Video review: "Trolls"

First reaction to “Trolls”: If this movie is based on those creepy neon-haired dolls, why don’t they look like them? The bodies and hair are similar, but the faces are fuzzy rather than fleshy, and the eyes don’t resemble depthless pools of death. (Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.)

Second reaction: Boy, they sure didn’t try very hard to hold the interest of parents here, did they? It’s all boingy action, bright colors and solving-our-problems-through-singing.

Third reaction: Zzzzzzzz…

“Trolls” is a great fit for video, because you can set the kiddies up on the couch, press “play” and enjoy 92 minutes of bliss while you go into the next room and do something else. Certainly, you won’t want to stick around for the movie, an unambitious romp that’s barely a step up from cable TV animated shows.

Anna Kendrick voices Princess Poppy, the heroine of the Troll tribe, who live for singing, dancing and hugs. Their long-vanquished oppressors, the loathsome and toothsome Bergens, used to eat them to bring some small measure of joy into their dreary lives. But since Poppy’s father led a great escape 20 years earlier, it’s been one nonstop party with her as queen bee.

Their only real killjoy is Branch (Justin Timberlake), the resident mopey troll who refuses to sing and prepares for the return of the Bergens. Of course this comes to pass, as he reluctantly joins up with Poppy and her crew to save the day.

The journey into Bergentown introduces three other important characters: the young, inexperienced but not black-hearted King Gristle (Christopher Mintz-Plasse); Bridget (Zooey Deschanel), the drab scullery maid who’s secretly in love with the monarch; and Chef (Christine Baranski), the gender-bending villain who used to prepare the troll dishes, and will do anything for a return to the kitchen seat of power.

Poppy helps Bridget get her bling on to catch the king’s eye in exchange for assisting with their rescue mission. It doesn’t take imagination to guess that love will save the day, Branch will get his groove back and this all wraps up with a massive Troll/Bergen dance party.

My kids absolutely love this movie. I received a DVD copy in December for awards voting, and I’d be embarrassed to tell you how many times they’ve seen it since then. (If any social workers ask, it’s three at the most.)

However, I’ve gotten a lot of chores done during that time, so I would consider a copy of “Trolls” to be a very wise investment -- provided you don’t make the mistake of watching it yourself.

As you might guess, the bonus features are geared toward the wee ones, and are pretty plentiful. The DVD includes deleted scenes plus featurettes on the production design and animation, a tour of Troll Village and the process for creating Poppy’s treasured scrapbooks.

Upgrade to the Blu-ray and you add more featurettes, including a look at Branch’s bunker and a debate between Branch and Poppy on important topics of the day. The highlight is a Party Mode, an interactive feature that amps up the singing and dancing, and a “conTROLL” that queues on-screen fun moments.

Movie:

 for kids

for adults 



 Extras:

Review: "Trolls"

“Trolls” is bright, colorful, snappy and a chore to sit through. It’s one of those animated films crafted exclusively for little kids, who will enjoy it immensely, while anyone who counts their age in double digits will find themselves tapping their foot… and not necessarily to the pop tunes sung by the neon-haired little critters.

Yes, this is a musical based on the ubiquitous troll dolls, which are now owned by DreamWorks Animation. They tapped Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake to voice the main characters, and Timberlake also wrote a song and executive produced the music, which is a mix of modern beats and vintage pop hits.

The story seems like the barest contrivance wrapped around the talent.

Director Mike Mitchell and co-director Walt Dohrn, along with script men Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, set out with a simple idea in mind: assault the audience with cuteness. Every time we think the movie’s going to wander into a dark area, it’s quickly shoved back into the light by a song or spray of goofiness.

It’s almost like the film is bipolar; it can’t stand to be glum for even a moment.

Certainly that is the contrast between Princess Poppy (Kendrick), the pink-haired leader of the trolls, and Branch (Timberlake), the tribe’s resident Debbie Downer. He’s the only troll who has muted tones to his skin and hair, and eschews the singing, dancing and hugging -- every hour; they set their clocks by it -- that comprise troll culture.

Twenty years ago the trolls were the captives of the Bergens, nasty giant creatures who hate their lives and each other, and everything. One day of the Bergen calendar is set aside for happiness, Trollstice, when they get to eat trolls and know joy. But the brave troll king (Jeffrey Tambor) led a mass escape, and since then it’s been one long party.

The Bergens aren’t too happy about it, especially Chef (Christine Baranski), who prepared the troll meal and enjoyed wielding power. He manages to capture a handful of trolls after Poppy organizes an ill-advised party complete with fireworks, so she and Branch undertake a rescue mission.

The trolls look pretty much like the toys, though without those weird lifeless eyes. Their hair has magical properties -- Poppy is the best hair twirler, able to grab stuff and even create shapes with her ‘do. The supporting characters include twins whose hair is connected, a big friendly fella, one who looks like a troll lama and a silver guy who is always covered in glitter and is naked.

They make it to Bergentown, where things take a (not terribly) unexpected turn. The young Bergen king, Gristle (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), is thrilled about finally getting his first taste of troll. Meanwhile, the scullery maid, Bridget (Zooey Deschanel), secretly pines for him and enlists the trolls’ help in capturing the heart of her rotund little Romeo.

(Odd aside: the Bergens look a lot like the Boxtrolls from the much better film from a couple years ago.)

It all falls into place with a sense of inevitability. The Bergens will learn you don’t need to eat a sentient being to find happiness, and the mopey Branch -- who refuses to sing -- will eventually find his voice, and his true hue.

“Trolls” isn’t a bad movie -- just not a very ambitious one. Take away the big names and top-drawer animation, and it’s not much of a step up from what you’d see while channel surfing past Disney Junior or Nick Jr.

Video review: "Despicable Me 2"

“Despicable Me 2” is essentially more of the same, with super-villain-turned-super-daddy Gru (voice of Steve Carell) turning his attentions away from dastardly plots to raising his three adopted daughters and manufacturing “jams and jellies.” But he gets sucked back into the old life, this time on the side of the good guys, and dallies in a little romance to boot.

It’s not the most ambitious sequel ever made, and if you measure your age in more than single digits, it will likely grow a tad monotonous. But for the young’uns there is a lot of zippy action, cool ray guns and other mad scientist hardware, and plenty of gastrointestinal humor featuring Gru’s gibberish-spouting army of little yellow minions.

Kristen Wiig provides the voice of Lucy, a junior agent of the Anti-Villain League who is assigned to be Gru’s partner. Seems a noxious serum has been stolen that turns the imbiber into a purple berserker, and they believe one of the proprietors of the local mall is the culprit. Gru and Lucy pretend to be cupcake bakers and set about mixing things up.

Gru’s chief target is the owner of the local Mexican restaurant, who bears a resemblance to a presumed dead bad guy named El Macho. But his new bosses aren’t buying the suspicion. Meanwhile, ardor blooms between Gru and Lucy, and his oldest daughter gets all swoony for the putative El Macho’s son.

Most of the best gags involve the minions, including a subplot where they are gradually kidnapped and injected with that serum. (If, like me, you’re wondering why they don’t just make a movie featuring the ochre-hued, overall-wearing little dudes – since that’s what the kiddies really want -- “Minions” is set to drop in 2015.)

I’ve despised a lot of lackluster sequels, but not this one. For a movie that doesn’t try very hard, it’s fun and reasonably entertaining.

The movie comes with a host of good extra features, headlined by three new mini-movies further exploring the world of Gru & Co. Of course, the minions get their own wee adventure. They even come with their own making-of featurettes.

There’s also an interview with Steve Carell, a profile of El Macho, featurettes on gadgets and Gru’s girls, and a commentary track by directors Chris Renaud & Pierre Coffin – who also moonlight as the voices of the minions.

Movie:

Extras:

Review: "Despicable Me 2"

The first “Despicable Me” was a bit of a disappointment to me, mostly because I liked the idea of an animated world dominated by super-villains, unencumbered by drippy do-gooders. Of course, the entire story arc was about dastardly scientist Gru learning to find his inner daddy instincts as he adopts three adorable little girls -- trading death rays for unicorns, so to speak.

With "Despicable Me 2," we're already past the hump of Gru's transformation: he's a good guy now, retired from the world domination shtick. His vast underground lair, populated by yellow stump-like minions chattering incoherently, has been given over to producing "delicious jams and jellies."

But then he's recruited by the Anti-Villain League, a global spy agency fighting baddies like his former self. They want Gru to find out which of his ex-colleagues has stolen PX-41, a serum that turns anyone injected with it into an indestructible purple rage monster.

Gru, again voiced with an enthusiastic Slavic dialect by Steve Carell, relishes the chance to get back into the game. Turns out the jam thing wasn't working out -- his ancient assistant (Russell Brand) quit, and even the minions thought the stuff tasted horrid.

It's a whole lot of slapsticky action, mostly involving those minions, some gastrointestinal humor and even a side plot about his oldest daughter (Miranda Cosgrove) having a love interest. Gru does not take well to the idea of suitors, but look at from the boy's perspective: your sweetie's dad resembles a Bond villain.

Of course, Gru's got his own thing with the ladies going on. Kristen Wiig voices Lucy, a junior AVL agent who approaches absolutely everything with over-the-top enthusiasm. She's assigned to be his partner, and things start to get a little touchy-feely.

They set up shop as pretend bakers in a mall, where they start scouting out the fellow store proprietors as potential suspects. Gru insists the florid, hefty owner of a Mexican restaurant looks like El Macho, a villain thought dead after riding a rocket strapped to a shark into a volcano. (Like he said, macho.) But his opinion is dismissed by the League uppity-ups.

Directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud and screenwriters Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul have a lot of fun with this material, keeping it fast and loose. They keep returning to those crazy, gibberish-spouting minions -- which isn't a surprise since Coffin and Renaud supply the voices.

At one point the yellow guys start disappearing, fodder for inevitable experiments with the PX-41. Gru, distracted by the job, his girls and Lucy, doesn't notice at first: "We're going to have to revisit your guys' vacation time ... I can't find anyone lately!"

Visually the film features the same exaggerated biology and zippy action as last time. Lucy looks stretched out like a piece of taffy, and Gru is an amalgamation of round and sharp shapes, punctuated by that nose that could double as a shiv (and so inconvenient for kissing!). I'd advise skipping the 3-D upgrade, which exists only for a few moments of levity where stuff flies at the audience.

"Despicable Me" is essentially more of the same. It's light, amusing, rather unambitious, but agreeable.

Review: "Rock of Ages"

"Rock of Ages" is a soundtrack with a visual component tacked on. It's not so much a musical movie as music, with a movie.

Based on a Broadway show, "Rock of Ages" is virtually non-stop singing. The story is told through the lyrics and tunes of 1980s rock hits, sometimes intermixed with each other. Occasionally the characters will cease singing long enough for a few lines of dialogue -- but even then there's a beat going in the background, and you know the talkie part is just setting up the next number.

The experience of watching it is akin to listening to a runaway jukebox stuck in the 1970s and '80s, except the voices are replaced by those of actors who can't sing as well as the original artists.

Not that some of them aren't good, and occasionally really good. Among the latter is Tom Cruise as Stacee Jaxx, a wastrel rock god who's part Iggy Pop, a little bit Axl Rose and a smidge of Brett Michaels (at least the hat). Cruise's pipes are surprisingly good, doing an impressive rendition of the keening wail beloved in that era.

In fact, Cruise is the best thing in the show. It's a shrewdly comedic performance, part celebration of '80s rock excesses but with a heavily ladling of satire. One scene where he seduces a Rolling Stone reporter (Malin Akerman) is the movie's rollicking high point.

Even though it's technically a supporting part, Cruise steals every scene he's in, and whenever Jaxx disappears for too long the film deflates.

Certainly the main characters are dreary. Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta play Sherrie and Drew, youngsters who dream of making it big in the music biz, but end up working at the fictional Bourbon Room in Los Angeles. Of course, it's only a matter of time before they get to take the stage themselves.

Neither actor is a particularly adept singer, and Hough has one of those pinched little-girl voices that sounds like she's singing through a keyhole, a la Britney Spears. She even imitates Spears' colossally annoying affection of starting every stanza with a little croaky sound.

Sherrie is the prototypical small-town girl from Tulsa, living in a lonely world, and Drew is a city boy, so of course their signature song is "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey, a band that gets a heavy rotation throughout the movie. Other tunes include ones by Styx, Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar, Twisted Sister, Poison and other acts Generation X-ers like myself grew up on.

I find it amusing that back in the actual '80s, these songs were disdainfully described by our elders and betters as representing the nadir of rock 'n' roll, a glammed-up shadow of the good ol' days. And now they're being held up as paragons of the genre.

I take note that in the time this story is set, 1987, the '50s were seen as the heyday. No doubt in 25 years today's Millennials will be middle-aged sell-outs looking back on the halcyon days of Lady Gaga and Kei$ha, God help us.

Alec Baldwin plays Dennis, the owner of the Bourbon, which has rock 'n' roll soaked into its timbers but is perpetually on the verge of going out of business. It's being helped in that regard by the new mayor (Bryan Cranston) and his wife Patricia (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who's leading a Tipper Gore-esque crusade against smutty rock 'n' roll. Of course, she does so via singing and dancing, and is ultimately and unsurprisingly revealed to be a former Stacee Jaxx groupie.

Russell Brand plays Lonny, Dennis's right-hand rocker, and they share a romantic musical interlude that manages to be funny without being homophobic. Paul Giamatti is agreeably sleazy as Jaxx's mercenary agent, who robs the Bourbon of the take from Stacee's farewell concert.

Mary J. Blige, the only real singer in the mix, has a nice turn as the manager of a strip club where Sherrie ends up during her inevitable down-and-out phase. Drew's pit of despair is much funnier, as he gets recruited into a pop boy band, complete with rainbow-colored gangsta preppy outfits.

Director Adam Shankman does much the same thing with "Rock of Ages" he did several years ago with "Hairspray," which was sort of a 1960s version of this. He supplies a lot of energy and color, but the whirlwind winds up being more exhausting than invigorating.

At 123 minutes, screenwriters Allan Loeb, Justin Theroux and Chris D'Arienzo (based on the musical book by D'Arienzo) seemed to have a hard time knowing when to quit while they were ahead. Since the story is built entirely around songs, cutting it down would've meant eliminating tunes, and one gets the sense the filmmakers spent so much energy getting the rights to the songs they couldn't bring themselves to lop a couple out.

"Rock of Ages" has a few genuine thrills, most of them centering around Cruise's fun, freewheeling turn as Stacee Jaxx. Most of the time, though, it feels like an iPod stuck in shuffle mode.

2 stars out of four

Video review: "Arthur"

I daresay audiences missed the boat on "Arthur."

This cute and clever remake of the 1981 hit romantic comedy starring Dudley Moore manages to follow the plot of the original fairly closely, but results in a very different -- but nearly equally enjoyable -- film experience.

That's mostly due to the casting of British comedian Russell Brand in the title role. Brand, known for his bad-boy image and hedonistic film characters, plays a sweet, almost innocent man-boy multi-millionaire happily drinking and partying away his life.

Unlike Aldous Snow, Brand's hedonistic character from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and "Get Him to the Greek," his Arthur has a good streak a mile long -- hidden underneath a wastrel life of debauchery.
Brand shows us the character's vulnerable and tender side, and it's something we've never seen out of him before. Turns out the Brit known for hard-core comedy has a softie inside.

As in the original, Arthur is threatened with disinheritance unless he marries a woman from an appropriate family (played by Jennifer Garner in rhymes-with-witch mode). But then he falls in love with a sweet working-class girl (Greta Gerwig) and decides to risk it all, with the tacit approval of his servant/life-lessons teacher Hobson, played by Helen Mirren.

Audiences stayed away in drove from this remake, but for once the reboot was actually a welcome one. Brand creates a thoroughly charming character who actually makes us forget about Dudley Moore, if only for a little while.

Video extras are the same for both Blu-ray and DVD versions, and are a bit disappointing.

You get "Arthur Unsupervised," a behind-the-scenes look at production with Brand and Director Jason Winer. It promises "fun footage, outrageous photos and ad-libs too wild for theaters." Meh.

There's also a gag reel and 10 minutes worth of deleted/extended scenes.

There's also a combo pack available that includes Blu-ray, DVD and digital copies of the film.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 2 stars

Review: "Arthur"

Hollywood finally figured out what to do with kinky British comedian Russell Brand, and it turned up in the unlikeliest of places: A remake of a 30-year-old romantic comedy starring Dudley Moore.

Brand, best known for his hedonism-embracing rocker Aldous Snow in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," combines a verbose patter of self-effacing commentary with the hair and dress code of Keith Richards circa 1975. He has often rubbed American audiences the wrong way, though he's a big star across the pond.

I recently heard an interview Brand did with NPR's Terry Gross, and was struck by how thoughtful and well-spoken he came across. Perhaps that paved the way to embracing his charming performance as Arthur, an impish millionaire man-boy who drinks only well-aged booze, but has defiantly resisted any maturation of his own.

It is, of course, Dudley Moore's signature role from the 1981 film written and directed by Steve Gordon who, alas, died young the year after it was released. I admit I resisted the idea of this remake -- and by such young hands, too. This is the first feature film for both director Jason Winer and screenwriter Peter Baynham.

But the two films, while nearly identical in plot, are largely divergent in their tone and humor. Brand creates a distinctive character based on his own persona, rather than trying to mimic Moore. He is by turns hilarious and touching, with an inner core of sweetness we haven't seen from him before.

Put it this way: If Aldous Snow -- also seen in the quasi-sequel to "Sarah Marshall," "Get Him to the Greek" -- was defined by a complete lack of guile in obscuring his loathsome core, then Brand's Arthur uses the trappings of the spoiled rich playboy to conceal the fact that he's really gentle and vulnerable inside.

No doubt you've also heard about the film's big casting twist, putting Helen Mirren in the role of Hobson, the stern servant played by John Gielgud in the original movie. Hobson's job, indeed her very life is given over to managing Arthur's drunken debauches and steering him ever so subtly -- and usually ineffectively -- toward the light.

Mirren turns out to be a grand slam, allowing a little bit of maternal warmth to shine through the relationship.
The basic story is unchanged. Arthur, a continual embarrassment to the Bach family, is ordered to marry a respectable woman by his powerful and emotionally distant mother (Geraldine James), or be cut off from the vast familial fortune. He reluctantly agrees, but then meets a dazzling poor girl who steals his heart away.

Naomi is played by Greta Gerwig, an indie film star who occasionally pops up in mainstream movies. She has a radiant smile and some smarts, too, and is initially resistant to Arthur's overtures. She eventually melts, though, after he makes some pretty extravagant overtures for their first date.

Jennifer Garner plays Susan, the all-too-wrong fiancée for Arthur. She's the hard-charging daughter of a manly-man construction magnate (Nick Nolte), and sees Arthur as part fix-it project, and part keys to the CEO chair of the Bach conglomerate.

The biggest compliment I can give to the new "Arthur" is that it made me forget about the old one, or at least not mind that they remade it. Rather than a bland retread, Russell Brand gives us a thoroughly funny, charming and irresistible character.

3.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Despicable Me"

Sometimes you like where a movie starts out, but not where it ends up. Such is the case with "Despicable Me," an animated caper about a world populated by super-villains -- no heroes in sight.

Unfortunately, the film starts out snarky and clever, and slowly devolves into a retread of the Grinch story: Black-hearted baddie learns the value of love, and friendship, and little girls who adore unicorns. It's still a fun flick, more for tykes than teens.

Steve Carell voices the Russian-sounding Gru, who has a bulbous body, skinny toothpick arms and legs, and a nose that could be used as a weapon. He looks like a cross between Dr. Evil and Uncle Fester.

Gru dreams of being top dog of the criminal underworld, but so far his best caper is swiping the JumboTron from Times Square. Meanwhile, his nemesis Vector (Jason Segel) foil's Gru's plan to steal the moon by making off with the shrink ray he just stole himself. How rude!

Gru recruits three orphan girls as his unwitting accomplices, and soon finds his heart's no longer in the whole world domination thing. Now it's ballet recitals and quality time instead of building killer robots.

Maybe it's the boy in me, but I wished the movie had given the trio of girls the boot, and stuck with the wicked stuff.

Extra features, just like the movie, are geared more toward small children than general audiences.

The DVD version comes with a commentary track by directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, a featurette on the film's music, "The World of Despicable Me" and a game, Gru's Rocket Builder.

Upgrade to the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, and there's several more games, a 16-minute feature on the voice cast, and Gru-Control: Funny pop-up features during the movie starring Gru's yellow minions.

Best of all: Three all-new shorts starring various characters from the film. My fave: Minion Orientation Day!

Movie: 2.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3.5 stars

Review: "Despicable Me"

I like the idea of "Despicable Me" -- an animated world in which there are super-villains but no heroes -- more than the final product. It's cute, and the under-10 crowd will doubtlessly find it a delight, what with the generous helping of adorable critters and gastrointestinal sounds.

I just wish the filmmakers could've found some less obvious territory to troll. Gru (voice by Steve Carell, doing a Slavic accent), the bald and pointy-nosed un-hero, learns there's more to life than villainy when he adopts a trio of little girls as part of his mad scheme to steal the moon.

Cue a bunch of scenes of Gru's eyes misting over as his Grinch-like heart grows three sizes while reading the tots a bedtime story, or rearranging his dastardly deeds to make their ballet recital.

I much preferred the stuff about the competitiveness between super-villains -- for instance, Gru's envy spikes when someone steals one of the Great Pyramids, when all he can boast is burgling the JumboTron from Times Square.

Or the Bank of Evil, which appropriately resides in a dark cavernous pit underneath the regular bank, and solely funds criminal enterprises. ("Formerly Lehman Brothers," a sign reads, in a zippy throwaway joke.)

I confess that when summer began and I was surveying the season's offerings, I lighted upon "Despicable Me" as one of the most promising, and now I'm disappointed with it. It's like waiting months for that special toy you wanted so badly, and then you open it up Christmas Day and it's not nearly as much fun as you thought it'd be.

It's not a bad toy, but maybe some other kid would enjoy it more.

But the first rule of film criticism is that we shouldn't criticize a movie for what it is not, but what it is. So if I throw my expectations for something snarkier out the window, I deem "Despicable Me" a moderately entertaining tumble.

Personally, I'd rather take in "Toy Story 3" in for a third time than this one once, but that's me.

The story opens with the prospect of Gru being put out to pasture for a younger generation of villains. The Bank is hesitant to front the money for his moon-stealing caper because an upstart has stolen the shrink ray that Gru himself had just lifted, with which he intended to downscale the lunar body.

What profit or purpose there is in a basketball-sized moon I don't know, though I admit I enjoyed the gag where a werewolf turns back into a human when it gets shrunk.

Gru's nemesis is Vector (Jason Segal), who resembles a young Bill Gates but whose fortress and other hardware all have an antiseptic Apple look to them. (iLair?)

Vector nabs the shrink ray, and soon after places a large cookie order from a trio of cute orphans: Margo, Agnes and Edith (Miranda Cosgrove, Elsie Fisher and Dana Gaier, respectively). Gru plots to adopt the girls and replace their Coconutties with cookie-shaped robots when they make delivery.

The girls don't really have distinctive personalities beyond yearning to be wanted, though Edith, the youngest, has a passion for unicorns that borders on psychoses. ("He's so fluffy I'm gonna die!!")

The CG animation is sleek, but the 3-D is take it or leave it. Directors Pierre Coffin -- which is a great name for a super-villain, by the way -- and Chris Renaud are both new to feature films, and seem to have more flair for the action sequences than the mushy stuff: Gru's complicated relationship with his emotionally absent mother (Julie Andrews) is under-explored territory.

Oh, and Gru has a grumpy old assistant (Russell Brand) and an army of little yellow minions who bear more than a passing resemblance to the aliens from the "Toy Story" movies ... hey, did I mention that "Toy Story 3" is probably playing in the very next cinema?

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Get Him to the Greek"

I was not expecting much out of "Get Him to the Greek." It's a quasi-sequel to "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," which I was only too eager to banish from memory. And the appeal of British comedian Russell Brand had so far eluded my senses.

But "Greek" is one of the consistently funniest movies I've seen in a good long while, and it's got some genuine heart, too.

Consistency was actually my biggest beef with "Sarah Marshall": It had three or four uproarious moments, and a whole lot of drag in between. "Greek" builds laugh upon laugh, to the point where you're missing jokes because the audience is hooting so loud at the previous one.

This film is a coming-out party for Jonah Hill, who's been a reliable comedic sidekick closely associated with Judd Apatow (who's credited here as a producer). Now Hill moves to the front of the stage, and proves an engaging and witty leading man.

Hill actually has quite handsome features underneath all that blubber, and his liquid blue eyes are capable of seeming meek one moment, hard and brazen the next. He plays Aaron Green, a nebbish who comes out of his shell when he's assigned to escort a notorious rock star to a big gig, and it's to Hill's credit that the shy guy doesn't lose his innocence even when he's wallowing in sex and drugs.

Sean "P. Diddy" Combs plays against his smooth persona as egotistical record mogul Sergio Roma, who cares only about sales, not making quality music. At first he rejects Aaron's suggestion of a 10th anniversary concert of Aldous Snow's watershed show at Los Angeles' Greek Theatre, since everyone seems to think the drug-addled rocker is on the downside of his career.

Snow (Brand) is still famous and fabulously wealthy, but has lived inside the celebrity bubble for so long he isn't even aware that his last single, "African Child," was an embarrassing piece of condescending pop puffery. After seven years of sobriety, he's fallen hard off the wagon after being dumped by his special lady, Jackie Q (Rose Byrne), a fellow star singer.

Part of the film's appeal is the hard shots writer/director Nicholas Stoller takes at the music industry -- not just its excesses, but the sheer awfulness of so much of what it produces. (One of Aldous' hits is "I Got the Clap.") Watching Jackie Q or Aldous writhe and bluster in some music video, blurping out lunkhead lyrics to overproduced techno beats, one can't help be reminded of some of the drek that's popular on the air waves.

A ton of celebrities make cameos, including Lars Ulrich, Pink, Christina Aguilera and Billy Bush.

Sergio eventually signs off on the show, and it's Aaron's job to get Aldous safely and soberly from London to the Greek in 72 hours, stopping off to appear on the "Today Show" along the way. Of course, the rocker is much more interested in drinking, doping and partying.

Soon enough Aaron is flying high, rubbing up against strippers and puking all over himself. He sobers up long enough to remember his duties, and frets at his lapses -- and what effect they'll have on his relationship with Daphne (Elisabeth Moss).

We learn that Aldous, despite his asshat front, actually has a little soul to him, underneath mounds of narcissism.

Even though it's kind of a modern-day knockoff of "My Favorite Year," I still loved spending time with the duo of Hill and Brand. "Get Him to the Greek" rocked my funny bone -- hard.

3.5 stars out of four