Movie Review: Popper's Penguins are Predictable yet Pleasantly So

Mr. Popper's Penguins movie poster, image property of Twentieth Century Fox.

by Jack Garcia

Mr. Popper’s Penguins AVERAGE

Permit me to paraphrase the plot.  Jim Carrey portrays Tom Popper, Jr., a professional person perfectly preoccupied with his profession.  He has parted from his wife Amanda (Carla Gugino) who is presently pursuing a new partner, his progeny Janie (Madeline Carroll) and Billy (Maxwell Perry Cotton) often protest paying their pop a visit on weekends, and he is being propositioned by his pompous employers to persuade Mrs. Van Gundy (Angela Lansbury)—the proprietor of Tavern on the Green—to part ways with her property.  His personal assistant Pippi (Ophelia Lovibond) with her perplexing problem with P’s, is particularly productive in propping Mr. Popper up and planning his professional appointments.  But a peculiar present from his passed-on papa—a pullulating party of penguins—puts everything into perspective.

This particular picture is predictable in plot.  The penguins portray plenty of propensity, and Mr. Popper soon picks up on what is the paramount prize:  his family.  He puts aside his pursuits of personal prosperity to provide for the penguins, play with his children, and rekindle the passion with his past partner Amanda.  Perhaps sappy at points, Mr. Popper’s Penguins was a pleasant picture to participate in.  The penguins were full of pizzazz and personality, providing for plenty of pranks and puns… and lots of poop!

Movie Review: Panda Finds Inner Peace

Kung Fu Panda 2 movie poster, image property of Dreamworks.

by Jack Garcia

Kung Fu Panda 2 AWESOME!

It’s not often that a sequel outshines the original, but in my opinion Kung Fu Panda 2 was a shining improvement on an already likable film.  It had kung fu action, plenty of laughs and a lot of heart.  And boy did it have some beautiful animation!

Jack Black stars as Po, the fat and fluffy panda bear who unexpectedly became The Dragon Warrior in the first film.  He works alongside The Furious Five—Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Crane (David Cross), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Monkey (Jackie Chan)—to  protect China from any possible threat.  When informed by their mentor Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) that China—and even Kung Fu as they know it—is threatened by an evil peacock named Shen (Gary Oldman), Po and the others embark on a dangerous mission to stop him.

The story gets interesting when we discover that Shen has a personal vendetta against Po.  An old soothsayer (Michelle Yeoh) had prophesied years ago that Shen would die at the hands of a panda.  In order to stop the prophecy from coming to pass, Shen killed all of the pandas in China… or so he thought.  Po is the only one left that can stop him.  The evil doesn’t stop there of course.  Peacocks were the inventors of fireworks, but Shen has found a way to use the principles of fireworks to his own wicked advantage.  He has created what is essentially the first gun ever, and with it he plans on destroying Kung Fu and taking over all of China.

The emotional core of the movie involves Po searching for the truth of his origins.  He realizes that his father, the goose Mr. Ping (James Hong), cannot really be his biological father.  I mean, Po’s a panda after all.  And when Po sees Shen’s henchmen for the first time he has a brief flashback of his past… a past involving his mother.  He soon becomes consumed with curiosity of the circumstances surrounding his birth, and when he discovers that Shen knows something about it he seeks answers from him.  This makes their battles all the more intense.

My favorite thing about Kung Fu Panda 2—aside from the surprisingly deep and intriguing story—was the use of various animation styles!  No less than three!  The beginning opens with a kind of 2D animation that evokes the feeling of shadow puppets.  Very beautiful.  It explains the back story of Shen.  Po’s flashbacks and memories are also shown through the use of 2D animation in a different style than the opening.  This style is similar to the opening of the first Kung Fu Panda movie.  Stylized and simplified, yet graphic and gorgeous.  I really loved these scenes.   Then, of course, the majority of the movie is computer animation full of dimension and vibrancy.  The fight scenes were choreographed beautifully and the locations were full of breathtaking detail.

The best scene is where Po finds inner peace, doing a rhythmic sort of martial arts while controlling a drop of rain, letting it roll over his body like a small ball.  This scene is intercut with the 2D animation showing his mother running through the woods with baby Po in her arms.  It’s hard to explain in words, because it’s something so visual!  The result is dramatic and emotional and just so stunning.  I was very impressed.

The strength of the movie came through its humor and its animation.  Dreamworks is definitely working its butt off to compete at Pixar’s high level of quality.  Technically, Dreamworks is doing amazing things, but their storylines still don’t connect as personally as Pixar’s do.  Kung Fu Panda 2 got really close… perhaps the closest they’ve come since How to Train Your Dragon… but they still lag behind.  They are closing the gap, however, especially with Pixar’s Cars 2 looking less than promising.

Movie Review: 'Hop' is Like Hip Hop Without the Hip

Hop movie poster, property of Universal Pictures.

by Jack Garcia

Hop AVERAGE

Let me start off by saying this movie is not that bad.  However, it's also not that good.  The first few minutes were spectacular in my opinion.  The movie opened with the bustling and vibrant candy factory on Easter Island, and it was so charmingly magical that it put Willy Wonka's factory to shame.  Adorable little chicks and bunnies scampered about running the shiny golden machines that created chocolates and marshmallows and all of the delicious treats that boys and girls hope will fill their baskets come Easter morning.  It truly was wondrous to behold.

Unfortunately, we don't stay in that fantastical place for very long.  The majority of the movie is set in the boring old "real world" that we inhabit every day.  And for me, the magic of the movie stopped there.  In my opinion, the entire movie should have been animated.  It would have been so much better.  Instead we get a cartoon rabbit wandering around a dusty Los Angeles pooping jelly beans.

The main character, E.B. (Russell Brand), is the Easter Bunny's son who does not wish to follow in his father's footsteps.  Instead of taking over the family business by delivering Easter candy to all the children in the world (except China, which was actually a pretty funny little joke), E.B. wants to be a rock n' roll drummer.  So he escapes Easter Island and heads to Hollywood.  Soon he finds our human, Fred O'Hare (James Marsden), who is an unemployed twenty-something-year-old house sitting for some rich people.  Together they form an unlikely friendship and help one another live their dreams.

The story is cute enough I guess, and Russell Brand's E.B. actually had some really funny lines.  His one-liners helped me to watch the whole movie without falling asleep, actually.  Unfortunately, everything that happens just never lives up to it's opening scene.  Even the end was oddly non-climactic.  I heard someone describe this movie as an Easter version of the The Santa Clause.  And it really is.  Fred O'Hare ends up becoming the Easter Bunny and he even flies around in a sled...  It tries so hard to be hip and cool, but the end result is a forgettable family film that never lived up to its potential.

Movie Review: 'Rango' is Resplendent

Rango movie poster, property of Nickelodeon and Paramount.

by Jack Garcia

Rango AWESOME!

I have been absolutely dying to see this movie.  Ever since I saw the very first trailer in theaters, I knew Rango was a must-see film.  In those brief minutes I could tell that the animation was phenomenal, the story-telling was bold, and that Nickelodeon Pictures was really stepping up it's game.  What a shame that the circumstances of my life would leave me waiting an entire month after it's opening to see it!

So I really don't know what I can say about this movie that hasn't already been said.  Roger Ebert, one of my favorite film critics, wrote, "Rango is some kind of a miracle: An animated comedy for smart moviegoers, wonderfully made, great to look at, wickedly satirical, and (gasp!) filmed in glorious 2-D. Its brilliant colors and startling characters spring from the screen and remind us how very, very tired we are of simpleminded little characters bouncing around dimly in 3-D."

And I agree with him 100%!  So many "family" movies these days seem to have been cookie-cuttered out of sugar cookie dough then quickly slapped with some brightly colored frosting and rainbow sprinkles.  The end result is a sugary mess of emptiness with no nutritional value to speak of.  Yet Rango seems to think that maybe, just maybe, kids are ready for some real food.

The story is of a lizard who enters a town in desperate need of a hero.  They are living through a horrible drought of water, feeling pressure from many foes.  Folks are selling off their land, they are tormented by hawks and snakes, and they are beginning to lose faith.  But when Rango comes in, talking big and (accidentally) defeating one of their foes, he becomes their sheriff.  He then begins to unite the townspeople in a quest to bring their water back, all while grappling with the existential question: who am I?

The film, for the most part, has the look and feel of a classic western complete with gunfights, and saloons, and tobacco.  Some people have an issue with that.  Someone I know wrote on Facebook that Rango was the worst movie she had ever seen.  She said she wanted to walk out of the theater because she found the movie immoral, which is simply not true.  Is it gritty? Yes.  Is there some violence?  Yes.  Are the characters a bit rough around the edges?  Yes.  They say things like "hell" and "damn."  Some of them smoke cigars or make off-colored jokes.  They don't pretend to be perfect, but they all have a value that I feel many would admire:  they have faith and the strength to carry on.

And it's a shame that some people would get so caught up in their haughty habits of passing righteous judgment, that they would somehow be oblivious to the religious overtones.  Right from the get-go Rango encounters a prophet-like character named Roadkill.  He's an aged armadillo on a sacred mission of sorts who speaks in metaphors about life and destiny and death.  Then we meet the townspeople who are passing through many trials and tribulations, yet still clinging desperately to the hope that their salvation will come.  In one scene they even pray to The Spirit of the West for their deliverance.  And Rango, in a beautifully otherworldly scene, gets to stand in the presence of The Spirit of the West who reminds him that no man can leave his own story.  Rango returns to the town to be the hero he was meant to be.

All this elevated impact while being incredibly funny, totally unexpected and off-beat, wildly action-packed, and sparkling with visual panache.  Rango is easily one of my favorite animated movies of all time.