Video review: "Long Shot"

Let’s get this out of the way first: no, in real life women who look like Charlize Theron do not fall for guys who look like Seth Rogen. Unless, of course, they actually are Seth Rogen.

Well, I guess Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley were a real thing. But let’s stipulate that outside of showbiz -- where outsized talent, wealth and fame tend to kick the usual laws of attractiveness out  the window -- these sort of pairings do not naturally occur.

But that’s the main dynamic of “Long Shot,” in which a nobody loser falls for an incredibly ambitious and beautiful woman, and she somehow returns his affection. In fact, she’s not just your workaday looker; Charlotte Field is actually the U.S. Secretary of State and running for the big job: POTUS.

Rogen plays Fred Flarsky, a high-minded but bottom-feeding journalist who finds himself out of work and running into Charlotte, who babysat for him back when they were teens. He had it bad for her, and it doesn’t take much to rekindle his desire. She offers him a job as speechwriter, he accepts, and they start jet-setting around the world, reconnecting and love blooming.

Director Jonathan Levine and screenwriters Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah pepper the background with interesting supporting characters.

Bob Odenkirk play the current president, a former TV actor who sees the White House as a springboard to features films. Andy Serkis is a nasty media mogul who sees a strong independent contender as a personal affront. And O’Shea Jackson is Fred’s best friend, a successful entrepreneur who offers some unexpected insight.

There are some goofy aspects to “Long Shot,” but I was surprised that the beauty-and-the-geek pairing is actually the best thing about it.

Bonus features consist entirely of 11 documentary featurettes. They are:

• “All’s Fair in Love & Politics: Making Long Shot”
• “Seven Minutes in Heaven: Seth + Charlize Uncensored”
• “Secret Weapons”
• “Epic Flarsky Falls”
• “Prime Minister Steward O-Rama”
• “Hanging with Boyz II Men”
• “Just Kinda Crushing It!”
• “The First Mister: A Portrait”
• “An Imperfect Union”
• “Love & Politics”
• “Friends Like These”

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Extras: 

Review: "Long Shot"

I’m not quite sure if the title of “Long Shot” refers to the woman running for president of the United States or the dweeby guy who becomes her speechwriter and falls for her. Given they are played by world-class beauty Charlize Theron and frumpy beta male extraordinaire Seth Rogen, respectively, I’m inclined to think it’s the latter.

Hollywood: the only place where guys who look like they were plucked straight out of a video game tournament get supermodels to fall for them.

Once, just once, I’d like to see a mainstream movie where a regular-looking guy is ensorcelled by a regular-looking woman, or vice-versa. But this is showbiz, and we like to look at pretty people.

There are a lot of things that don’t work in this movie, but surprisingly the Theron-Rogen pairing is not one of them. It’s a sweet and awkward dance, about two very busy but lonely people, and in the end we believe she really could fall in love with him.

(The other way is a given.)

Mostly this is due to a very strong and subtle performance by Theron, who shows us layers of emotion, ambivalence and calculation we don’t usually see in the romantic comedy game.

Also, he is hitting at only about 60% of Full Rogenness, which turns out to be the perfect dose of his neurotic/obnoxious shtick.

He plays Fred Flarsky, a crusading journalist at the Brooklyn Advocate who has built a reputation for spit-flecked invectives against those he sees as evildoers. As the story opens he is infiltrating a Nazi sect (Brooklyn Nazis?) and goes so far as to agree to a swastika tattoo to prove his bona fides.

Theron plays Charlotte Field, Secretary of State serving under an idiot president (Bob Odenkirk) whose only preparation for the role of POTUS was playing one on TV. But now he’s decided not to run for reelection in favor of something “more prestigious” – feature films – and offers to endorse Charlotte for her own run.

She and Fred run into each other at a posh party Fred’s best friend (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) invites him to as a cheer-up after losing his job. Turns out Charlotte babysat for Fred when they were teens, and there was an early and embarrassing, uh, indication of his desire for her -- the pudgy D&D bookworm pining after the student council president wannabe.

The political flacks tell Charlotte she isn’t funny enough, so she brings Fred on as a punch-up writer who travels with her around the club promoting a major environmental initiative she wants to use as a springboard for her presidential announcement.

Bearded, wearing the same type of rainbow-hued tracksuit he did as a kid, carrying a copious amount of drugs at all times, Fred stands out like a sore thumb on the international stage. But as they spend time together, they find the old attraction still burns.

Soon she’s teaching how to be a real grownup, and he’s helping her find her inner kid. One sequence, where they drop drugs and dance till dawn, ineptly plays national security issues for a goof.

In the black column is the film’s ability to hold up a funhouse mirror to our current political environment. Like any good satirist knows, it’s better to wield a scalpel than an ax.

Rather than being a blowhard Trump clone, Odenkirk’s prez is a self-deluded hack. Similarly, Andy Serkis (barely recognizable behind a Steve Bannon-esque wig and facial prosthesis) is a stand-in for a Roger Ailes type as the conniving head of the Wembley global media conglomerate.

Several cutaways of a Fox News-like morning talk show, replete with sniggering goombahs tossing around sexist jokes, are just devastating.

But the movie also has a surprising moment I didn’t expect where Fred gets an eye-opening reveal about his own biases and intolerance.

Director Jonathan Levine and screenwriters Liz Hannah and Dan Sterling wisely stay away from getting too deep into the political weeds. This is reflected by one of Charlotte’s political image consultants on their strategy to stress her glamour rather than her plans: “We don’t drill down too deep on policy, and that’s because our research finds people don’t care.”

Witty, funny, occasionally gross, “Long Shot” is that rarest of cinematic animals: a political romantic comedy with a fuzzy, warm center.

Video review: "Battleship"

A light-in-the-loafers action flick with pretensions of becoming a serious drama, "Battleship" is half of a decent summer movie.

The second hour, in which Navy sailors go toe-to-toe with some evil creatures from outer space, is entertaining in a carefree way, even if it is totally preposterous. It ends with them pulling a retired World War II battleship out of retirement to turn its big guns on the alien ships -- which can fly but for some reason stay entirely over the ocean, making for convenient targets.

This film flopped here in the U.S. but did terrific business overseas. Perhaps foreign folks learned the secret to "Battleship" -- skip the first 45 minutes and you'll have a good time.

Liam Neeson was in all the trailers, but Taylor Kitsch is the star, playing a standard-issue bad boy who learns to calm his rebellious nature and work as part of a team. Somehow, despite being in the Navy for what seems like a minute and a half, he winds up commanding the battle against the buggy bad guys.

If only director Peter Berg and screenwriting siblings Erich and Jon Hoeber had been content to crank out a simple fun shoot-em-up instead of boring us with an overlong windup, "Battleship" would have packed more punch.

For the film's few fans, they'll at least be pleased to know it has been given a top-notch video release, especially if you opt for the Blu-ray edition.

The DVD version comes with two making-of featurettes focusing on how to turn a board game into a blockbuster. These include cast interviews with actors talking about how it felt to be in the middle of a (simulated) firefight.

Upgrade to Blu-ray, and you get plenty more goodies, including "Second Screen," an interactive viewing experience that works with a networked tablet or computer. This includes 3D modeling of aliens, spaceships and explosions.

Other extras include a tour of the U.S.S. Missouri, behind-the-scenes humor and a featurette on visual effects.

Movie: 2 stars
Extras: 3.5 stars

Review: "Battleship"

I don't have a problem with video game movies. I like video games, and I like movies, and despite the protestations of some cinematic purists, it's a natural fit for flicks that just want to give a good time.

The problem with "Battleship" is that it spends so much time denying that it's a video game before turning on the fireworks that everyone came to see. Yes, yes, the movie is actually based on the classic Hasbro board game, in which opponents try to blindly guess where their enemy's battleship is. (And, at least in my case, attempt to stave off mind-numbing boredom while playing it.)

But it's a big-budget special effects summer movie, make no mistake.

To those wondering what the heck the game has to do with the film: yes, there is a sequence about halfway through where the good guys use a clever trick using a grid-like pattern to track the alien boogums they're fighting. And, of course, nearly all the mayhem takes place aboard Navy vessels.

If you're looking for metaphysical ruminations about the first contact between man and an alien race, you won't find them here. The aliens come to Earth for purposes never really made clear, other than they're here to give humans something to shoot at.

They come out of the ocean in big seafaring hovercraft-y things that sort of jump around the water's surface and cfhange shape. Think "Transformers" meets "Independence Day" meets "War of the Worlds," and you've got a pretty good handle.

Eventually they do emerge from their ships, and are surprisingly un-buggy and humanoid. They could be first cousins to the blue dudes in "Avatar," but they favor mechanistic armor and weaponry over a biometric hair hookup.

Liam Neeson is featured prominently in the film's trailers, but it's just a walk-on role as the stern admiral, who promptly gets sidelined as soon as the sea spray hits the fan. The real star is Taylor Kitsch as Alex Hopper, a ne'er-do-well rebel who joins the Navy as a last resort, and somehow ends up commanding the battle against the aliens.

Kitsch has presence as an action star, but the wind-up involving Alex's transformation from zero to hero takes way, way too long. It's 45 minutes or so into the movie before the critters from outer space show up, and until then it's a bunch of familiar pabulum about learning to grow up, work as a team, etc.

Director Peter Berg and screenwriters Erich and Jon Hoeber cling so desperately to the idea that their movie is about the human element, when Alex and all the rest (including singer Rihanna) are really just arcade avatars ready to be put through their paces.

Brooklyn Decker plays Alex's love interest, who just so happens -- gosh! -- to be the daughter of the mean ol' admiral. Decker has the notable luck to be featured in two big Hollywood releases this week (the other is "What To Expect When You're Expecting"), but neither one is much to brag about.

Gregory D. Gadson, an actual Army veteran who lost both his legs in Iraq, has a solid turn as a disgruntled war veteran who rediscovers his inner warrior battling the aliens.

Now, the movie is named "Battleship," but of course battleships are military anachronisms -- huge, hulking behemoths designed to batter the enemy with its huge guns. The Navy prefers fast, nimble destroyers these days. There's a turn of events late in the going that rectifies the discrepancy, which is both extraordinarily unlikely and a cheap applause moment.

There are a few times in this movie to cheer and thrill, but the filmmakers don't seem to want to own up to its bubblegum nature. The worst kind of video game movies are those that pretend not to be.

2 stars out of four