Review: "Stuber"

Since “Stuber” isn’t so much a coherent movie as a collection of (allegedly) comedic elements, let’s do this review in bullets.

• Dave Bautista isn’t funny unless he’s trying not to be funny, a la the deadpan Drax in the “Guardians of the Galaxy” flicks.

• Kumail Nanjiani plays a harried Uber driver… which he also played in his breakout hit, “The Big Sick.” Hopefully this will be his last such role, otherwise he will be the victim of the weirdest typecasting in Hollywood history. “I know, let’s get that rideshare guy!”

• I can only imagine the pitch for this movie: “Let’s do a buddy cop movie where the tough one just had LASIK so he can’t see and the other guy’s a touchy/feely wimp.”

• This isn’t actually how laser eye surgery works. You’re light-sensitive for a while, but can see clearly right after. If you’re functionally blind post-procedure, call an ambulance and a lawyer.

• A prologue scene shows the partner of Vic (Bautista) getting killed due in part to his losing his thick glasses during a fight, hence the LASIK.

• The title comes from the fact Nanjiani’s character is named Stu, and his noxious bro-dude boss (Jimmy Tatro) at his day job at a sporting goods store attaches the Uber appellation to mock him. Stu actually prefers “FIVESTAR,” the license plate on his electric Nissan Leaf. He’s obsessed with maintaining a high star rating from his riders, which doesn’t work out so well.

• Vic crashes his car trying to hunt down the drug dealer, Teijo (Iko Uwais), who killed his partner while doing lots of parkour. Despite being unable to see well enough to work his phone the entire rest of the movie, Vic somehow manages to use it to summon Stu, and then basically kidnaps him for the rest of the way on “official police business.”

• Stu repeatedly mentions that his car is a lease, especially as it gets progressively blasted apart by gunfire and crashes as the movie goes on. This seems unwise, since Uber drivers put a tremendous amount of miles on their cars and leases nearly always include strict mileage riders.

• Stu’s dream is to save up enough money so he can partner up with his friend Becca (Betty Gilpin) on a women-only spin gym to be called “Spinsters,” which is an even worse moniker than Stuber. 

• Stu secretly pines for Becca, and is prevented from hooking up with her by Vic forcing him to ferry him around, beating up criminals and otherwise treating the Bill of Rights like toilet paper.

• Vic is having problems relating to his daughter (Natalie Morales), because he’s always about the job and never there. Clichéd Screenwriting 101 courtesy of Tripper Clancy.

• Bautista is an intriguing physical specimen for the screen. He seems twice as wide as a normal human, could arguably claim to be a member of any race, and has a scant, mangy head of hair that seems to be at least 40% Toppik. He actually looks more normal in the Drax getup.

• While otherwise having the look and feel of a slightly cheeky comedy, the movie is rated “R” for short bursts of violence and peen. 

• Yes, I should’ve said “bullet points” at the beginning of this review, but since it’s a surprisingly bloody shoot-em-up, that was a joke. Not a very good one, I’ll admit. But still funnier than anything in “Stuber.”

Review: "The Lego Ninjago Movie"

The whole concept of “Lego Ninjago” is just brilliant, from a marketing standpoint.

Kids love Legos and are positively insane for ninjas, or chop-socky action in general, and they also will watch almost anything animated. Throw all those things together and you’ve got something that smaller children, especially boys, are guaranteed to devour.

As the dad of 4- and 6-year-olds who live loudly the dogma of their Y chromosome, I am unnervingly well acquainted with the TV series, “Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu,” now in its seventh season.

I have to say that for a kids’ show, I’ve been impressed with the level of storytelling involved. The relationship between Lloyd Garmadon and his estranged father, the evil Lord Garmadon, has had permutations of Skywalker-ian complexity, with Lloyd starting out as a snotty kid and evolving into the “chosen one” Green Ninja.

After “The Lego Movie” became a hit, it seemed inevitable that the ninjas would get their own feature film. My kids, and to a lesser extent I, looked on with genuine anticipation.

So I have to say I’m disappointed. The veritable platoon of filmmakers -- with three credited directors, five screenwriters and seven people receiving story credit -- seem to have gone out of their way to toss the entire television series, even swapping out the whole voice cast for bigger names who, frankly, aren’t nearly as good.

The addition of live action sequences, which was probably unavoidable after Will Ferrell did it, is off-putting and disruptive, with Jackie Chan playing a stereotypical Asian shopkeep who has important lessons to impart. He also does the voice of Master Wu, the ninjas’ serene and mysterious teacher. There’s also a furrier addition late in the game that’s just goofy.

The movie is essentially an entire reboot of the Ninjago universe, with the six ninjas more or less back to square one in terms of their martial arts/elemental powers, relying instead on huge robot ‘mechs to battle Lord Garmadon. However, Nya, the lone female ninja voiced by Abbi Jacobson, has already joined the group, Lloyd (Dave Franco) is already grown up and the Green Ninja, and Zane (Zach Woods) has already been revealed to be an android, though he seems to be somewhat in denial about this.

Rounding out the crew are Fred Armisen as Cole, the earth ninja, Kumail Nanjiani as Jay, the lightning ninja and Michael Peña as Kai, the fire ninja. Olivia Munn voices Lloyd’s mom, Koko, who used to be married to Lord Garmadon (Justin Theroux), who has blackened skin from a deadly snake bite, four arms and cries tears of fire. Talk about falling for the bad boy.

The story is sort of a very condensed version of the first few seasons of the TV show: the ninjas fight Lord Garmadon, then find themselves allied with him, leading to some tenuous father/son bonding between him and Lloyd, followed by some scorpion-and-frog-like realignment.

It’s an energetic movie, with cool martial arts action scenes and neat creatures. The biggest problem with “The Lego Ninjago Movie” is that they’re trying to force it into the template of “The Lego Movie,” with crazy quips and comedic asides.

It’s almost as if, instead of creating something new and cool, they were determined to re-use the same pieces in a different configuration -- like trying to build the boat using the parts for the tank. Whether it’s construction toys or movies, you just gotta let things be what they are.

Before I go, in the interest of fair journalistic criticism, I should report a couple of things. First, duty requires me to disclose that I nodded off a few times. I think this is the third time this has ever happened to me, and both of the others were also kiddie flicks that failed to hold my attention.

Also, my kids really liked the movie. We talked a little afterward about how it was different from the show, but it still came down to the fact that this movie included: A) ninjas B) Legos, and C) cartoons. So you can mark the target audience down as “sold,” even if dad was sleeping on the job.

Video review: "Fist Fight"

All movies have plot holes. Some you can drive a truck through. Others are meager quibbles that only occur to you long after you’ve left the theater.

With “Fist Fight,” the entire movie is a plot hole. As in, its very premise makes not a lick of sense. It’s hard to take a movie seriously, even a comedy, when it insults your intelligence right off the bat.

The set-up is that Charlie Day is Andy, a nebbish-y high school teacher who gets challenged to a fight by Ice Cube, also playing a teacher, but a much meaner one named Strickland. The fisticuffs are supposed to take place in the school parking lot after the last bell, so the entire student body can bear witness to the beat-down.

Huh?

Even swallowing the stupidity that such a thing wouldn’t immediately be shut down by administrators and/or law enforcement -- especially after the challenge goes viral on social media and YouTube -- why wouldn’t Andy just fake a cough and go home? He certainly looks like he’s ill, trembling with fear as he spends the rest of the day contriving to get out of the fight.

Such roles have become Day’s bread-and-butter, usually as the comic relief or sidekick. As for Cube, his acting style hasn’t really varied in 20 years.

“Fist Fight” has a few scraps of funny. Tracy Morgan plays the inept football coach, and he can garner a few laughs just on sheer force of personality. Jillian Bell scores a few more as a drug-addled teacher desperately trying to hook up with one of her students. (Admittedly, it’s funnier than it sounds.)

Mostly, though, watching this movie feels like spending time in special detention for boneheads.

Extra features are pretty apathetic, consisting of some deleted scenes and (on the Blu-ray version) a feature about the Georgia Film Commission, which gives tax credits for film production. Sounds more like homework than a bonus.

Movie:



Extras: D

Review: "Fist Fight"

So “Fist Fight” is based on a concept that doesn’t survive past its first minute: one high school teacher challenging another to a fight in the parking lot after school lets out.

Sure, it’s a comedy -- but even funny films owe us a certain amount of plausible rectitude.

By all rights, this movie should have died in its infancy. Deserved to be slapped down during the pitch meeting in the producer’s office. Flung objects would not have been unwarranted.

But they went ahead and wrote it, filmed it, edited it and put music to it, and pushed it out into theaters. And I had to watch it.

SO many questions…

• What exactly does Mr. Strickland, the surly history teacher played by Ice Cube, think he’s going to accomplish by fighting his offender? He’s already lost his job for taking an axe to a student’s desk – while the student was still in it -- so is he just determined to end his day by getting arrested?

• Maybe he knows something we don’t, because the law enforcement response to the impending fight is astonishingly tepid. The 9-1-1 operators even laugh about it.

• Andy Campbell, the nerdy English teacher played by Charlie Day, spends the entire movie trying to get out of the fight we know is ultimately going to happen, using all sorts of schemes and contretemps. At one point he bribes a student with an expensive laptop to change his story to the principal (Dean Norris). Why doesn’t he just say, “Hey, I’m sick, going home” around lunchtime?

• Why is it that news about the fight spreads through Roosevelt High School like wildfire, and then onto the Internet, even spawning YouTube videos and the hashtag #teacherfight, but none of the school administrators or Andy’s wife (JoAnna Garcia Swisher) ever hear about it?

I will admit to laughing now and then. Tracy Morgan gets a few as Freddie, the brash and utterly incompetent football coach. And I liked Jillian Bell as Holly, the no-boundaries teacher who openly desires hookups with her teenage charges, and takes meth -- but only before school, not during, she says when admonished by Andy.

“Because it’s a gateway?” she asks.

“Well, it’s the finish line,” he responds.

Other than that, it’s a chore to get through. Subplots involving Andy’s very pregnant wife a talent show competition with his daughter don’t provide much comedic ammo, though the latter ends with a shock.

Charlie Day’s motormouth nebbish routine is good at lighting up other movies (“Pacific Rim”), but a lot of that goes a short way. And Cube is just doing that familiar snarly ‘tude thing that has taken his film career a lot further than it deserved.

If there’s a lesson to be taken home from “Fist Fight,” it’s that sometimes you just have to stand up for yourself. Specifically, your right to buy a ticket to something else.