Planes and Proms

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013): adapted by Steve Conrad from the story by James Thurber; starring Ben Stiller (Walter Mitty), Kristen Wiig (Cheryl Melhoff), Kathryn Hahn (Odessa Mitty), Shirley Maclaine (Edna Mitty), Sean Penn (Sean O'Connell), and Adam Scott (Ted Hendricks): Affable 'adaptation' of James Thurber's very-short story goes very, very retro in its contemporary setting -- Mitty is a photo editor at Life magazine. And Life magazine is getting turned into a web-only project by evil corporate exec Adam Scott. It's as if portions of the script had been around since the 1970's! It makes for a fun movie, about as fun as the first adaptation with Danny Kaye. Ben Stiller keeps himself reined in for the most part, not piling the bathos upon his character too much. Lightly recommended.

Blockers (2018): written by Brian and Jim Kehoe; directed by Kay Cannon; starring Leslie Mann (Lisa), John Cena (Mitchell), Ike Barinholtz (Hunter), Kathryn Newton (Julie), Geraldine Viswanathan (Kayla), Gideon Adlon (Sam), Gary Cole (Ron), and Gina Gershon (Cathy): There are enough laughs in [Cock] Blockers to make it worth watching on a slow night. I'd have loved to be in the pitch meeting ("Three parents try to stop their daughters from losing their virginity on Prom Night!"). The movie generally walks the tightrope between 'Stupid parents!' and 'Crazy teens!' pretty well. John Cena is very funny. It helps that he looks like a cartoon, and that the movie takes advantage of this. Third-act sentimentality almost swamps the whole boat. Lightly recommended.

Die Hard 2 (1990): adapted by Steven E. de Souza and Doug Richardson from the novel by Walter Wager; directed by Renny Harlin; starring Bruce Willis (John McClane), Bonnie Bedelia (Holly McClane), Franco Nero (Esperanaza), William Sadler (Stuart), John Amos (Grant), Dennis Franz (Carmine), Fred Dalton Thompson (Trudeau), and Sheila McCarthy (Samantha): While Die Hard 2 lacks the verve of the original, it's still a solid action movie. The main problem is that even three villains don't add up to one Alan Rickman. Recommended.

Detectiveness

Christine: adapted from the Stephen King novel by Bill Phillips; directed by John Carpenter; starring Keith Gordon (Arnie Cunningham), John Stockwell (Dennis Guilder), Alexandra Paul (Leigh Cabot), Robert Prosky (Will Darnell) and Harry Dean Stanton (Detective Junkins) (1983): Competent adaptation of King's horror novel never quite soars, possibly because of budgetary restrictions -- the epic car chases of the novel have instead become epic studies in stupidity, as people try to escape the homicidal car by running down the middle of the road. Because that always works so well.

The script also errs in trying to squeeze in the entire timeline of King's lengthy novel, resulting in the triumph of plot over character. Carpenter manages some nice set-pieces and one truly great image involving fiery cars and fiery bodies, and the whole thing isn't boring -- just a bit frustrating. The acting by the leads is fine, though Harry Dean Stanton is wasted as a police detective, and Robert Prosky and Roberts Blossom blow the young leads off the screen whenever they share a scene. Lightly recommended.


Zero Effect: written and directed by Jake Kasdan; starring Bill Pullman (Daryl Zero), Ben Stiller (Steve Arlo), Ryan O'Neal (Gregory Stark) and Kim Dickens (Gloria Sullivan) (1998): Jake Kasdan's first film as a writer-director is clearly a labour of love, complete with a certain self-indulgence when it comes to trimming the fat off the film.

A modern riff on Sherlock Holmes, Zero Effect follows Holmes-like Daryl Zero and his assistant Steve Arlo as they unravel a case of blackmail. Pullman does surprisingly well as the twitchy, weird Zero -- indeed, casting decisions even in 1998 would have suggested that Kasdan accidentally reversed the casting of the two leads. The result is the sort of detective movie that would have been right at home in the theatres of 1974, but which vanished without a trace in 1998. Which is too bad, because I'd have liked to see more weirdly titled cases of Daryl Zero. Recommended.

Honey, I Forgot the Ending

Tower Heist: written by Ted Griffin, Jeff Nathanson, Adam Cooper, and Bill Collage; directed by Brett Ratner; starring Ben Stiller (Kovaks), Eddie Murphy (Slide), Casey Affleck (Charlie), Alan Alda (Arthur Shaw), Matthew Broderick (Mr. Fitzhugh), Tea Leoni (Special Agent Claire Denham), and Gabourey Sidibe (Odessa) (2011): Mildly amusing heist comedy which seems to have undergone so many rewrites that they forgot to include an actual ending. Seriously. It's as if they left the final reel out of the movie.

The major setpiece involves shenanigans with a car, a penthouse, and a bunch of guys trying to lower said car from one floor to another. It's actually pretty funny. There are other sparks throughout, most of them supplied by Matthew Broderick. Ben Stiller gets to play someone who isn't a jittery nebbish for once, and that's also a plus. Stiller's romantic subplot goes nowhere -- victim of that lost final reel, perhaps. Eddie Murphy riffs on his old Trading Places persona, to only intermittent comic effect.

It's a Brett Ratner movie. One really can't expect too much, and it's at least better than X-Men: The Last Stand. And Alan Alda is surprisingly evil as a Bernie Madoff-like investment banker. Lightly recommended.