Fraser plays a real estate developer whose new subdivision threatens the habitat of local woodland creatures, who in turn try to drive Fraser away, leaving Fraser’s boss (Ken Jeong), wife (Brooke Shields) and bratty teen son (Matt Prokop) baffled at his increasingly exasperated behavior.

I gotta give Fraser credit. The guy’s game for anything, no matter how embarrassing. He gets sprayed by skunks, bitten in the crotch and peed on by a raccoon, runs around in a woman’s jogging outfit, falls off a roof and goes for a ride in a portable toilet. At one point he even sits in a bathtub and dumps tomato juice all over himself.

But none of what he endures is funny, unless, perhaps, you’re four years old, and the so-called direction by Roger Kumble (Cruel Intentions) essentially amounts to him turning on the camera. I also didn’t like the creepy way the animals utter evil little laughs whenever Fraser suffers their wrath.

Jeong, Shields, and Ricky Garcia as the construction foreman all earn some laughs, but the only time the film shows some life is during the end credits, when the cast sings along to “Insane in the Brain” while parodying everything from “The Blue Lagoon” to Robert Palmer videos. It really has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Neither should you. – [DVD]

Comedy/Family

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 8/17/10

It tells the real-life story of how John Crowley (Fraser), a marketing exec at Bristol-Meyers, and his wife (Keri Russell) fought to find a cure for Pompe disease, a rare genetic disorder affecting the muscles from which two of their three children suffer.

This is by no means a bad movie. Indeed, as a production it’s very competent, from the acting and direction to the lighting and editing. But nothing more. There’s no passion, no energy, to any of it, including the numerous scenes designed to make you cry, like when the afflicted 6-year-old-son becomes too weak to even toss bread crumbs to ducks, or when the 8-year-old daughter can’t throw a ball.

I’m not quite sure why. Maybe it’s because it was financed by newly-formed CBS Pictures, hence its disease-of-the-week feel. Or maybe it should have been directed by sick-kid-flick expert Nick Cassavetes (My Sister’s Keeper) instead of Tom Vaughan, whose short Hollywood resume consists of What Happens in Vegas.

Of course, it could also be the rote screenplay (based on a book by Geeta Anand about the family’s struggle) by the guy who wrote Flushed Away. There’s a lot of tedious talk about enzymes and “core teams” and such. Not to mention smudging certain facts for the sake of drama, like how in reality kids afflicted with Pompe rarely live beyond the age of 2.

Fraser and Russell basically do what they’re told, including crying on cue, while Ford, as the fictional researcher, is the star of the lukewarm show. His role is what passes for showy here and feels akin to the one he played in The Mosquito Coast–a stubborn, cranky guy who chafes at having to follow someone else’s rules–but his performance of it is all surface gruffness that gets inevitably softened.

On a positive note, the film does educate us on a disease I gather most of us know little about, and it seems less manipulative than most terminal illness stories. Yet it’s such an undemanding experience, with its soft score and happy ending, that you almost instantly forget about it the second Eric Clapton’s “Change the World” finishes playing over the end credits. – [DVD]

Drama

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 5/18/10

It sees good-guy soldiers Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) joining up with the titular American military outfit to help thwart one James McCullen (Dr. Who‘s Christopher Eccleston) from putting newly created nanotechnology to nefarious use.

Though not quite the demolition derby that was the Transformers sequel, the film still works best when things explode, and director/CGI expert Stephen Sommers (The Mummy, Van Helsing) shoots and cuts it all efficiently and with refreshing restraint. We actually get to see who’s fighting whom and what’s being destroyed.

The most marvelous mayhem occurs when Tatum and Wayans race around Paris in high-tech, Iron Man-like suits as the Joes attempt to stop bad guys The Baroness (a sexy Sienna Miller) and Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) from toppling the Eiffel Tower. Cars flip end-over-end, buildings blow up and a bad-guy Humvee gets hit by a train, flies through the air and smashes to the ground.

It helps, too, that the main mythology is re-imagined in a way that actually seems sort of compelling and, what’s more, provides the movie with a glimmer of actual depth. This includes creating a past relationship between Duke and The Baroness, a present one between Ripcord and Scarlett (a cute Rachel Nichols) and a rivalry between Lee and sword-wielding good guy Snake Eyes (Ray Park).

I liked the Snake Eyes/Storm Shadow dynamic the most, even though Park literally never shows his face, and the very personal reason the two hate each other gives their confrontations some weight. Their swordfight showdown near a reactor during the film’s CGI-filled finale reminded me of the cool light saber duel at the end of The Phantom Menace, partly because Park played Darth Maul.

Dennis Quaid hams it up nicely as General Hawk, Arnold Vosloo is cool under pressure as bad guy henchman Zartan (who figures into a sequel-ready subplot involving Jonathan Pryce‘s U.S. President), and indie film vet Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Lookout) makes a rare visit to the big leagues in a role reminiscent of a plot point in The Prestige.

I, for one, appreciated the cameo by Brendan Fraser as a fellow Joe, as both he and Vosloo appeared in Sommers’ Mummy movies. I also enjoyed the way Miller compliments a fleeing woman on her shoes during the Paris pandemonium, and liked that the Joe’s headquarters are in the desert while the bad-guy equivalent is at the North Pole. And, the full name of Tatum’s character is Duke Hazard.

Ultimately, any actual fun to be had here is hampered both by Tatum’s charmless nature and a surprisingly generic score by Forrest Gump composer Alan Silvestri. For sure the film is a better fit for Tatum than was Fighting earlier this year, but, once again, the only muscles he actually stretches are his biceps. – [DVD]

Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi/Thriller

Rated PG-13

DVD Release Date: 11/3/09

The gimmick here is that Fraser can bring characters in books to life by reading from them aloud. In turn someone from real life gets drawn into the books. This apparently happened to Fraser’s wife with the title tome and he needs a new copy so he can read her back out, but his search for one is hampered by the book’s big bad guy (Andy Serkis), whom Fraser unintentionally released.

I like that the film endorses reading books, and I really like the idea of being able to read people out of them. And it’s fun watching familiar literary creations pop up– the ticking crocodile from “Peter Pan,” the flying monkeys and Toto from “The Wizard of Oz” and Rapunzel herself. Not to mention a Minotaur and Excalibur, which Serkis tries to pry loose from its rock.

But the direction by Softley (The Skeleton Key) is so utterly uninspired as to suck from the film any charm or sense of wonder, and the top-notch effects and talented cast, which includes Helen Mirren, Paul Bettany and Jim Broadbent, struggle to compensate. What’s more Fraser, a pro at not taking big effect flicks too seriously, merely mopes around. And the supposedly epic ending is epically unexciting.

Serkis is OK as the sneering villain who loves duct tape, Mirren adds some pep as Fraser’s book-loving aunt, and Broadbent is amusing as the the title tome’s author. He gets the film’s best line, too, at one point yelling to Bettany, “You don’t have to be selfish just because I wrote you like that!”

As a fire-eater read out of the book by Fraser, Bettany, in fact, is the best thing here. He manages some decent depth as a man who misses his wife (Jennifer Connelly in a cameo) and kid and the life he has inside the book. We actually kind of feel for him and his plight, which is more than I can say about anyone or anything else in this infuriatingly inert film. – [DVD]

Adventure/Fantasy/Family

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 6/25/09