Review: "This Is 40"

Judd Apatow knows how to create amusing scenes, but as a storyteller he’s hopeless.

The prolific and popular comedy writer/producer/director employs a familiar circle of actors who are encouraged to ad-lib their scenes prodigiously. These are then linked together in an editing process that employs all the restraint of Homer Simpson in a donut factory.

For a sketch comedy show, that’s a great M.O., but for making movies it’s the equivalent of diarrhea.
His last directorial effort, “Funny People,” had a terrific first 80 minutes and then flushed itself down the toilet with an indulgent, overlong visit with the main character’s ex-girlfriend, played by Apatow’s real-life wife, Leslie Mann.

His latest, “This Is 40,” moves Mann from the supporting role to the spotlight, with Paul Rudd playing her husband as the pair deal with twin monster-sized mid-life crises.

Its demise is not quite so systematic as “People,” since you can’t pinpoint an exact moment when the film runs off the rails. But gradually you come to realize you’re trapped watching a bunch of people you don’t like who stopped being funny a while ago.

Knowing Apatow’s estrangement from the concept of brevity, I resolved to go into “This Is 40” not fretting about its length, and just let the story come to me. Finally, when it seemed like it was reaching a point of natural denouement, I looked at my watch. Just over an hour had gone by – meaning I was still less than halfway through the film’s interminable 134 minutes.

Some of the film’s best moments come from the supporting characters, of which there are plenty, played by Apatow mainstays like Jason Segel as well as newcomers like Albert Brooks, Lena Dunham, Melissa McCarthy and Chris O’Dowd. (Many of the latter have appeared in projects Apatow produced.) They get to come on stage, have a nice moment of mirth or pathos, and then dance off. Brooks in particular shines.

The problem is the main characters, Debbie and Pete. They start out as quirky and end up as contemptible. When bad things begin to happen, I found myself cheering on the forces arrayed against them.

Example: their tween daughter gets caught in a nasty Facebook fight with a boy, and then Debbie confronts the online oppressor and browbeats him into crying. Later the boy’s mother (McCarthy) gives Pete a tongue-lashing, and he responds with a violent, misogynistic screed so black-hearted that I rooted for her to bury her fist deep in his sinuses.

For a pair of folks who are both about to turn 40, Pete and Debbie are remarkably juvenile emotionally. Their relationship feels like an ironic sparring between college chums that never progressed into any real emotional depth. Love is more conceptual than operational for them.

They’re indifferent parents at best, greeting their two daughters with harried looks of exasperation, as if having kids is the ultimate downer. Apatow offspring Maude and Iris play the kids, turning this movie into a championship-level nepotism jubilee. The Apatow young’uns are not bad performers, but their dad’s screenplay only provides them with one speed/volume at which to play: the older one is constantly hollering, the younger one always teasing.

The family is faced with some pretty dire financial problems, but it’s hard to summon much sympathy for them, since Debbie and Pete each seem to work about five hours a week. Meanwhile, they spend like bandits – expensive cars, weekend getaways, personal trainers, etc.

He runs a small record label that is unsuccessfully flogging a nostalgia rock act, and she owns a fashion boutique where she occasionally drops by to check in on her two warring employees (Megan Fox and Charlyne Yi), one of whom is stealing.

The humor is pretty raunchy, although as with other Apatow flicks sex is more discussed than performed. Many scenes end up feeling more icky than amusing – as when Pete goes spread-eagle and insists Debbie inspect a growth in his… um, nethers.

There are some funny moments in “This Is 40,” but what there is tends to be clustered toward the beginning. Until Apatow learns how to get a grasp on story structure, his movies will continue to wallow in self-indulgence.

1.5 stars out of four

Review: "Jonah Hex"

The standard for this summer's crop of flicks is already depressingly low, with one high-profile disappointment after another. But even if we lower our standards so that our entertainment merely has to be coherent, "Jonah Hex" seems cursed.

When I was writing my summer movie previews, I spotlighted this Western-oater-meets-supernatural-thriller as one of those I was most looking forward to. Based on the dark-and-dreary previews seen earlier in the spring, it looked like an adaptation of a graphic novel much in the same vein as "The Dark Knight."

But then another trailer emerged a few weeks ago, much lighter in tone -- full of the scarred, taciturn anti-hero (Josh Brolin) casually shooting people and tossing off comedic one-liners. It was Dirty Hero meets Arnold Schwarzenegger, with spurs on its heels. This, unfortunately, was a much more accurate preview of the film.

Perhaps I should have been tipped off that the comic books (by John Albano and Tony Dezuniga) were adapted for the screen by the execrable filmmaking duo that calls itself Neveldine & Taylor (the first names they so eschew are Mark and Brian, respectively). Their credits include the "Crank" movies and "Gamer," and that tells you pretty much all you need to know about what "Jonah Hex" is like: Fast-paced to the point of ADD, jumpy editing and characters drawn with the broadest brush available.

The director is Jimmy Hayward, whose only other credit is the strange "Horton Hears a Who!" from a couple years ago. His action scenes are muddy and confusing, to the point that we have trouble understanding exactly what is going on. Josh Brolin, a talented actor, gives a more or less one-note performance as Jonah Hex. Megan Fox does little but pout and flash her ubiquitous cleavage. And John Malkovich, whose intensity as an actor is best when reigned in by a strong director, is allowed to burn through every scene he's in.

The story is a straight revenge flick: Confederate turncoat Jonah, who defied an evil general's order to destroy a hospital, suffers a terrible punishment. Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich) wreaks his vengeance by killing Jonah's wife and son in front of him, and branding his face with his mark. Jonah is left (after a little self-adjustment) with the entire right side of his skull a web of ruined flesh.

Turnbull is believed dead, but when his men appear to be stealing the plans to make the ultimate weapon the U.S. government designed but feared to build, President Grant assigns his men to track down Jonah -- now a bounty hunter -- to help capture or kill Turnbull.

Jonah has special powers that allow him to communicate with the dead by touching their bodies. It's never explained exactly how he acquired this power, although there's a reference to some American Indian magic hokum. Because he came so close to death himself, or something like that.

Anyway, the dead reconstitute themselves to the way they looked when they were alive, but they start to burn painfully the longer Jonah holds them in this state. He can ease the hurt by pouring soil on their heads -- see, "the dead need the dirt, and the dirt wants the dead." One long-dead corpse, whom Jonah slew with his own hand, immediately starts fighting with him the moment he's resurrected. Although resurrection isn't the right word, since to everyone but Jonah, the corpses remain still.

Jonah likes to carry an arsenal of fancy weapons that are entirely implausible, but at least look like they were manufactured in the film's era, much like the gear in "Van Helsing." Jonah rides around with two hand-cranked machine guns strapped to his horse (even though they must weight a few hundred pounds) that he uses to mow down some nasty townfolk who refuse to pay a bounty in the film's opening scene.

There are also these funny-looking pistols that show up. Apparently they have sticks of dynamite stacked underneath like a magazine of bullets, and when Jonah fires one of them is lit and flung by a mini-crossbow at his enemies. Of course, they explode upon impact, no matter what point the fuse has reached in its burning. After blowing away a few dozen men with them, he then drops these unique weapons that he just paid a lot of money for on the ground.

Megan Fox shows up as Lilah, a knife-wielding prostitute who wants Jonah to settle down and build a house with her. Lilah must not be very sharp herself if she thinks a man with half his face burned off and an obsession with death is the best the Old West has to offer in a mate. It's never even mentioned how such a gorgeous woman can look past Jonah's gruesome visage.

Even the prosthetics Brolin wears on his face aren't very convincing. It's supposed to appear that Jonah has a huge hole in his cheek -- even if we hadn't seen him drawn that way in the comics, the movie's animated exposition depicts him so. Brolin just looks like they added an extra strip of skin over the side of his mouth that forces him to mumble all his dialogue. Hell, "Darkman" did a better job of this 20 years ago.

Barely 80 minutes long, "Jonah Hex" is an interminable, dusty disaster.

1.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen"

Director Michael Bay is the king of the big, dumb summer action movie, and "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is as big and dumb as they come.

Surprisingly, though, it actually manages to improve on 2007's "Transformers" by stirring up a dramatic moment or two centered around robot hero Optimus Prime. In a summer wasteland of disappointing movies, Optimus (emphatically voiced by Peter Cullens) was the best cinematic hero of the season.

The action scenes are still an exercise in migraine-inducing computer-generated special effects, as heroic Autobots and villainous Decepticons tangle in a blur of metal pieces and widgets. Since both can transform into other things, it's virtually impossible to tell where one robot begins and another ends.

The story is a mishmash of gobbledygook about a secret Decepticon overlord named the Fallen who wants to set off an ancient weapon hidden long ago on Earth, but first he needs a special key.

Human protagonist Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is somehow involved once again, mainly as an excuse for him to do a lot of running from the bad guys, with Megan Fox tagging along as the obligatory -- and totally unnecessary -- eye candy.

The movie attempts to make up for its lack of sense with an inundation of extra material.

Both DVD and Blu-ray versions come with a feature-length commentary by Bay and screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman; an extensive making-of documentary; a featurette accompanying Bay to the film's Tokyo premiere; a look at the "Transformer" franchise's 25-year history; extended scenes; pre-visualization renderings of robots and action sequences; and the "New Divide" music video by Linkin Park.

The Blu-ray also comes with an interactive "Allspark" game; data files on individual robots including personal timeline; and featurettes on the marketing of the movie.

Movie: 2 stars
Extras: 3.5 stars