Pixels (4/10): Recycled Sandler humor with a bit of action adventure in the mix.

“I believe that some alien life-force, has sent real life video games, to attack us.”

Chris Columbus, the man who directed the first two Harry Potter films as well as Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire, Adventures of Babysitting, and many more family friendly films that I actually enjoyed, now directs Adam Sandler in Pixels, a film that aims to appeal to those adults that grew up in the early 80’s playing classic arcade games, but unfortunately it only ends up being entertaining for younger audiences due to its cliche jokes and formulaic structure. I must confess that I once was a huge Adam Sandler fan and watched everything he did from his Billy Madison days up to Jack and Jill in 2011 (with Chuck and Larry being the only exception, which somehow I miraculously missed). As a young teen I found his movies hilarious, but as I grew older his schtick got repetitive and I somehow decided to give up on him. I hadn’t seen another film starring Sandler since Jack and Jill, but decided to give this one a try for nostalgic sake and because Columbus’s films usually appealed to me despite his films being overly sentimental at times. It didn’t hurt that Peter Dinklage was also starring in this film since I love what he does (his short scene in Elf is one of my favorites and he is awesome in Game of Thrones). All these factors managed to convince me to watch Pixels despite my low expectations and I honestly got what I was expecting. It’s as if Adam Sandler directs all his comedies because they are so similar in tone despite never having directed, but I guess the directors always let him improvise and he ends up making the same jokes in every movie. The only positive feedback I’ll give Pixels is that it did manage to engage with the younger audiences; my ten year old brother had a blast, so it might make some money at the box office.    

Based on Patrick Jean’s own screenplay for a short film he made in 2010 (which seems far more appealing to me), this feature film opens in the 80’s with a group of kids who grew up loving arcade games. Brenner (Anthony Ippolito) is so good at predicting these game patterns that he signs up to compete in an arcade national championship. His closest friend, Cooper (Jared Riley), is there cheering for him and he truly believes Brenner is destined for great things in life. During the tournament they also befriend a young boy named Ludlow (Jacob Shinder) who is obsessed with a cyber game character named Lady Lisa (Ashley Benson). Unfortunately, Brenner is defeated by Eddie (Andrew Bambridge), a loud mouthed arcade lover who goes by the nickname of fire blaster. The film then jumps to the present where we discover Brenner (Adam Sandler) hasn’t really accomplished anything in life. He installs technical equipment for a company called Nerd. Cooper (Kevin James) however has become the President of the nation. Nerd sends Brenner to Violet’s (Michelle Monaghan) home to install the latest gadgets for her young son Matty (Matt Lintz). Brenner and Violet have a small moment, but when he tries to lean in and kiss her things get ugly between them. Right after that awkward moment Brenner receives a call from Cooper about an alien attack on Earth (and so does Violet who is then revealed to be a Lieutenant). Apparently these aliens have attacked using the arcade game format created through pixels, and the only way to defeat them is similar to the way they played the game. Brenner enlists the help of Ludlow (Josh Gad) and his archenemy Eddie (Peter Dinklage) to try to defeat these alien invaders and save the Earth.

As ridiculous or appealing as the premise sounds (depending on wether or not you’re nostalgic over these classic arcade games) the greatest problem with Pixels is that its incredibly hard to believe some of the relationships between these characters. The first time Adam Sandler and Michelle Monaghan’s characters meet, the dialogue between them is so phony and forced that it makes it impossible to relate to. That scene was probably one of the worst I’ve seen all year. Kevin James, Josh Gad, and Brian Cox can be funny people, but they play the same characters they’ve been playing in recent years. Dinklage’s Fire Blaster seems to be either hit or miss for some people, and I actually found his character to be the funniest in the movie. No one here is actually trying hard and the film is proof of that, but audiences that are simply looking to escape for a couple of hours might find it amusing. I still don’t know what Jane Krakowski was doing in this film since her character isn’t given anything to do despite her comedic talents. She should’ve been used more. Pixels is recycled Sandler material that will only appeal to hardcore 80’s nostalgic gamers and young kids who enjoy pretty much any adventure.   

My Review: Here Comes the Boom (5/10)

¨ If you're gonna lose, then I'm gonna help you lose. Deal? ¨

Fans of any Kevin James (or Adam Sandler) comedy will get what they expected going into the movie: a lot of cheap laughs. It isn’t a terrible movie, it just is cliché, predictable, and full of the same jokes we´ve seen repeated over and over again in his other movies. Of course I didn’t go into this film expecting it to be an artistic groundbreaking original movie, so I can´t say I was disappointed. I knew what I was going in for and I did get what I expected. The truth of the matter is that I laughed through several scenes, but this was honestly a terrible and predictable movie. I would have been better off laughing at any other sitcom comedy on TV during that hour. Kevin James has played this sort of ordinary guy who turns out to be a hero in pretty much all his films, and he has his fan base so it seems to be working for him pretty good. The reality is that these movies are so forgettable some times that you even forget you´ve seen these same scenes play out over and over again in their previous films. You even have the typical gross out scenes involving throwing up and having food fights. Here Comes the Boom receives a zero in originality, but it does get points for cheap laughs now and then. If you´re a fan of this light genre you will get your money´s worth. Come next year you will watch the same movie again with the characters having different names and professions, but facing pretty much the same situations and telling the same jokes. You will share laughs for a couple of hours and then forget everything about it, but at least it takes your mind off things for a while.

 Scott Voss (Kevin James), once a successful wrestler during his teens, is now a high school biology teacher who has seemed to have lost his purpose and vision in teaching over the past decade in the school. He is more of a slacker now and is constantly late for school. His glory days of the past when he was voted the best teacher of the school are long past him now. When the principal (Greg Germann) of the school announces that they are going to cut out extracurricular activities in the school to reduce the budget, he decides to speak up for music teacher, Marty Streb (Henry Winkler), who will be left out of a job if they can’t come up with the 48,000 dollars that the music curriculum is costing the school. Scott and her colleague Bella (Salma Hayek) decide to help Marty out by coming up with ways for raising the money. Scott decides to prepare immigrants for the citizenship test in order to come up with some extra income. Here he meets a former MMA fighter from Holland named Niko (Bas Rutten) who introduces him to the MMA world. Scott realizes that if he can get into a professional fight he may win 10,000 dollars just by participating therefore he makes it his goal to become a mixed-martial arts fighter so he can raise enough money to save Streb´s job.

Here Comes the Boom has a very ridiculous plot and unfortunately instead of going all the way with the satire they try to give it a Rocky like tone. It didn’t really work for me and some of the actors were pretty bad. Henry Winkler was probably the funniest character in this film, while Bas Rutten tried too hard to be funny but some scenes really didn’t work with him. I am not surprised I didn’t like this film considering it was directed by the same guy who brought us Zookeeper, although I was a fan of his when he directed The Wedding Singer. I think he fails here by not going all the way with the satire considering how ridiculous the plot is. It will have success however with its intended audience, but I just wasn’t the right target for it. It is a lazy comedy and you get exactly what you expect from it.

http://estebueno10.blogspot.com/

My Review: Zookeeper (2/10)

¨I know it shouldn’t bother me that you`re a zookeeper, but it kind of does.¨

Kevin James is at it again, although this time instead of receiving love advice from Hitch, he`s listening to the animals from the zoo. From the trailers I kind of expected this movie to be a cross between Dr. Doolittle and Night at the Museum, and it definitely was what I expected (and even worse). Zookeeper might have been written by five different screenwriters, but the story and dialogues are far from original. I couldn’t help but sense that I`d seen this movie a million times before. It`s like they blended a bunch of James`s comedies together and came up with this mixture called Zookeeper. There are hardly any funny moments in the movie, the talking animals thing isn’t new and it just didn’t work, the characters were all one dimensional, there was no chemistry whatsoever between any of the actors or animals, and the film relied heavily on Kevin James`s well known by now physical comedy and familiar gags. Frank Coraci has done some greater work in the past with films like Wedding Singer or Click, but he just misses the mark this time around. This was truly a messy comedy that never managed to catch my attention, or even get a smile out of me. I had no fun at all with Zookeeper.

Griffin Keyes (Kevin James) is a zookeeper who is about to propose to his beautiful girlfriend, Stephanie (Leslie Bibb), in the beach. He has everything planned: horseback riding in the sand as the sun sets, a message in a bottle, a ring, mariachis, and even fireworks. The only problem is that Stephanie says no because she just isn’t ready to have a long term relationship with a zookeeper. Five years later, Griffin is still a zookeeper who seems to be enjoying what he`s doing. He excels in his work and the animals are lucky to have him around. Some of his co-workers include Venom (Ken Jeong), Shane (Donnie Wahlberg), and the lovely and caring vet Kate (Rosario Dawson). Griffin is preparing his brother, Dave (Nat Faxon), an engagement party at the zoo and he runs into Stephanie once again. She seems interested in him, but he`s still working at the zoo and he has competition from another one of her exes: Gale (Joe Rogan). The only solution seems to be quitting the zoo and working with his brother for a luxury car dealership. The animals in the zoo decide to help Griffin out by breaking their code of silence and giving him advice on mating. These animals include Bernie the Gorilla (voiced by Nick Nolte), Donald the Monkey (Adam Sandler), Joe the Lion (Sylvester Stallone), Janet the Lioness (Cher), Barry the Elephant (Judd Apatow), Jerome the Bear (Jon Favreau), and Mollie the Giraffe (Maya Rudolph).

Anyone who has seen a romantic comedy before will know where this plot is heading five minutes into the movie. I don’t actually have a problem with this as long as I have a fun time getting to the predicted finale, but the trip just isn’t worth it since there are very few funny moments. The talking CGI animal effects aren’t very well done, but that wouldn’t be a problem either if they had been given some funny material to work with. It`s too bad because the cast was really incredible and they could have done much better work on their own. The only true funny moment in this movie is the five minute scene between James and the gorilla as they hang out together in TGIF. It is truly a very funny scene and perhaps the only moment in which James has a connection with one of the characters in the movie. Too bad that was only part of the side story and the entire film focused on something entirely different. Kevin James is a very funny man, but we can see his physical comedy anytime on television. The material he had to work with here was just pathetic, but he is partly to blame because he helped write it. I don’t see another sequel coming out of this like in Dr. Doolittle or Night at the Museum because it really goes nowhere. This is the second Kevin James movie that I`ve seen this month that has completely disappointed me (The Dilemma). Small kids might enjoy the talking animals, but adults will most likely find this movie disappointing.

 

http://estebueno10.blogspot.com/

My Review: The Dilemma (3/10)

¨ I'd like to think that something that got you through those 40 years is a little friend I'd like to call honesty. ¨

One would expect that a film starring Kevin James (the King of Queens) and Vince Vaughn would be a hilarious comedy, but The Dilemma takes a very different approach and the movie feels more like a drama than an actual buddy comedy, which is what I was expecting and wish it had been so. The film felt weird at times and some scenes which tried to be funny really didn’t work at all. There are very few laughs in this film, and the drama just didn’t make a whole lot of sense. The Dilemma is just one of those movies in which the main character keeps on making one bad decision after another and therefore building the tension, when everything could have been resolved a whole lot easier. A much more comedic approach could have worked in order for us to ignore the awkwardness of the story. The talents of James and Vaughn were absolutely wasted in this film and I wish they would have given them much funnier material. I agree that it`s hard these days to make a good buddy comedy because we`ve seen it all by now, but I still would have preferred an average comedy than this weak drama that didn’t even make much sense at times. The characters changed personalities like chameleons at times in order to fit the script and carry along with the plot. I was hugely disappointed with the film and I`m still trying to classify as to what genre they were aiming for when they wrote this story.

Ronny (Vince Vaughn) and Nick (Kevin James) have been best friends ever since their college days, now they`ve decided to partner together for their own electronic car design business. Ronny is a good speaker while Nick is the brains in the operation. They are currently signing a deal with an important automobile company that could take their small business to the next level. Nick appears to be happily married with his college sweetheart, Geneva (Winona Ryder), while Ronny has managed to stay single for all these years, but is thinking of proposing to his girlfriend, Beth (Jennifer Connelly). The two couples spend a lot of time together and everyone seems to be getting along pretty well. Ronny`s peaceful world is about to get shaken when he discovers Geneva is being unfaithful to Nick. He discovers her kissing another man named Zip (Channing Tatum) and decides to investigate them. Zip is young, muscular, and covered with tattoos, nothing like Nick who is all brains. This is where Ronny`s dilemma begins because he doesn’t know if he should tell Nick about it or confront Geneva about the issue. Their deadline with the automobile company is approaching and Nick has a lot of work ahead of him so Ronny doesn’t want him to get distracted by this scandal, but he is more concerned about his best friend than any other thing. Ronny begins to make one bad decision after another while trying to confront Zip and Geneva, and his moral dilemma begins to bring him some problems of his own with Beth. He will have to find a way to fix the problem before it`s too late.

The premise isn’t anything new; we`ve all considered the option before: whether or not we should tell our best friend about infidelities in his life. The answer is rather simple, a friend should always tell the truth, they should be honest with each other. There are some things that happen in this movie with the story that actually complicate things a little bit. Winona Ryder`s character is not as sweet as she seems and she has a couple of tricks up her sleeves. Channing Tatum`s character was just weird, the scenes between him and Vaughn were really awkward. Connelly is sweet and lovely as usual, but she doesn’t play a major role. James is a really funny actor, but in The Dilemma he hardly gets any comedic scenes. I didn’t buy the whole car engineer thing. Vaughn plays his usual self, but I really didn’t like his character in this film. Queen Latifah has a small supporting role but she goes unnoticed as well, although most funny dialogues were sent her way. The movie really never finds itself and Ron Howard wasn’t able to blend the comedy with the drama. I wish he would have made a comedy instead of trying to focus on the darker moral aspect of the film which leaves us with a cheesy finale anyway. For a dark moral movie, they come up with a rather predictable and lazy ending. I really didn’t like this film at all and wouldn’t recommend it.

http://estebueno10.blogspot.com/

My Review: Grown Ups (5/10)

¨We needed to be here. Our kids were turning into snotty, spoiled, little. This is what we needed. ¨

How can a film with so many talented comedians fail to deliver laughs? Grown Ups will only make you wonder more about this question because it is just one of those movies where talents go to waste. Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade, and Robert Schneider all have had lead roles and one would assume that so much talent combined would result in a hilarious movie, but it wasn`t the case because the material they had to work with wasn`t any good. They probably had so much fun working together that they focused on enjoying themselves instead of trying to write a better story or smarter jokes. Not even the talented actresses such as Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, and Maya Rudolph helped improve the movie. This is just another one of those movies that relies so heavily on having a star cast that it forgets that there are other important elements to making a film.  Great actors working together doesn`t necessarily mean that you will have a great movie. Adam Sandler and Fred Wolf wrote the screenplay for this film and it is so sad to see them rely on old jokes. There is nothing fresh about this movie and you can predict most of the jokes that are going to be told. I think that all the focus of the movie was put on the cast that they forgot to find decent material to work with and that is the main problem with Dennis Dugan`s film. Dugan has directed most of these actors in the past in You Don`t Mess with the Zohan, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and The Benchwarmers.

The plot centers on a group of friends from a high school basketball team who reunite after several years at their coach`s funeral. Lenny (Adam Sandler) was the star of the team and is now a successful Hollywood agent. He is married to Roxanne (Salma Hayek), a fashion designer, and they have three kids. He is worried about his children who stay playing videogames all day and on their cell phones. Eric (Kevin James) is a restaurant co-owner, or so he says, and he also has two children and is married to Sally (Maria Bello). They have a four year old son who still breast feeds. Kurt (Chris Rock) is a stay at home dad, living with his children, mother in law, and wife, Deanne (Maya Rudolph). Marcus (David Spade) is probably the most immature of the group and he is still single. And finally there is Rob (Rob Schneider) who is married to Gloria (Joyce Van Patten) a much older woman who could very well be his mother. After the funeral Lenny decides to rent the cabin where the team celebrated their championship for the Fourth of July holiday weekend. The five friends spend some time together with their wives and kids and learn some important lessons in the process.

The plot is very poorly developed and this movie could have been so much better considering the cast, but it really fails by focusing on very lazy humor instead. It is like these guys were simply put together in the movie and let each one improvise. I am sure they had a great time making this movie, and had much more laughs than we did by watching it. Not even the supporting roles by Steve Buscemi, Tim Meadows, Colin Quinn, and Norm MacDonald were enough to save the movie. Grown Ups is just one of those movies where you have to grab your head and wonder how all this talent was put to waste. This just proves that having an all star cast doesn`t mean you can make a decent movie and that it is important to have good writers mixed in the process. This was really a huge disappointment considering I am a true fan of most of these actors and have laughed hard at so many of their movies. Either the material they had to work with is getting worse or I am just getting older and not finding some of these men as funny as I used to. I am still waiting for a decent comedy to come out this year and put a smile to my face.

http://estebueno10.blogspot.com/