 REVIEW:
With its combination of fourth-wall-shattering onscreen graphics, self-conscious art direction and camera moves, ADHD editing, incongruous song choices (lowriders blast Little Anthony and the Imperials’ “Tears on My Pillow” on their car stereo, for instance), pneumatic nudity and outrageous ultra-violence, “Crank: High Voltage” is, in its own unique way, pure cinema.
Imagine a gonzo collaboration between Jean-Luc Godard, Michael Bay and Tex Avery on a weekend meth binge, and you begin to get an idea of what writer-directors Mark Neveldine and Brad Taylor have up their sleeves.
Jason Statham returns as hit man Chev Chelios, a.k.a. the lad who would not die; Statham is to “Crank” what the bus is to “Speed.” In the first movie, he had to keep creating adrenaline to stop a cocktail of toxins from entering his system. This time around, Chev must constantly electrocute himself to keep the artificial heart in his chest beating.
The fact that he’s got a pulse at all comes as something of a shock, since the first “Crank” ends with Chev falling out of a high-flying helicopter, bouncing off a car and landing on the asphalt in downtown L.A. As “High Voltage” starts up, a mysterious black van comes by and scoops up Chev. He wakes up on an operating table, having just had his heart removed by shady doctors working for the triads. When he realizes that the next organ the surgeons plan to harvest is between his legs, Chev blasts his way out of there, and so begins a new chase.
Familiar friends — including Amy Smart as Chev’s girlfriend Eve and Dwight Yoakam as his shady physician — and enemies pop up again, as do some new members of the ensemble, including Clifton Collins Jr. as a crime kingpin with vendetta on his mind, Michael Weston (also appearing in this week’s “State of Play”) as an EMT, David Carradine as a 100-year-old triad lord and former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell in flashback as Chev’s mum.
Neveldine/Taylor (as they are credited) take their cues from Chev; as he self-inflicts one jolt after another to keep his heart beating, the filmmakers keep throwing things at the audience, from a picket line of porn stars to gun battles featuring strippers to a graphic self-mutilation. Having to one-up their original 2006 cult hit is no easy feat, but they manage it. (Think they can’t top the public-coitus-in-Chinatown scene? Guess again.)
Admittedly, things begin to drag the tiniest bit towards the end — if one can use the word “drag” to describe a shootout at a Catalina mansion where Latino gang-bangers try to repel an invading army of Uzi-toting exotic dancers and gay African-American bikers. But who besides Chev can handle this much non-stop stimulation?
To call “Crank: High Voltage” sexist, racist or homophobic, incidentally, is to assume that this is a movie about human beings, which it is not. It’s more like a testosterone-soaked, definitely-not-for-children cartoon, and I mean that in the best way possible.
Whether or not you admire what “Crank: High Voltage” is doing, there’s no denying that the movie gives its vision 111 percent. And as films feel more and more like a compromise between the money people and the test audience and, oh yeah, the artist, that counts for a lot.
CAST & CREW
Director: Mark Neveldine
Brian Taylor
Writers (WGA): Mark Neveldine (written by) & Brian Taylor (written by)
Release Date: 17 April 2009 (USA)
Genre: Action | Crime | Drama | Fantasy
Tagline: He was dead...But he got better
Plot: Chelios faces a Chinese mobster who has stolen his nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered ticker that requires regular jolts of electricity to keep working.
Cast:
Jason Statham ... Chev Chelios
Amy Smart ... Eve
Dwight Yoakam ... Doc Miles
Efren Ramirez ... Venus
Julanne Chidi Hill ... Dark Chocolate
Reno Wilson ... Orlando
Keone Young ... Don Kim
Art Hsu ... Johnny Vang
Joseph Julian Soria ... Chico
Ling Bai ... Ria
Clifton Collins Jr. ... El Huron
David Carradine ... Poon Dong
Corey Haim ... Randy
Geri Halliwell ... Karen Chelios
Billy Unger ... Young Chev
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 REVIEW:
Nothing is ever completely original, “there is nothing new under the sun,” all drama boils down to seven basic plots, I get it.
But still.
There’s an unspoken but understood arrangement between filmmakers and the audience: Filmgoers don’t object when movie people rehash old movies and TV shows, so long as the end product injects some kind of new life or wit or spin or take on the material. Plundering the past is OK when the thieves do something interesting with the stolen goods.
And then there’s a movie like “17 Again,” which grafts together oodles of familiar characters and storylines without the benefit of anything new to say.
The film begins with a flashback to 1989 and a turning point in the life of high school senior Mike O’Donnell (Zac Efron). It’s the big game, and a college scout has come to watch Mike play basketball; seconds before the game begins, however, Mike’s girlfriend Scarlett informs him that she’s pregnant, so he walks out of the gym, pledging to devote his life to their new family.
Cut to 20 years later: Mike (now played by Matthew Perry) is a griping loser whom Scarlett (Leslie Mann) has kicked out of the house for torturing her and their two kids with his bitterness and regret. On the day he gets fired from his sales job, Mike goes back to his old high school, where a magical janitor (Brian Doyle-Murray) gives him the opportunity to become young again and fix his old mistakes.
After an “It’s a Wonderful Life”–esque interlude where Mike jumps off a bridge in an attempt to save the mysterious old man, he wakes up as a teenager and re-enrolls in high school. Mike’s nerdy-billionaire best friend Ned (Thomas Lennon of “Reno 911!”) figures out that Mike is on some sort of “spirit journey,” and Mike discovers that the real reason behind his return to school is to bond with and help his estranged children Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg — hey, wait, shouldn’t Maggie be 20 years old, and not a high school senior, by this movie’s calendar?) and Alex (Sterling Knight).
Grafting together pieces of “Big,” “Freaky Friday” and “Peggy Sue Got Married,” among many others, “17 Again” hits the usual plot beats, with young Mike steering Maggie away from an abusive boyfriend and giving Alex the confidence to talk to girls and join the basketball team. If only any of this were funny — Efron shows little flair for comedy, and he doesn’t get much help from Jason Filardi’s deadly script, which even hobbles the usually-hilarious Lennon. (The only remotely amusing moments come from Lennon’s pursuit of Melora Hardin as a high-school principal.)
The real stand-out moments of “17 Again,” oddly enough, are the heart-tuggy moments between young Mike and older Scarlett (who thinks the kid is a cougar-chaser until she figures out who he really is). He may not excel at getting laughs, but Efron handles the movie’s attempts at poignancy with some flair; this kid needs to find another “The Notebook” to star in, stat.
CAST & CREW
Director: Burr Steers
Writers (WGA): Jason Filardi (written by)
Release Date: 17 April 2009 (USA)
Genre: Comedy
Tagline: Who says you're only young once?
Plot: About a guy whose life didn't quite turn out how he wanted it to and wishes he could go back to high school and change it. He wakes up one day and is seventeen again and gets the chance to rewrite his life.
Cast:
Zac Efron ... Mike O'Donnell (Teen)
Leslie Mann ... Scarlett O'Donnell (Adult)
Thomas Lennon ... Ned Gold
Matthew Perry ... Mike O'Donnell (Adult)
Tyler Steelman ... Ned Gold (Teen)
Allison Miller ... Scarlett (Teen)
Sterling Knight ... Alex O'Donnell
Michelle Trachtenberg ... Maggie O'Donnell
Adam Gregory ... Dom
Hunter Parrish ... Stan
Mario Cassem ... Samir
Katerina Graham ... Jaime
Tiya Sircar ... Samantha
Melissa Ordway ... Lauren
Melora Hardin ... Principal Jane Masterson
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 REVIEW:
The four original stars of “The Fast & The Furious” are back for the streamlined-title sequel “Fast & Furious,” but the producers’ effort to assemble them anew assumes that audiences are coming to these movies for the characters and not for the car stunts.
Subsequently, we get stuck spending most of the new film’s running time watching Vin Diesel and Paul Walker squint and say words in a weak approximation of acting, wasting precious time that could be spent enjoying street racers zipping through crowded thoroughfares and jumping over obstacles.
The whole cast reunion is something of a bait-and-switch anyway, since Michelle Rodriguez disappears from the proceedings early on. She does at least get to participate in the movie’s highlight, a “Wages of Fear”–inspired opening sequence where Dominic (Diesel) and his lover Letty (Rodriguez) hijack an oil truck on a narrow highway winding through a South American mountain range.
Letty wants Dominic to return to the States with her, but he heads off on his own, knowing that he’s a wanted man back home. Shortly thereafter, he gets a call from his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster), letting him know that Letty has been murdered, which prompts Dominic’s arrival in Los Angeles, seeking her killer.
Also on the trail of the drug kingpin responsible for Letty’s death is FBI agent Brian O’Conner (Walker) who, back in the first movie, befriended Dominic and seduced Mia while going undercover in the street-racing world. Brian tries to get Dominic to work alongside him in exchange for clemency, but Dominic doesn’t trust the Feds and strikes out on his own, leading to both Brian and Dominic getting work as drivers for the bad guys.
“Fast & Furious” often plays like a graduate thesis on the use of the automobile as a penis substitute in film; we’re thrown into a world where it’s all about cars and driving all the time, where trashy girls make out with each other in a desperate attempt to get their men to look up from their engines and pay attention to them. With so much empty macho glowering going on — particularly with Diesel and Walker both giving singularly vapid performances — it’s not surprising that Brewster comes off as Dame Judi Dench by comparison.
With Diesel getting a producer credit, it’s obvious that director Justin Lin didn’t have the last word when it came to deciding whether to give more time to the effective and thrilling racing scenes or to another of one Dominic’s tortured monologues. It’s a pity, since Lin (“Better Luck Tomorrow,” “Shopping for Fangs”) gave “The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift” the adrenaline and no-rules euphoria that’s sorely missing from the franchise’s latest installment. One can only imagine how “Fast & Furious” would have turned out if its faulty male leads got the factory recall they so richly deserve.
CAST & CREW
Director: Justin Lin
Writers (WGA): Chris Morgan (written by) & Gary Scott Thompson (characters)
Release Date: 3 April 2009 (Indonesia)
Genre: Action
Tagline: New Model. Original Parts.
Plot: Brian O'Conner, now working for the FBI in LA, teams up with Dominic Toretto to bring down a heroin importer by infiltrating his operation.
Cast:
Vin Diesel ... Dominic Toretto
Paul Walker ... Brian O'Conner
Jordana Brewster ... Mia Toretto
Michelle Rodriguez ... Letty
John Ortiz ... Campos
Laz Alonso ... Fenix Rise
Gal Gadot ... Gisele Harabo
Jack Conley ... Penning
Shea Whigham ... Agent Ben Stasiak
Liza Lapira ... Agent Sophie Trinh
Sung Kang ... Han Lue
Don Omar ... Himself
Mirtha Michelle ... Cara
Greg Cipes ... Dwight
Tego Calderon ... Tego
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 REVIEW:
While the ads for “Adventureland” promise that it’s “From the director of ‘Superbad’!” it might actually be truer — if less advantageous from a marketing point of view — to say “From the director of ‘The Daytrippers’!” While Greg Mottola is the filmmaker behind all three of these comedies, his new movie is more about understated wit than outrageous antics. (Not that there’s anything wrong with either.)
“Adventureland” stars Jesse Eisenberg as James, a recent college grad who had hoped to spend the summer backpacking through Europe. After his family suffers an economic downturn — the film is set in the ’80s but still feels exceedingly relevant — James is stuck taking the only job he can get, working the games concessions at a run-down local theme park.
Working in games winds up being not entirely awful, since it affords James the opportunity to hang out with the sexy yet enigmatic Em (Kristen Stewart), who will spend most of the summer bewitching him, and the nerdy intellectual Joel (Martin Starr). We get to know other park employees, including Mike (Ryan Reynolds), the handsome maintenance guy who claims to have once jammed with Lou Reed, and vapid alpha-girl Lisa P. (Margerita Levieva).
While “Adventureland” fits squarely into the that-was-the-summer-that-changed-everything genre, it showcases its characters with such grace that you don’t mind the familiarity of the story. James, Em and Joel are smarter than the people who usually occupy this kind of movie — Joel refers to one girl’s rear end as “the Platonic ideal” — and they’re all uniquely (and realistically) bruised. James isn’t sure if his family can afford to send him to grad school as planned, while Em grapples with stepmother problems and a secret go-nowhere affair with Mike.
Joel, meanwhile, comes from an impoverished family and falls for an anti-Semitic Catholic girl, and no matter how much he knows his Russian literature, Tolstoy and Gogol aren’t proving to be much help with life after college.
With his two films currently in release — “Adventureland” and “The Education of Charlie Banks” — Jesse Eisenberg is proving himself to be one of the most dynamic young actors currently on the scene. Even though he occasionally drifts a little close to Michael Cera’s all-stammer-all-the-time territory, Eisenberg’s restlessly precocious characters (he also played one in “The Squid and the Whale”) always feel genuine and vulnerable.
Starr, one of my favorite “Freaks and Geeks” alums, has perfect comic timing, and Stewart gets to demonstrate lots more backbone here than “Twilight” allowed. Director Mottola rounds out the cast with great supporting players like of Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Wendie Malick and Jack Gilpin.
Audiences expecting the bawdy blowout advertised may not know what to make of “Adventureland,” but if you’re ready for a poignantly sweet comedy about encroaching adulthood, you’ll find that it’s one of the best films so far this year.
CAST & CREW
Director: Greg Mottola
Writers (WGA): Greg Mottola (written by)
Release Date: 3 April 2009 (USA)
Genre: Comedy | Drama
Tagline: It was the worst job they ever imagined... and the best time of their lives.
Plot: A comedy set in the summer of 1987 and centered around a recent college grad (Eisenberg) who takes a nowhere job at his local amusement park, only to find it's the perfect course to get him prepared for the real world.
Cast:
Jesse Eisenberg ... James Brennan
Kelsey Ford ... Arlene
Michael Zegen ... Eric
Ryan McFarland ... Brad
Jack Gilpin ... Mr. Brennan
Wendie Malick ... Mrs. Brennan
Matt Bush ... Tommy Frigo
Todd Cioppa ... Velvet Touch Manager
Stephen Mast ... Rich
Kristen Wiig ... Paulette
Bill Hader ... Bobby
Martin Starr ... Joel
Adam Kroloff ... Adult Contestant
Kristen Stewart ... Em Lewin
Kevin Breznahan ... Molly Hatchet T-Shirt Guy
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 REVIEW:
Whether or not they’re adaptations of classic fables, animated films often wind up being parables that contain morals for young viewers about believing in yourself, being kind to others, not trading your voice to sea witches, whatever.
But “Coraline” stands out among recent animated features because its message is aimed at parents: Pay attention to your kids, because if you don’t, someone else will.
Based on the story by Neil Gaiman, the film introduces us to Coraline (voiced by Dakota Fanning), who’s smart without being precocious and energetic without being spunky. She’s just been dragged to a new home in the middle of nowhere by her parents (Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman), gardening writers who hate going outdoors and who spend all their time staring into computer monitors.
Left to her own devices, Coraline gets to know her eccentric neighbors, all of whom seems to have ties to the shaggier ends of show business — upstairs is Mr. Bobinsky (Ian McShane), an acrobat who’s training mice to become a circus act, while living in the cellar are Misses Spink and Forcible (Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French), who had a saucy vaudeville act sometime between the two world wars.
Coraline’s one friend of her own age is oddball Wybie (Robert Bailey, Jr.), who warns her that his grandmother’s sister disappeared during their childhood in the very house where Coraline now lives. That bit of news doesn’t keep Coraline from traveling through a hidden door where she finds an idealized alternate universe where her parents are loving and doting, Bobinsky’s mice put on extraordinary shows and the ladies downstairs are young and talented.
One oddity among many: everyone in this alternate universe has buttons where their eyes should be. And when the seemingly friendly Other Mother (also Hatcher) in this strange new world tells Coraline she can stay forever if she’ll trade her eyes for her own pair of buttons, our heroine realizes things are more dangerous than she’d imagined. Can Wybie’s enigmatic cat (Keith David) help Coraline out of this jam?
In an era where Disney makes money hand over fist by selling little girls on the idea of being pretty, passive Princesses — Belle from “Beauty and the Beast” always wears her yellow gown but never holds a book in this product line — it’s thrilling to get a heroine like Coraline, who’s proactive, occasionally bratty and always very much her own person. The movie goes to some creepy places that will scare all but the hardiest little kids, but tween girls and boys alike should take this darkly exciting movie to heart.
“Coraline” marks a real triumph for writer-director Henry Selick, who never gets the credit due him for “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and whose lovely adaptation of “James and the Giant Peach” is a neglected modern classic of stop-motion animation. The world he’s created for “Coraline” — which you should really catch in 3-D if you can — brilliantly captures his gifts as both an animator and a storyteller. (The scene with the performing mice, for instance, starts out looking like something right out of a vintage George Pal Puppetoon, only to switch to a POV shot of a cycling mouse going down a circular ramp that only the latest technologies could allow.)
In the same way that movies like “Waltz with Bashir” and “Persepolis” open up the possibilities of animated storytelling for adults, “Coraline” dares aim above the heads of toddlers. And while girls who’ve recently swapped “Hannah Montana” for black eyeliner might be the film’s target audience, it’s for anyone old enough to know that family togetherness can have its dark moments.
CAST & CREW
Director: Henry Selick
Writers (WGA): Henry Selick (screenplay) and Neil Gaiman (book)
Release Date: 6 February 2009 (USA)
Genre: Animation | Family | Fantasy
Tagline: Be careful what you wish for.
Plot: A young girl (Fanning) walks through a secret door in her new home and discovers an alternate version of her life...
Cast:
Dakota Fanning ... Coraline Jones (voice)
Teri Hatcher ... Mother / Other Mother (voice)
Jennifer Saunders ... Miss Spink (voice)
Dawn French ... Miss Forcible (voice)
Keith David ... Cat (voice)
John Hodgman ... Father / Other Father (voice)
Robert Bailey Jr. ... Wybie Lovat (voice)
Ian McShane ... Mr. Bobinsky (voice)
Aankha Neal ... Sweet Ghost Girl (voice)
George Selick ... Ghost Boy (voice)
Hannah Kaiser ... Tall Ghost Girl (voice)
Harry Selick ... Photo Friend #1 (voice)
Marina Budovsky ... Photo Friend #2 (voice)
Emerson Hatcher ... Magic Dragonfly (voice)
Jerome Ranft ... Mover (voice)
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