Can this motley crew and the untrained owner get the zoo in shape for its inspection? It’s a plot that seems like an over-budget episode of Full House (especially given the casting of Thomas Haden Church as Damon’s brother). There’s a happy soundtrack, honest if not overly revealing human conversation, and sickeningly adorable children. It’s so full of schmaltz, the box should smell like cotton candy.

However.

This movie made me cry like a small child who had hurt himself and was surprised by it. It’s not something I’ll often admit, the end of Armageddon not withstanding, but good grief. Like my mom watching a long distance commercial in the 80′s, I was so emotionally wrapped in this seemingly vapid story, I kept looking to the door expecting someone to walk in and expose my shame.

How was I so tricked by this sham of a movie?

Well… it’s actually pretty good.

Damon’s character is a good-natured, pleasant boy scout who’s been kicked in the groin by life a couple times. But he still keeps doing the right things for the right reasons. Johansson is not out of place at all, which I feel she often is, and is a very “low key” good as the zookeeper. The kids are cute, the comic relief is timely and well done.

The biggest attribute that We Bought a Zoo has is Cameron Crowe. He’s a guy who knows how to make a story come to life, and maybe he’s stumbled a couple of times, but he’s still a great storyteller.

So to recap:
I cry at stuff because I’m a big wussy, but sometimes that wussy stuff is pretty good too.
It’s not Shakespeare, it’s not high art, it’s straight-up storytelling with a good cast. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Comedy/Drama/Family

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 4/3/12

Jason Lee, who skipped the second one, also returns for money as Dave, the exasperated guardian of the title trio of CGI critters (and The Chippettes), whom he takes on a cruise that goes incredibly awry when they, and Cross’ disgraced music exec, end up stranded on a tropical island.

This time around, the rodents croon kid-friendly versions of “Party Rockers” and a Beyoncé song, and I gotta say it’s a little disconcerting to hear them in a movie meant for children, as is seeing the Chippettes’ “Conga” dance-off with three ladies. “Koombayah” does get performed at one point, though, so kudos for the folk music nod.

I would have to say the island setting is what makes this one more bearable, that and fewer frantic dance numbers. In any case, it’s where the troupe meets the delightfully offbeat Jenny Slate as a long-stranded island inhabitant, whose presence allows for some amusing visual references to Cast Away (the group of balls with faces she talks to) and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Yes, it’s all meant for kids to enjoy, I know. And they will. Admittedly, the furry little guys (again voiced by Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler and Jesse McCartney) are kind of adorable, as are The Chippettes (Christina Applegate, Amy Poehler and Anna Faris). But I just had to shake my head when I realized Cross was going to be in that pelican costume the entire movie. – [DVD]

Animation/Comedy/Family

Rated G

DVD Release Date: 3/27/12

Martin Scorsese

Fairly faithfully adapted from the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (cousin of classic Hollywood icon David O. Selznick), Hugo‘s eponymous hero is an orphan boy (Asa Butterfield) who haunts the margins of Montparnasse train station in 1920′s Paris, keeping the clocks wound and evading the notice of the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen). Meanwhile, he swipes mechanical trinkets from the old man who runs the toy store (Ben Kingsley) in the hope of repairing an old automaton discovered by his late father (Jude Law). The old toymaker is none too happy about these thefts, but Hugo nevertheless befriends his goddaughter (Chloë Grace Moretz), a bookish girl craving adventure and equipped with a vocabulary that some might call… voluminous.

It may be unnecessary at this point for me to keep secret the discoveries young Hugo makes regarding the old toymaker, but I will anyway. Suffice to say, this is a movie devised to inspire present and future generations to embrace Scorsese’s own appreciation for the most distant origins of cinema and its magical evolution across nearly twelve decades. And it’s a tale that’s gorgeous to look at. Though a long champion of film, Scorsese shot this with the new Alexa digital camera (which I must admit achieves a stunning film-like look) and in 3D, which I actually kind of missed a little when I re-watched it at home. If you have all the equipment necessary to watch 3D Blu-rays at home, this movie might make your investment worthwhile. Marty was careful to treat the third dimension with his usual careful artistry, playing with depths of field ranging from standoffish to practically… fathomless.

Hugo is Hollywood family fare cast in a classic, even retro mode. The movie doesn’t lack for energy, but its emphasis is on character and mood, much less on action and rapid-fire cuts. I can’t declare with certainty that it will become a favorite for most kids who see it, but I don’t expect them to be bored either. Even if it does try to teach a little vocabulary. It certainly invites one to be sesquipedalian.

Look it up. - [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Adventure/Drama/Family

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 2/28/12

Jack Black

After opening with a nicely done shadow-puppet-like explanation of how the film’s villain, a peacock named Lord Shen (Gary Oldman), came to be evil, we watch as Po, the chubby Panda voiced by Black, and his martial arts pals attempt to stop Shen from conquering China and wiping out kung fu. Moreover, Shen has a connection to what befell Po’s parents.

The rotund Po is the perfect showcase for Black and his manic comic personality, even more so than any live-action character he’s played. Black makes him an amusing and endearingly goofy character who knows kung fu, sure, but who still has weight issues (“My old enemy…the stairs”) and isn’t quite as clever as he thinks he is. Black also does well enough with Po’s heavier moments.

As well the film has its share of energetic set pieces for the kids to enjoy, from Po and his pals’ first-act scuffle with Shen’s armored wolf goons, to Po careening across rooftops and, later, deflecting flaming cannonballs. An especially enjoyable bit sees Po and the gang taking out Shen’s soldiers while hiding inside a Chinese Dragon.

That unexpectedly darker tone I was talking about, and which I welcome, is rooted in the film’s underlying theme of parental desertion, in how it shaped both Po and Shen. It’s not Freud-level stuff or anything, but it does lend the film some weight, and at the very least allows for a more interesting animated-movie bad guy. And Oldman does great work as Shen, giving him a wonderfully Machiavellian quality, but also making sure we feel his deep-seated anger and sadness.

Freshman director Jennifer Yuh Nelson nicely adds to the darker mood by rendering Po’s unsettling memories about his parents in the kind of old-fashioned hand-drawn animation reminiscent of the darker animated films of the early ’80s, like The Secret of NIMH and The Black Cauldron. She also creates a number of striking visuals, in particular the line of ships making their way down the Gongmen City canal, not to mention ominous thunderclouds and a tall toppling temple.

Now, I do realize this is a movie populated by talking animals, including a raccoon (Dustin Hoffman), a fortune-telling goat (Michelle Yeoh), Po’s goose dad (James Hong, funny and touching), a crocodile (Jean-Claude Van Damme!) and various pigs and rabbits. But you almost forget they’re not human. This goes especially for Angelina Jolie, who exudes Zen-like calm as Po pal Tigress, and Seth Rogen, hilarious as Praying Mantis, chattering on like he does about how the females of his species bite off the heads of the males. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Animation/Action/Adventure

Rated PG

Release Date: 12/13/11

I can’t say I was ever a huge fan of the first Cars film to begin with, so a sequel wasn’t exactly what I was craving. The franchise (which also includes the fairly recent direct-to-video release Mater’s Tall Tales) has been leaning more and more heavily on the automotive puns, verbal and visual, which were kinda cute at first (look closely at the buzzing insects in the first film and you’ll see they’re all little VW Beetles), but have become pretty labored (the climax of Cars 2 involves a familiar London landmark referred to as “Big Bentley”). It also becomes harder and harder to ignore the mildly disturbing strangeness of the Cars universe, in which all of the characters are manufactured products in a world that seems to lack manufacturers. Even throwaway gags or lines like “Is the Popemobile Catholic?” raise uncomfortable questions if you think about them too long. If Catholicism exists on a planet populated entirely by motor vehicles, then who was Jesus in this scenario? Was he a chariot or a handcart or a pair of sandals, or maybe his automotive analog should be something like GM’s EV-1?

Whew. Dangerous thoughts. But we’re not supposed to be thinking that much–after all, the film’s hero doesn’t. This time around, the story mostly centers on Mater, the rusty, endearingly unsophisticated tow truck, voiced by Larry the Cable Guy, who played sidekick in the first installment. This time, while he’s ostensibly heading his friend Lightning McQueen’s (Owen Wilson) entourage as he tours the globe to compete in the World Grand Prix, he gets caught up in James Bond-style espionage and international intrigue. His inadvertent spy career is mentored by ace British spy Finn McMissile (Michael Caine), who is naturally an Aston Martin DB5 outfitted with all manner of admittedly clever gadgets. Rounding out the Bond analogy is Mater’s improbable love interest, Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer), herself an apprentice agent.

What follows is a moderately entertaining and surprisingly complicated spy thriller plot. I can’t quite grasp how this movie managed to get a G rating, considering the amount of shooting and gunplay going on, not to mention a spy torture scene which might scare younger kids. It’s all decent, diverting fun, but it utterly fails to achieve the heights of heart and humor exemplified by recent Pixar gems like Up and Toy Story 3. The gags here are often extremely contrived, and in one scene, very literally toilet-oriented. Which raises all manner of other uncomfortable questions. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Animation/Adventure/Comedy

You see, a shallow but gorgeous blonde (Leslie Bibb) rejected James’ elaborate marriage proposal because he’s a zookeeper. When James gets a chance to win her back, the zoo animals, who don’t want to lose James because he treats them so well (versus the lout played by Donnie Wahlberg), decide to help him out.

To be fair, the film isn’t necessarily bad. No movie featuring Rosario Dawson (as both a zoo doctor and James’ improbable love interest) really could be. And the animal voice casting is mostly on the mark– Sylvester Stallone as a lion, Cher as a lioness, Nick Nolte as a gorilla. I even chuckled a bit at Adam Sandler as a capuchin monkey who loves having thumbs.

James is his usual affable self and earns a few laughs in his scenes working in a high-end car dealership, and he and Dawson, despite the absurdity of the pretty-woman-likes-fat-man scenario, do share a nice dancing scene at his brother’s wedding. As well Nolte manages to make us genuinely care for his despondent primate (an impressively realistic animatronic creation the film doesn’t deserve).

Alas, as a whole it’s painfully predictable, hitting with precision every beat of the oft-told tale of a guy who changes to get a hot girl before realizing the girl for him was right there all along. Plus, there’s a bit too much scatological humor (a wolf shows James how to mark his territory), and James’ competition with an alpha-male bully (Joe Rogan) for Bibb’s affections is outright unfunny.

It’s made for kids to enjoy, anyway, what with James falling down a lot and running into things and the monkey’s wanting to throw poop on everything. Adults might possibly appreciate the end credits, during which we hear Boston’s “More Than a Feeling,” to which the animals sing along. Including Stallone, who apparently didn’t learn anything from Rhinestone. – [DVD]

Comedy/Family/Romance

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 10/11/11

The rather straightforward plot involves the attempts of 11-year-old Milo (Seth Green, doing the physical performance but not the voice) to rescue his mom (Joan Cusack) from the red planet after Martians kidnap her so they can physically extract her apparently ideal maternal instincts.

For all the effort Robert Zemeckis (who only produced this one) has put into fine-tuning the motion-capture technology, the human characters here still look a little too unrealistic, their movements a little too unnatural. Normally it would have taken me out of the film, but the film’s whiz-bang pace and incessantly irritating characters, like the ‘60s-talking female Martian and obese fellow human (Dan Fogler) that Milo encounters, prevented me from really getting into it in the first place.

At the very least director Simon Wells (The Time Machine), great-grandson of author H.G. Wells, does give us something nice to look at. The silver Martian buildings are wondrously sleek, while the massive Martian junkyard, where Milo amusingly meets a tribe of boy Martians, is a beautifully rendered creation. The Martian rocket ships launching into the air are also kind of cool.

Unfortunately, Wells seems so focused on the expensive-looking imagery that he neglects making much of the film emotionally accessible. A shame, because the first-act scenes between Milo and his frustrated mom generate some genuine warmth, and even reminded me a little of my own youth. But things turn cold fast when we go to Mars, not to mention creepy, which is the best way to describe the sight of an overweight human man flirting with a female Martian. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

The Perfect Game

Clifton Collins Jr. plays the team’s ex-major league towel boy turned coach. He gives just enough dramatic depth to the role to support his character’s conflict and development. The team is made up mostly of actors I didn’t know, with the exception of Jake T. Austin, a regular on Wizards of Waverly Place. Throw in Cheech Marin, as the priest who helps move the team along, and you have ironic casting at its most effective.

This is a story of a group of poor, rag tag boys who have a dream, and bond together to achieve it. The theme of the underdog working against adversity to fulfill a goal is a familiar one, but it’s executed especially well in The Perfect Game. The film also gives us a view of some of the racial prejudices that existed in the U.S. in the 1950’s, and what the boys were forced to endure on their journey.

This is a movie about dreams, faith, and family. If you’re a viewer looking for a good family movie that is not an action film with lots of explosions, see The Perfect Game. The DVD also offers some very good Special Features, including interesting interviews with the filmmakers and actors. – [DVD]

It is also genuinely, startlingly odd. Set in a palpably parched, hallucinatory Mojave Desert, it is populated by all manner of dusty, eccentric creatures, along with a hero that looks to be the result of Picasso’s formerly unknown lizard taxidermy hobby. The latter is a neurotic, domesticated chameleon (voiced by Johnny Depp) who, as the film opens, finds himself marooned on a lonely, sun-scorched stretch of desert highway. He eventually makes his way to the beleaguered town of Dirt, and through blind luck and Actor’s Studio bravado finds himself appointed as its new sheriff. This puts him in the midst of a water crisis and a sinister conspiracy rather reminiscent of a certain well-known 70′s neo-noir film.

Indeed, Rango is a gleeful exercise in homage. It doesn’t reference just any Western, but every Western, from John Ford‘s Stagecoach to Sergio Leone‘s Fistful of Dollars, even all the way to Robert Zemeckis‘ Back to the Future Part III, and many many more in between. Of course, it is marketed as a family film, but I’m sure most kids won’t detect the plethora of (sometimes quite subtle) nods it makes to films of yesteryear. And, when I first saw it in the theater, I wondered if the writing itself was too colorful and Coen-esque to be understood by younger audiences. Nevertheless, the kids that were present on the two occasions I saw it in public seemed transfixed enough. But then a kid doesn’t need to get all the gags in Blazing Saddles to enjoy the heck out of it. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Animation/Adventure/Comedy

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 7/12/11

The fart jokes were not funny at all and really did not make any sense either. I was just glad that I did not see any testicle kicking or more than a few fart jokes. And the parts when a frog tells Juliet that her butt looks fat or that she looks hot made me feel sick that children think that that is funny. The ironic twist to the original ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was not so great, as they had Juliet be a super athletic super ninja. I thought they were garden gnomes, but people who want a sporty princess in a movie are in luck.

Once the Terrafirminator lawn mower (Hulk Hogan) is bought by Gnomeo’s small companion, Benny (Matt Lucas), is where the good part comes in. Of course the ending is not too great for kids my age and maybe a little bit older. Maybe too happy or maybe too fun or whatever it might be. But, I would suggest this to young kids and maybe young parents too. – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Animation/Adventure/Comedy

Rated G

DVD Release Date: 5/24/11