The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

1½  pipes out of 4

Incredible in name but too many detractors inhibit Burt Wonderstone to live up to it. An intriguing dark comedy about the aging magician duo of Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell) and Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi) trying to get their energy and awe back. This would have been good enough except writers John Goldstein and John Daley team with director Don Scardino to take things too far with the addition of Steve Grey (Jim Carrey). Carrey’s character is meant to be a satire of today’s magicians performing extreme acts instead of performing actual magic. Besides almost all of his tricks being physically impossible, Carrey’s character is a complete waste of screen time and deflates most of the comedy before it can get going. There is a point that Goldstein, Daley and Scardino is trying to make which is today’s society is more into brutality and reality than theatricality and awe, but like most of Carrey’s characters, it goes way over the top, even going so far as to make fun of rape by calling himself the ‘Brain Rapist’. Alan Arkin follows up his Oscar nominated role in Argo to supplement Carell and actually is a highlight of the film. He just seems to get better with age. Olivia Wilde plays Jane, an aspiring magician who once idolized Wonderstone but upon meeting him, becomes disillusioned. From the get go one can see that this relationship will be the romance of the film but it just feels wrong. From the way they portray Carell with his makeup and hairdo, he is easily 50 years old while Wilde portrays the young 20 something assistant. The age gap is just too wide to bridge without awkwardness. There were a number of comical moments in the film, most of which come from the interactions between Carell and Buscemi whose chemistry is phenomenal. Over all this is an ok movie which could have been much better without Jim Carrey and his character.

The Croods

3 pipes out of 4

While The Croods may be prehistoric, the story is beyond its time. Being a direct response by DreamWorks to the popular Ice Age series by Blue Sky Studios, at first glance it appears simply to be a repeat and redundant. But once you dive into the story that follows a human family instead of animals, you find a much more endearing characters and much a more relatable storyline. Emma Stone offers her husky voice to the young Eep, pushing the boundaries of her overprotective father Grug. With any other voice this may have been an ok character but Nicholas Cage brings every line to life with hilarity. Ryan Reynolds completes the hilarious trinity as Guy, the innovative love interest. The supporting cast is nothing to laugh at with veterans Catherin Keener, Cloris Leachman along with the comedic idiosyncrasies of Clark Duke. DreamWorks has revolutionized animation in the past and they continue to move in new directions, creating a character that is funny and dynamic while not uttering a single word. They also create a wonderful world with just the right amount of realism with while suspending the belief of the audience, with flying turtles and crocodile dogs. Director Chris Sanders lends his voice to my favorite character the pet of Guy, a sloth who has an eye for the dramatic giving his signature ‘dun dun dun’ in sometimes not the best places. Expected to be an Ice Age rip off, the Croods evolved into a world of its own, giving the whole family something to enjoy.

Olympus Has Fallen

1½ pipes out of 4

Olympus has fallen and it can’t get up. Even with an all star cast of Morgan Freeman, Aaron Eckhart, Gerard Butler and Ashley Judd, it just can’t seem to get off the ground. Besides the fact that the premise that the White House could ever be taken in 15 minutes is ridicules, Olympus Has Fallen appears to be a bad rip off of the original Die Hard. It is complete with all of the action movie clichés, with the classic double cross, there being only one person that can save the day and a hard nosed general who hates the protagonist for being better at life than he is. There are so many similarities it could be viewed as a Die Hard reboot to the naked eye. Another interesting fact is that while Morgan Freeman makes a descent president, he continues the trend in Hollywood if having a black man as the acting president whenever there is a horrible tragedy, remember deep impact? The 5^th Element? 2012? Aaron Eckhart plays the original president who gets taken hostage and has to show his bravado of everyone else can give up their codes to the nukes because he won’t give up his. Since he won’t give up his there is no point for others to resist, by this logic the fate of the entire world rests on one man when it could have remained on 3. Ashley Judd makes a brief appearance as the First Lady until tragedy strikes and Gerard Butler, head of secret service security detail to the president, is demoted to a desk job. Soon after, all hell breaks loose at the White House and Butler is called upon to unleash is inner BAMF. One thing that the film does have going for it is that Rick Yune does a wonderful job portraying a genius yet insane villain with realism, going so far as executing a hostage on camera after a failed attempt by the Navy Seals to retake the White House. The action is relatively nonstop which does help disguise the discrepancies making this a nice film to curl up on the couch on a Saturday night with popcorn and the $1 price of red box. 

Oz the Great and Powerful

3 pipes out of 4

James Franco really needs to make up his mind whether he wants to be a serious actor or simply the stoner guy. The man has magnificent talent but when he chooses more sophisticated roles as he does in Oz the Great and Powerful, he almost seems out of place. You are constantly waiting for him to light up and make stupid comments. Franco Plays Oz, a failing circus magician who breaks women’s hearts and is taken in to a tornado, propelling him to Oz. Zach Braff plays his side kick in both Kansas and Oz except in Oz he takes the form of a flying monkey. I typically do not like the movies that Braff tends to lean towards but he is surprisingly good with his witty humor and self deprecating act. Mila Kunis, who plays Theadora is the first person to meet Franco upon his arrival to Oz and almost instantly falls in love with him. Some critics have stated that Kunis is a poor aspect of the film and I would have to agree, only in that her storyline is far too rushed giving very little time for development. I thought Kunis did a marvelous job with what she had but she didn’t have much. Michelle Williams plays Glinda The Good Witch who tries to convince Oz to fulfill the prophecy laid down by her father in that a great wizard will come to Oz, defeat the evil witch Rachel Weis and become King of Oz. Almost all of the signature characters from the old classic Wizard of Oz are either in the film or referenced but with slight variations in order to maintain some kind of legal agreement. The Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow are explicitly referenced but the tin man is oddly left out. Except for some minor clichés and a few cases of obvious foreshadowing, Oz, the Great and Powerful is a wonderful film and does complete justice to the original it is prequeling.