Review: "Ice Age: Continental Drift"

I was all prepared to dislike "Ice Age: Continental Drift." The series has not captivated me in its three previous iterations. Though the animation from Blue Sky Studios has been duly impressive, the characters and plots seemed decidedly downmarket -- crafted more for obvious appeal to kiddies than genuine amazement and storytelling craftsmenship.

Plus, these movies seem to come out every three or so years like clockwork, piling up reliable mountains of dough, not to mention inescapable toy and marketing tie-ins.

Heck, I'm not even truly sure if I saw the last one, 2009's "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs." Manny, the mammoth lead character voiced by Ray Romano, has somehow acquired a teenage daughter (Keke Palmer) that I have no memory of. Last I recall, he was still wooing wife-to-be Ellie (Queen Latifah).

Along with laconic sabre-tooth tiger Diego (Denis Leary, sounding bored like only Denis Leary can) and goofball sloth Sid (John Leguizamo), this cast of critters has certainly faced every prehistoric peril imaginable. First it was an ice age, then global warming, then the return of the dinosaurs.

I wonder if we'll ever see: "Ice Age: Natural Selection Bites," when the dwindling food supply can no longer feed Manny's bulk, and Diego decides he'd rather have a Sid snack than run with his adopted pack.

So, to sum up, my expectations were pretty low.

Therefore I was pleasantly surprised by a reasonably entertaining bit of family fun. The main characters are still cloying to me, but other aspects overcome the staleness. There's a spectacular action sequence to open things as the planet's land masses start pulling apart from each other -- due to the misadventures of the Scrat, the acorn-obsessed beastie who's sort of the mascot of the series.

All I can say is, the Scrat may seem pathetic but his survivability and outsized impact on planetary development actually make him the most powerful creature on Earth.

The new film also boasts a really terrific villain, Captain Gutt, a baboon pirate voiced with dastardly aplomb by Peter Dinklage. He even gets to sing a clever sea shanty with an assist from Jennifer Lopez, who plays Gutt's snow leopard first mate, Shira.

The pirates ride around on gigantic floating icebergs, stealing booty (food is pretty much the only valuable) and enslaving survivors of the continental catastrophe.

There are several other new additions who add some hot sauce to the mix. Wanda Sykes plays Sid's Granny, who's a combination of every old-person joke in the book, but she sells it and has several very funny moments. Aziz Ansari voices Squint, a hyperactive rabbit on the pirate crew, who yearns to move up the masthead. Nick Frost adds more comedic relief as a dim-witted elephant seal.

And Josh Gad plays Louis, a tiny molehog who's sweet on Peaches -- that's Manny and Ellie's daughter; the prospect of their coupling raises some urgent anatomical issues.

The story's about what you'd expect. Manny and his best pals get separated from the rest of their clan, and spend the rest of the movie trying to get back together. They run afoul of Captain Gutt, foil his plans, and he goes on one long revenge kick. Meanwhile, Manny's daughter has to learn to resist peer pressure and Be Herself.

"Ice Age: Continental Drift" held few surprises for me, but I have to admit that the execution by the filmmakers and voice cast is impressive. For lowbrow distractions for tykes, one could do worse.

2.5 stars out of four

IMA Summer Nights: "Alien" (1979)

"In space no one can hear you scream." 

Sometimes great movies can spring forth from a well of tainted motives. "Alien" is a watershed, a lodestone, often called one of the most influential (and copied) films of the last half-century.

What it is not, though, is the act of pure cinematic creation that most people ascribe.

Director Ridley Scott, making just his second feature film, planned to do a period costume drama, perhaps an adaptation of "Tristan and Isolde." Then he saw "Star Wars" and realized that space adventures would be the new big thing. He quickly jumped aboard pop culture's sci-fi bandwagon.

The other movie genre that was doing gangbusters in 1979 was horror films, particularly the slasher variety in which young, comely females are stalked by a seemingly unkillable killer whose gruesome, thrusting slayings have a not-terribly-subtle undertone of sexual penetration.

Scott and screenwriter Dan O'Bannon simply took the two hottest things going in Hollywood and melded them together. (O'Bannon would go on to underscore his horror movie bona fides by penning the zombie flicks "Dead & Buried," "The Return of the Living Dead" and "Lifeforce" over the next six years.)

As if to leave no doubt, the tagline for the movie's poster (above) seemed tailor-made to appeal to "Star Wars" fans who were old enough to buy tickets to an R-rated horror flick.

None of this, however, detracts from the boldness and artistry of what they created. If "Alien" is just a slasher film in space, then it's one executed with flawless craftsmanship.

In Scott's hands, the commercial space barge Nostromo becomes a vast, haunted landscape filled with inky pools of shadow and dilapidated equipment. Despite a lack of character development, each of the actors managed to create a distinct, memorable presence.

Sigourney Weaver, practically a movie novice, calmly embodied the role of the level-headed warrant officer Ripley (we didn't even learn her first name until the 1986 sequel). Ripley was also one of the first action-movie female leads ... though she's something of a stealth protagonist. Up until the point where Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt) perishes at the talons of the alien, most audiences members assumed he was the main guy.

And how can we fail to mention the unforgettable alien -- or should we say, trio of aliens: the insectoid "facehugger," the phallic "chestburster" and the full-grown creature, which (to quote myself) "is so black and spider-like, it seems less like an organism than null space brought to life."

Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger, who created the alien designs, is as much responsible for the success of the "Alien" franchise as anyone. Though it must be pointed out that after "Aliens," the series became more and more mercenary -- finally pairing up with the "Predator" flicks for a profit-pursuing crossover.

And of course, this summer has brought us "Prometheus," Scott's breathlessly awaited prequel to "Alien," which has left audiences as baffled as the original left them terrified. (My own take: narratively, "Prometheus" is a mess, but still a worthy cinematic experience.)

Whatever the highs and lows of its offspring, "Alien" was truly the mother of invention -- or, at least, inspired amalgamation.

Video review: "American Reunion"

Somebody's still got a jones for the horny crew from the "American Pie" franchise.

The first "Pie" movie in almost a decade -- at least one that didn't go straight to video -- barely made its $50 million budget back here in the U.S. But it hauled in another $175 million overseas to become a solid international hit.

Who knew folks in Japan and Brazil needed a fix of has-been actors eking out a few more bucks from the movie that (briefly) made them stars?

Jason Biggs, Alyson, Hannigan, Seann William Scott, Tara Reid, Mena Suvari, Chris Klein and the rest of the gang are back for their 13th high school reunion, and dealing with unrequited dreams and lowered expectations about life.

Jim and Michelle are married with a kid, and find the steam has leaked out of their bedroom. Slick jock Oz has become a famous but vacuous TV star, while Stifler is now a rather pathetic figure still cruising for chicks and brewskies long past his expiration date.

There are a few funny riffs and tawdry sex jokes, and Eugene Levy as Jim's awkward dad is always worth a laugh. But mostly, "American Union" feels like it's cashing a check.

Say what you will about the motivations for making this movie, but the filmmakers have certainly approached the video release with gusto. Both the DVD and Blu-ray versions are loaded with extra features.

The DVD includes both the theatrical and unrated version of the film, plus seven deleted scenes, a gag reel, several making-of featurettes and a feature-length commentary track by co-director/screenwriters Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg.

Upgrade to Blu-ray, and you add 13 extended scenes and alternate takes, an interactive "yearbook" of the characters and several additional featurettes. Probably the most ambitious feature is an "Out of Control Track" in which Biggs, Scott, Hannigan and other cast members pop up onscreen with banter and even put-downs of their fellow actors.

Movie: 2 stars out of four
Extras: 3.5 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "The Omega Man" (1971)

I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic stories, and "The Omega Man" is something of a lodestone for fans of this genre. It's based on Richard Matheson's 1954 novel "I Am Legend," which also was the basis for a 1964 Italian cheapie, "The Last Man on Earth," starring Vincent Price. And, of course, there was the underwhelming 2007 Will Smith adaptation.

(At night, when I'm plagued by dreams of crappy movies, I hear Smith in my head: "Get offa my caaaaaaaaaaarrrrr!!")

George Romero has cited the book as his main inspiration for 1968's "Night of the Living Dead," which more or less launched zombie movies and sparked the modern rise of horror films.

There's the bones of a great, great story in there, but none of the films have really done it justice. In some ways they've all been a captive of their era. If the 2007 movie relied too much on CGI boogums and Smith's by-then wearisome star persona, then "The Omega Man" represents the pinnacle of '70s cheese.

Everything from the clothes to the rock 'n' roll-ish soundtrack to the jive-talkin' black girl serve to anchor the movie firmly in its time, post-Woodstock but pre-Watergate. It was a moment of both hope and disillusionment, when many people were questioning not only our government but the entire American way of life.

But people were not yet jaded and cynical, and there's an almost naive note of hopefulness to the film. It's the sort of flick that can end with the hero dying, but he's set mankind up for salvation before expiring.

I'll say this for "The Omega Man": it certainly stands out in the memory. The image of a track-suited Charlton Heston tooling around an empty Los Angeles downtown carrying a submachine gun stuck in my mind from childhood. It's the sort of movie I probably saw on television as a fairly young child, and took with me through my teen years. I probably didn't actually see it for a second time until I was in college.

But the main reasons the film has entered the pop culture subconscious are mainly relating to its innate hokiness. Chief among them are the plague-infested survivors of the germ warfare that killed most of humanity, who have albino skin, white hair and pupils, and tool around in dark robes and wear Ray-ban sunglasses.

The effect is supposed to be unnerving, but their silly appearance coupled with their penchant for religious-intoned chanting make them seem like Disco Monks.

They call themselves The Family; their nemesis Robert Neville, a former Army colonel and scientist, refers to them as plague victims. They're definitely not undead, and indeed during the course of the story Neville discovers that he can turn someone in the end stages of transformation back to normal.

In the book, Matheson referred to them as vampires, since they were light-sensitive and drank blood.

Metaphysically speaking, a few questions are left unanswered. Will those infected with the plague die if left untreated, or do they simply transform into Disco Monks and continue that way the rest of their lives? If so, the exact nature of the conflict between Neville and the family is unclear.

Their cult-like leader, Matthias -- a former TV newscaster before the world blew up  -- sees Neville as the final representative of the old world order. Once he's gone, Matthias will be free to remake the planet as he sees fit. Of course, he could go ahead and do that right now, except for the daytime when their eyes cannot stand the sun.

Neville's motivations are even more unclear. Heston plays up his character's intense loneliness -- talking to the bust of Caesar with whom he plays chess, etc. If the plague victims are destined to die out, then why does he feel compelled to hasten their progress, and put himself at risk? And if he can't or won't cure them, why not just avoid them? Could it be that his antagonism with Matthias & Co. is the only human-like interaction he has left?

The film is set in 1977, two years after the supposed end came. The detritus of mankind is holding up pretty well, considering. Neville has several cars in his garage, and an apparently inexhaustible supply of gasoline to run them, and the generators that power his compound. (Never mind that gas starts to go bad after just a few weeks. By 1977, all he'd left would essentially be varnish.)

The Family has been moving through the city every night, burning every last vestige of technology they can get their hands on, yet Neville is able to pop into pretty much any store and find perfectly preserved goods, a little bit dusty, ready to take off the shelf. Also, when he's driving around the empty streets of L.A., you can see the traffic lights are still working. (This is probably a continuity error rather than something the filmmakers intended.)

"The Omega Man" is also notable for its interracial love affair between Heston and Rosalind Cash, playing the leader of a small group of survivors, mostly children. Whoopi Goldbert has said that their passionate kiss was one of the first onscreen couplings between a white man and a black woman in popular culture. (It would take a little while longer for the reverse-gender scenario.)

That's fine and good, but Cash's character, Lisa, is a walking gumbo of Black Power cliches, wearing brightly-colored African outfits (not so good for hiding out from psychopathic killers), an Afro three times the size of her skull and a mouthful of ridiculously over-the-top dialogue. She transitions from keeping a gun on Neville to sleeping with him so quickly it's positively dizzying.

I keep expecting her to call him a "honky," which is one of the few low spots "The Omega Man" manages to miss.

1.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Treasure Planet: 10th Anniversary Edition"

Even Disney occasionally makes a bad animated movie, but "Treasure Planet" isn't one of them.

This 2002 blend of hand-drawn animation and CGI was a dazzling science fiction version of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic, "Treasure Island." Alas, not too many people thought so -- it was savaged by critics and bombed at the box office. The directing team of  Ron Clements and John Musker, who'd made hits like "Aladdin" and "The Little Mermaid," were effectively marooned and didn't make another movie for seven years.

I'm glad to see the House That Walt Built is giving "Treasure Planet" a nice present with a handsome 10th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray release.

The bones of Stevenson's novel are there, but with a sci-fi twist smattered with zany cartoon sidekicks and villains. Jim Hawkins is a teen rapscallion who longs to escape the drudgery of working in his mother's inn, when a dying pirate gives him a star map to an entire planet filled with riches. Chased by marauders, they commission a ship to find the treasure.

But John Silver, posing as a humble ship's cook, is planning mutiny. Little did the old swashbuckler know he'd take such a shine to young Jim.

An engaging voice cast includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brian Murray, Martin Short, David Hyde Pierce, Michael Wincott and Emma Thompson. The cast of characters includes a feline ship's captain (who nonetheless takes a shine to Jim's canine professorial friend), android crewmates and a robot left all alone on an empty planet, Wall·E-like, who's missing a few important circuits.

Hopefully a few of the many folks who missed this gem a decade ago will pick it up and discover a little bit of lost treasure.

Bonus features are as good as you'd expect from a special edition like this. Clements, Musker and some of the film's producers take part in a pop-up commentary that includes additional footage of the film. There are deleted scenes, including a different ending and prologue, music video and a featurette, "The Life of a Pirate Revealed."

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Reeling Backward: "Bully" (2001)

No, this column is not about the much-lauded documentary film from last year that looked at kids pushed to the margins of their school community. Instead, I'm catching up with the 2001 drama from director Larry Clark, based on the true story of a group of youngsters who brutally murdered the friend they claimed had been verbally and physically abusing them.

Clark made a name for himself with 1995's "Kids," which like this film focuses on very young (sometimes underage) individuals who smoke, drink, do drugs, have random sex and engage in criminal and violent behavior with little thought or feeling. Clark is a chronicler of a wastrel generation that exists largely in the fevered nightmares of parents and outlier cases of extremist behavior.

"Witness, and lament" seems to be the message of Clark's cautionary tales -- which nonetheless get an undeniable kick out of lurid depictions of the aforementioned sex and drugs.

Like "Kids," "Bully" was a very polarizing film that many critics did not react to very positively. I can see why. Its performances by then mostly-unknown lead actors are often riveting, especially Brad Renfro, Nick Stahl and Rachel Miner. Other cast members, though, deliver amateurishly wooden turns.

 Over time, the movie falls into a river of sameness, so we feel like we're watching endless scenes of the kids hanging out in their bedrooms, smoking pot, riding around aimlessly in cars and using the f-word with a frequency to make Scorsese and Tarantino wince.

The film essentially divides itself into two parts. The first is fun-n-games as the characters party and hook up with each other. They're rebels without a clue, but it's difficult to deny the lurid allure of their bad behavior. The second half deals mostly with the planning, execution and fallout of the murder itself.

Despite the description I've provided, I actually found the former section more disturbing. Clark's camera oozes languidly up and over the bodies of his subjects, girls and boys alike, including full-frontal nudity and rather graphic depictions of sexual couplings. I'm certainly not a prude, but much of this seems ladled in unnecessarily, and lingering longer than it needs to. I think of one shot where a girl is answering her phone while getting a pedicure; the camera's gaze stops at the intersection of her short-shorts, where her outer labia peeks out. I suppose her lack of care about exposing herself is supposed to show her wanton nature, but I just felt creepy in that moment, like a peeping tom assisted by the filmmaker.

I do give high marks to Clark for capturing the south Florida haze of the early 1990s, where everyone seems to live in the same low-squat type of house and depend on their cars and their parents' generosity for their freedom. In this regard he crystallizes the boredom and  aimlessness of spent youth in the balmy heat of the Sunshine State where I grew up.

Renfro plays Marty Puccio, a lifelong friend of Bobby Kent (Stahl), and also the recipient of his abuse. While working in a sandwich shop together, Bobby slams Marty's head into a display case while they're serving two young girls. Despite this, the boys make plans to meet them later for dates -- which consists entirely of sex in Bobby's car.

Ali Willis (Bijou Phillips) is the proverbial wild girl, already a teen mother and not slowing down one bit despite that. She jumps from boy to boy like a leapfrog, and the very idea of committing herself to any one of them would strike her as bizarre. She later agrees to hook up with Bobby again on the dare that he's into some really weird stuff.

Lisa (Miner) is the quieter one, but in some ways more dangerous. After having sex with Marty (which we suspect is her deflowering) she insists that she loves him with all her heart. Even when she announces her pregnancy to him and Marty physically assaults her, Lisa remains hopelessly committed.

In fact, it is at Lisa's urging that the plot to kill Bobby is hatched. She recruits others into the mix, even a "hitman" who turns out to be merely another adolescent loser with gang tattoos, and insistently calls for Bobby's head. "I want him dead tonight," she says on more than one night, until the deed is finally done.

Bobby is indeed depicted as a loathsome creature -- a good student from a good family who hid a blackhearted side from grownups. The movie never really explores his nature enough to understand where this terrible bravado and caustic mindset come from. His father is shown as stern and demanding, but is that enough to push him into virtually raping girls, battering his best friend bloody and bruised, and tempting gay men with promises of Marty's favors?

The homoerotic relationship between Bobby and Marty is given much screen time. Though they never actually have physical contact (beyond Marty's blows), it's clear that Bobby at least sees Marty as a sex object to be exploited.

The wind-up and aftermath of Bobby's slaying are disappointing -- though the actual killing has a chilling spontaneity, no doubt reflecting the actual crime, which is well-documented. Lisa convinces everyone that Bobby is the center of all their problems, even though he actually exists largely outside their social circle. It would seem that if nature were allowed to take its course, he would simply wander away from their lives, going off to a good college while they continue their post-graduation adolescent torpor.

Seven people took part in Bobby's killing, and it is of course absurd to argue that one person could bully seven others to the point where they felt self-defense was their only recourse. Indeed, several of those convicted had never even met Bobby before the night of the murder. Marty, simply by virtue of being Bobby's best friend, was given the harshest sentence of electrocution, though that was later changed to life in prison. Everyone else has already finished their sentences (though at least a couple are currently incarcerated for other crimes).

Interestingly, Lisa received one of the lighter sentences in the case, even though she was the wellspring from which the entire crime was born. Her child was later discovered to be Bobby's, not Marty's -- a brief and confusing scene in the film suggests Bobby raped her after beating up Marty, though the record appears to show she had willing sex with both of them.

There is no doubt that "Bully" is a bold movie, highly disturbing and engaging. But after an hour or so of stoking our prurient interests, director Clark's movie devolves into surely the lamest whodunit in the history of cinema, with the suspects in a dimwitted race with each other to see who can spill their secret the fastest. "Bully" is more interested in teasing than teaching.

2 stars out of four

Review: "The Amazing Spider-Man"

Let's just get this out of the way: no, there was absolutely no need for this reboot of the Spider-Man movie franchise. The first film came out just a decade ago, and the last one was a mere five years ago -- and was underwhelming at that.

From what I understand, "The Amazing Spider-Man" had to be made or the rights to the iconic comic book hero would've lapsed. As motivations go for spending a reported $220 million on a movie -- or even $220 -- it's a pathetically shabby one.

But that's the studio honchos. The filmmakers and cast, however, have attacked the material with pure hearts and dedication, and come up with a genuinely terrific super-hero movie.

(Of course, the studio bosses are the ones who hired the movie-makers, so let's give them that credit.)

The most obvious question people will have about this new version of Spider-Man is how it differs from the previous trilogy, starring Tobey Maguire and directed by Sam Raimi. Without giving too much away, the answer is: quite a bit.

This Spidey is more of a throwback to themes of the original comic books, in which young high school student Peter Parker is a socially outcast science whiz who gets bitten by a radioactive spider and finds he can climb walls, lift cars and sense impending danger. He's lost and shut off, especially after his wise father figure, Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen), is killed by a robber Peter could have caught but chose not to.

Andrew Garfield's Peter is much more alienated than Maguire's relatively smooth and serene take. Garfield stammers, won't look others in the eyes and hunches his shoulders like he's trying to collapse into his torso.

His lady love isn't Mary Jane Parker, but Gwen Stacy, who's just as smart as him and is played by Emma Stone, one of the best actresses of her young generation. It's a bit of a mystery why a brainy, popular girl like her would fall for the nerdy Peter, but Stone offers little grace notes that help us feel the connection.

Director Marc Webb's only other feature film was the wonderful "(500) Days of Summer," which had approximately 1/30th the budget of this movie. It was a bold choice to pick him to helm a mega-budget production like this, but one that has paid lovely dividends.

Webb chooses to go light on the CGI to depict Spider-Man's web-slinging -- at least initially. For awhile, he's more akin to one of those parkour guys, bouncing around walls like an Olympic-grade gymnast. Webb lets us to see Peter slowly grow into his powers.

Another interesting change is the use of Spidey's webs. In the previous films, the web-slinger utilized them almost exclusively for locomotion, whereas here it's an integral part of his fighting style. Also notable is that they're not an organic part of his package of spider powers -- as many have pointed out, if it was then the webbing would come out of his butt instead of his wrists. Instead, it's a bit of technology that Peter "liberates" from a huge corporation and adapts for his own use.

That company is Oscorp, known from the other movies as the brainchild of Norman Osborn, aka Green Goblin, who is absent here. Instead, Oscorp's top scientist plays the heavy. Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) is a leading herpetologist looking to perform cross-species DNA splicing.

He has a very personal motivation: Connors wants to use the regenerative powers of reptiles to regrow his missing arm. After some mad scientist experimenting, he turns into the fearsome Lizard, full of scales and muscles, who soon tangles with Spidey.

Rounding out the cast are Sally Field as Peter's Aunt May, Irrfan Khan as an Oscorp toady and Dennis Leary as the stern police captain who views Spider-Man with contempt -- and also happens to be Gwen's father.

"The Amazing Spider-Man" does take a while to get going. Like an epic roller-coaster climbing that first big hill, the first 75 minutes or so carefully -- sometimes painstakingly -- build up the characters and the universe. But in a moment, you can feel the movie achieve takeoff. For the next hour, it's an amazing ride of action-scene thrills and visceral twists.

Even though I found the first section slow-going at times, I realized as I was watching the latter part that the movie had earned its emotional capital so it could pay off dividends.

Webb and his trio of veteran screenwriters -- James Vanderbilt, Steve Kloves and Alvin Sargent (who also penned the last two Spider-Man films) -- clearly are gearing up for another run of several movies. There's a vague framing story involving the disappearance of Peter's parents that tickles us with possibilities without giving anything away.

Based on this strong reboot, though, I hereby withdraw any objections to more Spidey flicks.

3.5 stars out of four