego. I think this movie would have worked infinitely better if they had a stock Owen Wilson character in his place. He can still have Black's energy just not so much acidity. 
Reason #2: The movies that these two guys make suck ass. They're horrible. The audio and video are terrible. They plot lines are completely stolen and they contain very little ingenuity apart from how certain low budget special effects are achieved. Why anyone in the neighborhood would want to watch these blows my mind. Sure it may have some cool effect by starring people from the neighborhood, but like I said the Black character is a deutsche. Why would these people pay to see him in a bad movie.
Reason #3: Another thing that bothered me tremendously is the ridiculous production value these homemade movies contain. For instance, they only had two hours to make the Ghostbusters movie. Somehow they shot several scenes, constructed costumes and cardboard models of a city in that time. I only mention this because being a broadcasting student I have made movies before. I felt like the poor hockey player who sees "Mighty Ducks" for the first time. This movie is for people who haven't the slightest idea what goes into making a movie. The premise of this movie is bullshit, and Gondry, someone who makes movies for a living, should know better. 

Nacho Libre 06/20/06

:fresh: I almost didn't see this movie. After waiting on the edge of my seat for it's release for the past two months, my heart sunk at the sight of the reviews. Roger Ebert didn't find it especially funny and the Tomatoemeter listed it at 37%.. This movie, starring Jack Black has a mexican monk/luchador, had been shelved as pure rotten. NOOOOOOOOO, it had looked so freakin funny. Anyway like I said I almost didn't see it because of the percieved dissapointment.
Which takes me to my next point. Critics should be a little more careful when they review comedies like this. Film criticism by its nature takes film seriously. That becomes a problem when the movie's creators doesn't take the movie seriously. Giving stars to this movie is like taking score in a game of CalvinBall. It's almost near pointless. Anyway I thought this was a good film, I really really liked it. And I'm not just saying that because I liked Napolean Dynamite because I didn't really like Napolean Dynamite, but this one made me laugh and that's all I asked for. I don't know what the hell Ebert was thinking. maybe he's getting old.
I'm getting off track. Good performances all around, good writing from Mike White. But the thing that makes this movie is the continued style of it's director (don't know his name). What really shines through is his self-confidence in the story and the way he handles it. Other directors might for a moment feel awkwardly about some of the jokes and characters in this story, but this one doesn't seem to know the difference or care if in the case that he does. He dislikes closeups, moves the story really fast, tends towards slapstick and loves filming the actors in front of large vistas whether they are needed or not. Jack Black has as good a Mexican accent in this movie as Al Pacino had a cuban accent in Scarface. Both are exaggerated completely, this one to great comedic effect. At other times he ceases to be Nacho and becomes Jack Black as when he starts singing. These scenes work because Mike White knows how to write for Jack. Jack knows how to bring the goods, and the director didn't seem to care whether anyone would actually get it or not. Because whoever directed this movie did things his way, it probably won't work for everyone I suppose. It will be dear to the heart of some and scorned indifferently by the rest. But don't I feel special that I'm one of the few that "gets it."

King Kong 12/19/05

I watched most of this movie with an open mouth and a wide grin on my face. To say that this movie was three hours of the most amazing sights I have ever seen is an understatement. I officially crown this movie as the best remake ever. I hope other action remakes will take note of this movie. It is not only an upgrade on visuals but also the storyline. There actually is a certain plausible romance between the ape (the beloved Andy Serkis) and the girl (Played by Naomi Watts with a beautiful scream) and other casting choices such as Jack Black as the insane director and Adrian Brody as the playwright are spot on. There are action sequences that build and build, One especially starting with a giant gila lizard, then a giant centipede, then a tyrannosaur, then two tyrannosaurs, escalates and escalates further and farther on then you would think possible. It is truly heart-pounding. The dinosaurs and other creatures in this movie are not typical. They have oversized teeth and truly frightening faces. One scene especially in a dark valley is especially chilling. The city of New York, shown first as Depression era, changes overnight with the arrival of Kong into a metropolis full of bright lights and dizzying colors. The amazing spectacular, popcorn eating grandness of this movie I have never seen before, but for one thing to point out. There are so many special effects in this movie. Not for once did I think any of them were gratuitous. Everything had a purpose to the story, and that my friends is indeed rare. I would not be surprised if this film shatters box office records. A grand tip of the hat to Peter Jackson. This is a film I will surely see again, and I have already planned on buying the DVD. Wow, Wow, Wowza.