My Review: The Way Way Back (8/10)

"Duncan! On a scale of 1 to 10, what do you think you are?"

It's been a great year for people like me who love coming-of-age films. So far I haven't been disappointed. Mud is my favorite film of the year, The Kings of Summer was a lot of fun, and The Way Way Back was charming. I loved this film despite it pretty much following the same formula most of these coming-of-age films do. The thing that stood out for me here were the performances and the emotion involving script written by Academy Award winning screenwriters Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (The Descendants). I was engaged with the story from the very opening scene and cared deeply for these characters. There were a perfect mix of funny and entertaining moments with some emotional drama. Liam James delivers a strong lead performance although at times he overdoes the physical aspect a bit by shrugging his shoulders a little too much (especially during the first half of the film until he begins building his confidence). It felt like he was trying too hard to point out that he was shy and lost, but I still sympathized with his character. The true stars of this film however are the secondary characters. Sam Rockwell gives yet another spectacular performance and he owns this movie. It was a pleasure to see his character on screen and he had great chemistry with Liam as he helped the kid grow and became a sort of a father figure to him. Steve Carell hits all the right notes in this film as the douche bag without overselling the performance. No matter how much you may love him as an actor, he genuinely is despiteful in this movie. Allison Janney is also hilarious in this movie. For a coming of age film I thought the adult actors were much better than the kids (at least their characters were better developed), and the location truly felt like a Spring Break for adults. Faxon and Rash not only wrote the script, they also played secondary characters (they were also really funny), and this was their first film as directors. I really liked this movie and thought it was even better than Payne's The Descendants which they helped write. The Way Way Back gets my respects and I definitely recommend this movie.

Fourteen year old Duncan (Liam James) is a shy and lonely kid who is being forced by his mom, Pam (Toni Collette) to travel with her to her boyfriend's beach house for the summer. She has been dating Trent (Steve Carrell) for over a year now and they decide to travel together along with his daughter, Steph (Zoe Levin). Once they arrive to their destiny they are welcomed by Trent's single sister, Betty (Allison Janney) and her two kids: Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb) and Peter (River Alexander). Duncan has a difficult time talking to anyone and would have preferred going to his father's house in California (especially since Trent treats him so badly). At this unexpected place he begins to find himself when he accepts a summer job at a water park managed by the goofy Owen (Sam Rockwell). Owen takes a liking for the shy kid and teaches him a few life lessons. He also befriends the rest of the employees of the park including Caitlin (Maya Rudolph), Roddy (Nat Faxon), and Lewis (Jim Rash). He tries to spend as much time as he can in the water park, since back home the only person he can actually talk to is Susanna with whom a nice friendship slowly begins to form. Rob Corddry and Amanda Peet also star in this film as Trent's friends with whom they spend most of the time.

The Way Way Back has some similarities to Adventureland and although that film might be a little better I still think The Way Way Back holds its own mainly because of how great Sam Rockwell is here. It was easy for me to identify with Duncan and the film builds on that nostalgic sentiment of adolescence at times. Some elements may seem familiar or taken from other movies, but they still work in a unique way here. I really wouldn't mind watching this film again because it was a pleasant experience. It's like a summer destiny I would like to visit again the following summer. I loved how they managed to turn so many familiar elements from the genre and make them feel fresh and new. There are moments where you will find yourself laughing hard and then the next minute you will feel heart broken. I also loved the soundtrack for this film. The Way Way Back is a very enjoyable film, especially if coming-of-age films are you sort of thing.

My Review: Identity Thief (2/10)

¨I just want to be upfront and say I visually enjoy you.¨

It will be very difficult to find another movie worse than Identity Thief at the theater this year. I have no idea how this film raised more than 100 million dollars at the box office considering how terrible it was. I remember a time in which road trip comedies used to be great, but after seeing this and Due Date I have to admit I´m disappointed at Hollywood´s latest efforts. Despite having very funny actors the film has no laughs whatsoever. It was a huge disappointment for me because I like Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy. They are extremely talented and funny actors, but this movie did the impossible and made them look so dull and boring. The screenplay for this film has to be one of the worst and in my opinion is an early contender for this year´s Razzies. I´m not hating on director Seth Gordon because I was one of the few people who actually enjoyed Horrible Bosses and am looking forward to the sequel. I do think that the screenplay by Craig Mazin and Jerry Eetin is probably the weakest thing about Identity Thief. This is as lazy as you can get with a movie. I think that having Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy say whatever they felt like in front of the camera would have been much funnier than having them play these stereotypical roles with very poor dialogues.

Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) has a lovely wife named Trish (Amanda Peet) and two beautiful daughters. He lives in Denver where he works as an account rep for an important company, but soon discovers that his identity has been stolen after seeing his credit cards being all maxed out. He discovers that a woman in Florida has been using his identity and has been spending all his money so he decides to travel to Florida and bring her back to Colorado for justice. Once he arrives at Florida he finds out that the woman´s name is Diana (Melissa McCarthy), or so she says, and that she is wanted by a lot of people. He somehow convinces her to come along with him to Colorado and fix things with his bosses so he doesn’t get in trouble at work. While they embark on their road trip they are followed by several other criminals and hit men who are looking for Diana as well. Among them there is Julian (T.I.) and Marisol (Genesis Rodriguez) who are working together for an important drug dealer, and then there is Skiptracer (Robert Patrick) who has also been asked to bring Diana back to Florida. What seemed like an easy road trip back to Denver will end up in a very dangerous pursuit with all sorts of things going wrong for Sandy and Diana.

Identity Thief is a lazy excuse for a comedy and one of the few films in that genre that never managed to make me laugh. I was really surprised the film was this bad considering how much I liked the actors here. I can’t think of one funny or stand out scene. This was a very disappointing film and I can´t say anything else about it.

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