It seems like we've waited for ages since the first teaser trailer for The Secret Life of Pets landed. I was pretty much sold on that one alone, even though it only set the tone of the comedy, leaving the plot open to speculation. So the day is finally here, and I'm even happier to report that a) all of those visual gags made the final cut and b) they're all in the first five minutes, so we get them in the context of the movie, but we're not sitting waiting for them to land (a bugbear with most comedy flicks, to be fair).
Illumination Entertainment's summer tent-pole opens with a five-minute Minions short, which is essentially a solidified slapstick episode, and exactly what the little yellow critters do best. It sets the mood well for the main event, which is consistently funny and charming in equal measure. Following the adventure of Max and Duke, an odd-couple of canines living with their owner in a Manhattan apartment-block. When they become separated from their regular life, friends and acquaintances of various species from the neighbouring apartments come together and lead a rescue mission which will take them to the mean streets of Brooklyn and back. There's action, danger, bonding and just maybe a tear or two, but above all... laughs.
The film's U-rating means that audiences of all ages should have no problem enjoying it, and the script stays well away from double-entendres that play to the older and younger crowds simultaneously. And while that's a comedic technique I certainly enjoy, I also admire the commitment to write a script which is laugh-out-loud funny for everyone, and on the same level. Between the scripted and the visual jokes, there's not a lot of downtime (and there's also the finest non-copyright-infringing Super Mario reference you'll see in any film this year).
Louis CK and Eric Stonestreet lead the pack as the squabbling dogs, backed up ably by a voice-cast as enthusiastic as the animation team. Jenny Slate, Lake Bell and Ellie Kemper coolly threaten to steal the show at any moment, as does Mr Kevin Hart*1.
If there's one weak-spot, it would be that the storyline itself feels a little linear (all the more notable since three writers are attached). The gaps are more than patched over by the constant stream of gags and character-work, but it's debatable if the film will withstand more than a couple of viewings (which could be a problem if you have small padawans who won't be as narratively critical once it hits DVD and streaming).
But, most importantly, The Secret Life of Pets is an enormous amount of fun. That's the only bar the film sets for itself, and one which it clears easily…
For the communal experience of hearing a room full of people laughing together? Sure.
It does.
Always difficult to tell with animation and voice-work, but it's a high-point for the CV, yes.
I just might.
If you don't laugh at this movie you're clearly a monster.
There certainly is.
Level 2: The Secret Life of Pets features the voice-work of Lake Bell, who starred in Man Up with Simon 'Dengar/Unkar' Pegg.
*1 Yeah, don't tell anyone that I've really enjoyed a Kevin Hart movie, okay? Don't worry, Central Intelligence comes out soon; I'm sure that will reset the scales of critical judgement…
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
So, Batman, Lois Lane, Hawkeye, Mystique and Rocket Racoon all walk into a mobster's attorney's office… stop me if you've heard it, yeah? David O.Russell's latest movie packs a solid cast into two and a half hours of lying, scheming, conniving and more side-boob than the M*il Online's sidebar puts out in an entire hour*1. The players have been hired to bring their A-Game, and bring it they do, but the film never quite reaches the heights you feel it's capable of. The soundtrack and wardrobe should be pointing toward a feelgood groove of Anchorman levels, especially in the first act where we're meeting the characters at the top of their game, but director Russell doesn't let us forget for a second that there's trouble ahead. Unfortunately when that trouble arrives, we don't really care enough for any of the shifty chancers to feel its full impact.
There are some truly fantastic moments in American Hustle, bringing greed, trust, anger and humour into the mix, but they don't really gel together to make a great story; it's more a collection of great scenes. Not knowing how much of the depicted action is 'true'*2, the plot seems to be a scattergun affair, always entertaining but needlessly complex (or if not complex then over-detailed and under-explained). The problem (for me) is that it's sort of like a mashup between The Godfather and an episode of Hustle, both of which I love, but both of which are structured more… well, coherently. In keeping with the format of the BBC con-man series, there's a reveal sequence at the climax of the film, but it feels rushed and nowhere near as satisfying as it should (for reasons which are too spoilery to go into in this review). Russell does a lovely job of making the audience feel as uneasy as the characters, the more they get out of their depth, but they payoff seems nowhere near as outlandish as the events which brought everyone there. I suspect this is where the 'true-story' aspect has its limitations, and that there's a far more exciting movie to be made with the same cast.
But fair play to casting director Mary Vernieu for finally putting Robert De Niro back onscreen as a genuinely threatening presence; it's a relief to see that he has still got it. Enough of this grumpy-old-man rom-com shit, already.
Not quite everything it could (or should) be, American Hustle is worth the price of admission just to see a great cast give some fine performances. There's just the nagging feeling that it's all for nought; too exaggerated to be real, not enough fun to be fiction.
The film's not as slick as the trailer.
Mostly.
For me, not quite.
As fun as the film is, you may get more out of it watching at home.
No.
I will.
There isn't.
Amy Adams' Brit-voice is meant to be all over the shop, right? Like it's an audible metaphor for the con, or something? Because if not, it just seems like she couldn't hold an accent if she had two 15" catcher's mitts, coated in superglue…
*1 Sarcasm aside, it's a little worrying that cinematographer Linus Sandgren spends so much time looking at Amy Adams' boobs, whereas the rest of us would get a restraining order.
*2 A title card at the beginning of the film tells us "Some of these events actually happened", and while that's fine, I'm getting a bit hacked off with the amount of true-story cinema lately. If I want true, I'll watch the news, thanks. And yes, I'm very aware that this trend isn't over yet. The next two movies I'll be watching are fact-based, albeit each with a sufficiently noteworthy basis. Wow. How's that for reverse film-snobbery? Look, just give me some fucking superheroes, alright?
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Blue Jasmine Cert: 12A / 98 mins / Dir. Woody Allen
You know that thing, where you're in a cinema on a Saturday afternoon, and you're one of the youngest people there despite being forty, and all the ads are for luxury saloons and UK tourism, and during the film you hear the audience audibly laughing and you think "What was that for? That wasn't a 'JOKE'-joke, was it? I mean, I smirked, but I don't think it warranted a 'look at me, I really appreciate the layered humour in this subtle comedy", type guffaw, and then they do it again, and the more the audience laugh and you don't, the more you resent them for it, not because you feel stupid for not publicly registering the situational callbacks which have almost no inherent comedy value, but because their self-indulgent chuckling is like trying to clap the loudest at a classical concert, and for fuck's sake it just wasn't that funny anyway?
That.
And it's the second time this year it's happened. Next time I'll fucking shush them, I swear. Anyway. I went to see the new Woody Allen film, so what was I expecting?
So, for Blue Jasmine, I think Cate Blanchett is giving a stunningly understated performance of someone who's lost their grip on reality, in a moving and thought-provoking film that subtly draws you into wanting to know more about her damaged character. Unfortunately, she seems to be alone in such an endeavour (and I include Woody Allen in that). Everything surrounding Blanchett's Jasmine is a jumbled smugfest that can't successfully spin the plates of quirky comedy and troubling drama well enough to work cohesively.
At several points throughout the film, I realised I had no idea where the story itself was heading. This is largely because Blue Jasmine doesn't have a particularly strong narrative as such, and is more of a character piece. Sadly, too much time is spent in the company of characters who are lacking just that. The subplot with Jasmine's sister Ginger seems fairly inconsequential as she's not given enough depth or development for the audience to care about her. A lot of Jasmine's past is revealed in flashback sequences which are loosely scattered (with varying durations) throughout the film. Sometimes they support a timely reveal when we return to the present, but for the most part they don't: they're just illustrating events which have already been verbally described by Jasmine or those around her, earlier in the present-tense setting. Not funny enough to be a comedy; not deep enough to be a drama. There. I said it.
From the story and its associated issues, and from Cate Blanchett's performance, I think there's a stronger, more engaging film to be made of Blue Jasmine.
Just not by Woody Allen.
Oh, that's about it, yes.
Evidently not.
Oh, probably.
Just watch it on the telly, unless you're a Woody Allen fan in which case you're probably sat there tutting at me.
There's a chance of that.
I can't imagine so.
There isn't.
In the trailer, did you laugh at the line about the Xanax? Because I know about a hundred and fifty people who thought it was the funniest thing they'd heard all week, apparently.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
