Review: "Together Together"

"Together Together" is a sensitive and fairly smart take on modern relationships that at first seems like a fairly predictable flick that gradually gets deeper and more interesting. Writer/director Nikole Beckwith sets us up for the obvious plot movements and then surprises us by continually disdaining the easy or most obvious path.

I guess you'd call it a comedy, and the presence of Ed Helms as one of the two main characters underscores that. He's doing a variation on his Andy Bernard character from "The Office," a well-meaning but rather clueless dude who needs some tutoring in basic human interactions. 

He plays Matt, a 45-ish well-to-do app creator who wants to have his own baby but hasn't found the right woman. He settles on a service that connects people like him -- though usually couples -- with young women who will serve as their surrogates and carry the baby they can't. Through this he meets Anna (Patti Harrison), a 26-year-old barista who agrees to fill the role. She's implanted with an embryo created with Matt's sperm and a (anonymous) donor's egg.

The story is that they are supposed to keep things distant and businesslike but find themselves drawn to each other. Matt has an entire book from the surrogate service that gives careful instruction about how to keep things professional, including dictums that he should not ask her about her personal life, or even what she's doing with the money he is paying her. 

Anna sees it as a way to make a hunk of money and go back to college to finish her bachelor's degree and pursue a master's, having graduated late from high school because -- wait for it -- she had a baby and put it up for adoption as a teenager. She wants to be cool and above it all but keeps getting roped in by Matt, who's rather glommy in a harmless, awkward sort of way.

We get the clear sense that if Anna just told Matt to eff off and not talk to her until it was time to give birth, he'd go along with it... but be miserable. He wants to be involved in every step of the pregnancy.

Part of their business arrangement is that they talk to a therapist, played by comedienne Tig Nataro, who I would never have thought of as a therapist but seems perfect in the role. They share candy and talk after sessions, which turns into coffee, then lunch, and so on.

Matt is pretty much alone in life, so he doesn't really know how to keep boundaries with Anna. He drops by her coffee shop with "pregnancy tea" or new shoes, and trades icy stares with Jules (Julio Torres), her acerbic, gay coworker. 

One of the best running jokes is that Matt created the app "Loner," which is like Tinder in that you scroll through pictures of strangers but never actually connect with them in any way. Jules is a fervent user, acknowledging it's a tool for lonely people to feel connected without the expectations of sex or dating.

Matt and Anna soon are having deep, intimate conversations with each other, the sort of things you only share with a best friend or lover. Will they become lovers? I'm not going to say, because that's really the heart of the movie lies: Can two such different people in a strange arrangement truly create a lasting bond that will endure past the baby's birth? And what form will it take?

This is a movie about asking questions, not providing easy answers.

There's plenty of nice, soft humor and insightful moments. They actually talk about the optics of what the two of them dating would look like, with the comparison to Woody Allen's on- and off-screen relationships as an icky benchmark. They name the baby bump "Lamp," since Anna doesn't want to know its gender and Matt agrees to not learn this himself, since he knows he'd blurt it out.

I liked how the movie has strong, distinct supporting characters, even small walk-on parts like the ultrasound technician (a terrific Sufe Bradshaw) who Matt and Anna see at various stages in the pregnancy. Officially sworn to not insert herself into their relationship, she does so in a subtle yet commanding way.

"I know everything, I'm just not allowed to say it."

Nora Dunn and Fred Melamed turn up for a few scenes as Matt's parents, supportive but exhausting. They hold a baby shower which is really Matt's party, and Anna has to be on display as the surrogate, as invisible as a maid until someone wants to feel the tummy, which is everyone. 

I think the movie's weakness is Helm's performance. With a puckish smile or twinkly eye, he seems to continually look to english every moment into the comedy zone, whether it belongs there or not. It's his groove and he strives to stay in it. I've seen him do straight roles quite well such as in the criminally unseen "Chappaquiddick," and I wish Beckwith had nudged him to go a little deeper and not always chase the laugh.

The movie also needed to spend a little more time exploring Anna's backstory. She has a great scene where she talks about her fractured relationship with her parents, who never forgave her for having a baby as a child and then giving it away. Other than a voice message from her mom, the film doesn't pull at that tantalizing story thread any further.

Still, I can report I was never bored during "Together Together" and finished with a feeling of warmth for two people who mean well but don't always say or do the perfect thing. Who among us does?

Video review: "Chappaquiddick"

I wasn’t surprised that “Chappaquiddick” didn’t make more of a splash at the box office, despite being one of the best dramas of 2018 and a film that, if it weren’t for the bifurcated political reception it provoked, would surely be talked about as an early favorite for a raft of Oscar nominations.

The movie was picked up on by conservative media months before it got a general release, adding to the perception it’s the rare “right wing” Hollywood film. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This look at the events surrounding Edward Kennedy’s defining moment in 1969, in which he (mostly likely drunkenly) drove his mother’s car into a lake with a pretty young campaign worker inside, Mary Joe Kopechne, who died. Not only was unable to save her despite (he says) many attempts, he failed to report the accident until the next morning, sealing the woman’s fate. The evidence suggests she was trapped in the car for hours, and suffocated when her air ran out.

The film, directed by John Curran from a script by Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan, does not set out to vilify Kennedy as a heartless fiend. In a masterful performance by Jason Clarke, it’s suggested that he was a man who wore heavily the mantle left behind by his dead brothers, Jack and Bobby, and the expectation that he would run against Richard Nixon for the presidency in 1972.

The true evil occurred in the aftermath, as an armada of loyal Kennedy men descended on the sleepy town to manipulate events with one goal in mind: saving Teddy’s political career. I can think of no better cinematic portrait of the axiom that power corrupts -- for those who have it, seek it or try to hold onto it.

Funnymen Jim Gaffigan and Ed Helms give surprisingly meaty performances as hangers-on of the Kennedy clan who engage in the cover-up. Helms’ character, adopted son Joe Gargan, is the lone voice who begins to have moral quandaries about their actions.

Bruce Dern is mesmerizing as Kennedy patriarch Joe, withered by age and moral rot, who directs the machinations from his repose. Kate Mara has a small but vital presence as Kopechne, who was not just some feminine plaything of male politicos, but a resourceful campaign player in her own right.

There’s a lot of anger, but also a lot of insight in “Chappaquiddick.” It’s a film brave enough to look back at a political scandal from half a century ago that likely altered the course of the presidency, to penetrate the fog of history and render a proper reckoning for a despicable deed.

Bonus features are scant, being limited to two documentary shorts: “A Reckoning: Revisiting Chappaquiddick” and “Bridge to the Past: Editing the Film.”

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Review: "Tag"

"Tag" is an amazing true story that got turned into a mediocre movie.

I think I'd rather have watched a documentary about the real group of 10 adult men who have spent decades playing a game of tag, which was chronicled in the Wall Street Journal in 2014. I imagine something like Michael Apted's "Up" series, in which he checks in with the same British folks every seven years. Instead we got a zany R-rated comedy with lots of f-words and pratfalls.

It's exactly what it sounds like: grown men sneaking up on each other, slapping a hand on the other to pass on the designation of who's "it." The idea is to never lose your sense of childhood by never ceasing to play. They limit the game to the month of May to keep things at least semi-sane.

"This game has given us a reason to stay in each other's lives," one says, summing up the theme beneath the mirth.

I really liked this cast: Ed Helms, Jeremy Renner, Jon Hamm, Hannibal Buress, Jeremy Renner, Isla Fisher, Jake Johnson. In fact, I'm afraid this movie fails Gene Siskel's test of whether you'd rather just watch the actors having lunch with each other. Definitely if the menu was all spicy food.

Helms is Hoagie, a dentist and the dweeby heart and soul of the game, or at least he says so; Buress is Sable, who's supposed to be the nervous nelly of the bunch but is very laid-back about it; Johnson is Chilli, a scruffy sort who does little but play tag and smoke pot; and Hamm is Callahan, the CEO of an insurance company who was supposed to be interviewed by the Journal before the tag game intruded and took over the story.

The setup is that one of their number, Jerry (Renner), has never been tagged in 30 years. Now he's decided to retire from the game, so they have three days left to get him -- which also happens coincide with his wedding on the last day of May.

He's the Jason Bourne to their Keystone Kops, pulling out elite hand-to-hand combat skills and parkour-style jumps to avoid the tag. The movie makes a joke of this, going into slo-mo while Jerry narrates his own badass moves.

The director, TV guy Jeff Tomsic, and screenwriters Rob McKittrick and Mark Steilen struggle to find things for the characters to do other than just chase each other for a hundred minutes. So there's a lot of scenes of the guys just hanging out and cutting up, mugging for the camera and such.

The filmmakers also bring in all sorts of ill-fitting non-sequitars, like the hot girl (Rashida Jones) two of them used to be sweet on back in the day. She keeps flirting with them and then leaving abruptly; I'm not sure even she knows why she's in the movie.

The female characters in general do not fare well. Fisher plays Anna, Hoagie's wife, who acts as his wingman and coach. She's supercompetitive and screams a lot, and clearly is dying to play the game herself, and would probably be really good at it.

Annabelle Wallis is Rebecca, the Journal reporter who's following the boys around for their mission. She's often hanging around in the back of scenes, but on a number of occasions she just disappears entirely, as if she got tired of pretending to tag along. (It was also a male reporter who wrote the story in real life, so I was expecting some sort of romantic bloom to happen.)

Leslie Bibb plays Susan, Jerry's fiance, who's very toothy and effervescent. Super suspicious. Nora Dunn is Hoagie's mom, who keeps hitting on Chilli in a most creepy fashion.

There are a few decent laughs in the movie, just not enough to sustain any true humorous momentum. It's loud and talky and there's always something going on, so it's not exactly boring but not really engaging. Watching it is an exercise in just playing along.

Review: "Chappaquiddick"

“Chappaquiddick” is a mesmerizing portrait of evil -- not an evil man, but a deed that remains one of the most black-hearted acts in American political history.

I refer not to the abject cowardice of Edward "Teddy" Kennedy in the summer of 1969, when the Senator from Massachusetts drunkenly drove a car off a bridge into a lake, leaving a campaign worker, Mary Jo Kopechne, trapped inside.

Nor to the fact that Kennedy failed to summon help, walking past houses 150 yards away to instead trudge back to the summer cottage he had just left to call his friends, all married men who were partying with single women like Kopechne. Rather than phoning the police, they scrambled to protect Kennedy’s reputation.

Nor do I even refer to Kennedy returning to his hotel room, where he slept, ate breakfast with friends and failed to report the accident for nearly nine hours. His inaction most certainly doomed Kopechne, who likely survived for hours trapped in the car, succumbing not to drowning, but suffocation as she used up the small pocket of breathable air.

The real evil, the film argues, lies in what came after.

This is an angry movie, but also a probing one. Director John Curran and screenwriters Andrew Logan and Taylor Allen look at how the Kennedy family machine of advisors and lawyers sprang into action to protect a man seen by many as the frontrunner for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination.

Arms were twisted, wheels were greased, outright fabrications passed off as accepted fact.

At the center of this storm was Kennedy himself, a flawed man and last surviving son of a political dynasty consecrated with the highest of blessings and laden with the darkest of curses. Played by Jason Clarke in a riveting performance that should be remembered during the next awards cycle, Kennedy is portrayed as someone torn by tidal forces of pride, shame, entitlement and weakness.

“I’m not going to be president,” is the first thing he says after the accident. Kopechne, still struggling for air in a submerged Oldsmobile, had already been consigned to death. Kennedy’s only thought was that his political ambitions not join in her obituary.

While the movie chastens him for going along with the elaborate plot to save his career, it does not condemn Kennedy as an irredeemable fiend. Rather, it asks uncomfortable questions about who among us would have followed a similar path, given the titanic expectations for the baby brother of Jack and Bobby Kennedy.

Ted Kennedy was unwillingly anointed as the keeper of the flame for an entire generation of dreamers -- and wanted desperately not to see that torch sputter out on his watch.

Kate Mara plays Kopechne, depicted as an earnest young woman a member of the “Boiler Room Girls,” a group of secretaries and strategists who gave their souls to Bobby’s presidential campaign, and were being urged to sign on for another one. The film, while slinging many barbed arrows, does not dispute the insistence that the party was a chaste one, though there is some suggestion of longing between her and Kennedy, a lifelong philanderer.

Ed Helms is terrific as Joe Gargan, adopted son of the Kennedy clan, the friend who’s always there to clean up their messes. At first Teddy’s most ardent defender, he eventually grows sick of the lies and manipulation. He finally snaps when Kennedy, who was completely uninjured in the accident, dons a neck brace for Kopechne’s funeral. “You’re not a victim, Ted!” he bellows.

Bruce Dern is unrecognizable and piercing as Joseph Kennedy, patriarch of the clan, now grown decrepit in body to match the withered soul. Face twisted into a rictus, barely able to speak or move, he treats Ted as the prodigal son he’d rather not see returned.

When Ted first calls to report his predicament, the elder Kennedy can only croak out one word: “Alibi.”

Other notable cast members include Jim Gaffigan as Paul Markham, Kennedy pal and obedient fixer; Clancy Brown as Robert McNamara, the former Defense Secretary who leads the heavy hitters during the cover-up; Taylor Nichols as Ted Sorensen, speechwriter and PR expert; and John Fiore as the pliable local police chief.

“Chappaquiddick” is a powerful and bracing look at how power corrupts -- not just its exercise, but in its pursuit.

Video review: "Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie"

When a mainstream movie doesn’t get screened for critics, it’s usually an indication the studio knows it has a dog and its hands, and figures no publicity is better than bad publicity. They’re wrong, of course: My own observation is that films that get dumped into theaters with no fanfare or press disappear even quicker than those that got negative reviews.

But every now and then, a decent movie gets this treatment for mystifying reasons. Lately, many of these have been family- or kid-oriented fare like the wonderful “Paddington” from a few years ago.

“Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie” isn’t quite that good, but it’s an amusing and rather clever kiddie flick that had my two boys, ages 4 and 6, rolling with laughter almost the entire time. And even grumpy old dad chortled not a little.

The clever set-up is that the two protagonists, George and Harold (voices by Kevin Hart and Thomas Middleditch), are fourth-grade cut-ups and budding cartoonists themselves. They spend most of their time creating comic books and pulling pranks on Mr. Krupp, their anger-absorbed principal. One of their favorite subjects is Captain Underpants, about a super-powered hero who only wears a cape and his undies.

Through a little hypnosis, the boys actually convince Mr. Krupp (Ed Helms) that he is Captain Underpants, leading to much hilarity as their tubby educator galivants about town in his tighty-whities. Of course, he eventually wakes up and wonders where his clothes are. Later, the Captain manages to obtain actual super-powers to go with his delusion.

Nick Kroll provides the voice of Professor Poopypants, a substitute teacher who turns to evil villainy out of consternation for mockery of his name. It all builds up to a dizzy battle with giant robots and such.

The animation has a deliberately simplistic sort of sheen, interspersed with cut scenes consisting of motion comics from the boys’ illustrations.

Based on the novels by Dav Pilkey, “Captain Underpants” didn’t do so well at the box office. (See section above re: no vs. bad publicity.) It’s definitely worth a look on video, though, as it’s chock-full of boy-centric humor and gross-outs.

Maybe if we do get a sequel, it won’t try to fly under the radar.

Bonus features are pretty good, anchored by six making-of featurettes, including one where Hart and Helms pull real-life surprises on fans. There are also deleted scenes, gallery of stills, music videos including one with theme song writer/performer “Weird All” Yankovic, and a “Tightey-Whitey Q&A with the Stars.”

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Video review: "The Hangover Part III"

If it stood on its own, “The Hangover Part III” would probably go down as a pretty decent comedy, agreeably raunchy without being terribly ambitious. Following in the wake of the brashly original 2009 film, though, it was bound to seem a letdown.

I give writer/director Todd Phillps and company points for recognizing they couldn’t just keep repeating the gimmick of a bunch of early-middle-aged buddies waking up from a night of debauchery and trying assemble the missing pieces to solve some mystery. It worked once, brilliantly, and was already old hat by the second time round. A third retread would’ve been fatal.

This time it’s all about irrepressible man-boy Alan (Zach Galifianakis), the one-time fifth wheel who’s undeniably the star of the show now. After being devastated by the death of his dad, the rest of the “Wolf Pack” – including rakish Phil (Bradley Cooper) and pernickety Stu (Ed Helms) – are driving Alan cross-country to a detox center.

Of course they run into all sorts of trouble, mostly involving an overbearing gangster (John Goodman), but also returning crazed con-man/exhibitionist Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong) to the fold. There’s not quite as much nudity and foul behavior as the previous two films, though stick around for the end credits for an extra helping of filth.

“The Hangover Part III” may be a pale shadow of the original, but it’s funny enough to remind us what made it so good in the first place.

Extras are rather good, and in a rare occurrence are the same whether you opt for the Blu-ray combo pack or the regular DVD edition. So many releases today require you to pay more for the really good goodies.

There are extended and deleted scenes, outtakes and a host of making-of featurettes that are intended to be informative as well as ladle on more laughs. Probably the best is a prank pulled on Galifianakis in which they secretly filmed other actors auditioning to replace him in the role of Alan, then let the tapes “leak” out.

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Review: "The Hangover Part III"

After the raunchy brilliance of "The Hangover" in 2009 came the inevitable sequel two years later, which like most second comings was a major letdown. The cast and crew essentially aped the first movie, with our maturity-challenged "Wolf Pack" of 40-ish dudes waking up after a night of debauchery, and attempting to reconstruct the events of which they had no memory.

It had its moments, but the novel premise was no longer fresh, and the jokes just didn't hit like the first time around.

"The Hangover Part III" falls somewhere in the middle of the two, funny enough to recommend but lacking the frisson of the original. It also abandons the flashback storytelling gimmick of the first two films, opting for a straight-ahead narrative. Instead of creating new mischief while on a bender, they're soberly dealing with the consequences of their previous (mis)adventures.

That's all well and good, and it was probably the right move to make the third (and, by all accounts, final) movie stand out from the rest. But I feel compelled to point out that we're watching a movie with "Hangover" in the title during which no one experiences a hangover.

Until, that is ... well, I don't want to spoil the surprise. Suffice it to say, I highly advise you to keep your fanny parked in your seat when the credits roll.

Zach Galifianakis, who made such an oddball sidekick in the first movie, is now pretty much the center of the show. As delusionally obtuse man-boy Alan, Galifianakis has created an enduring comic character, a man who is somehow innocent and yet repulsive at the same time.

Alan is the sort of guy who can meet a woman (a nice cameo by Melissa McCarthy) seemingly as mucked up as he is, initiate the beginnings of a romance, and then pull down his pants, coyly informing her that he "saw it in a pornography" -- and yet still come across as dimly sweet.

All the other characters pretty much react to what Alan's doing, including smoother operator-turned minivan-driving schlep Phil (Bradley Cooper) and uptight dentist Stu (Ed Helms). Alan even seems to command our attention when he shares the screen with Leslie Chow -- the certifiably insane, cocaine-snorting, generic Asian accent-spouting, wild-partying criminal played by Ken Jeong.

Spoiler alert: I can confirm that Jeong's penis returns for a third outing ... if you're patient.

The set-up is the guys are driving Alan, who's depressed and off his meds after his father's death, to a detox center in Arizona when they're kidnapped by a homicidal gangster named Marshall (John Goodman). It seems Chow stole $21 million in gold bars from him with the Wolf Pack's unwitting help, so he wants them to get it back for him. As insurance, Marshall kidnaps their friend Doug, once again giving Justin Bartha a reason to disappear for most of the movie (which is probably just as well).

The rest of the flick plays out as a series of chases and double-crosses, as the guys quickly track down Chow but have difficulty keeping their hands on him. Alan, who had secretly been exchanging letters and emails with Chow while he was in a Bangkok prison, incorrectly sees it as rescuing Chow rather than capturing him.

There's a few clever bits, including a neat reversal at a Mexican villa, and of course the action ends up in Las Vegas, the beginning of all their troubles.

There are no celebrity appearances a la Mike Tyson like last time around, though the hi jinks are intermittently funny and occasionally hilarious.

"The Hangover Part III" pales in comparison to the first film, but it feels less cynical and rote than the middle one. It's a fun outing, with enough laughs to remind us why we liked the first movie so much.

Video review: "The Lorax"

Subtle as a buzz saw mowing down those cotton-candy-colored Truffula Trees, “The Lorax” (PG, 86 min.) fitfully combines a heavy-handed environmental message with bright, shiny animation for little kiddies.

Adapted from one of the lesser-known books by Dr. Seuss, this story has as its hero a grumpy little yellow furball who acts as the protector of the forest. His nemesis is the Once-ler (voice of Ed Helms), an amiable young man who wants to use the Truffulas to make his Thneed, a mysterious product (even to him) that will make him rich.

The Lorax (voiced well by Danny DeVito) possesses magical powers, but he never actually uses them to put a stop to the Once-ler’s nefarious antics. Instead, he waits until the devastation is complete and then tries to make people feel bad about it.

As eye candy goes, “The Lorax” is a treat, with wonderfully crisp images and fanciful critters who feel like they jumped right off Dr. Seuss’ pages. Even the supposedly sterile city that sprung up in the Once-ler’s path is fun to spend time in, with its gravity-defying buildings and one-wheeled vehicles.

“The Lorax” will likely keep tots engaged, but this one’s meant for the adult to hit “play” and go read a book.

Like a lot of fare aimed at younger audiences, “The Lorax” is being given a strong video release with lots of extras.

Both the DVD and standalone Blu-ray editions come with a feature-length commentary track, plus three featurettes: “Seuss to Screen,” “Seuss It Up” and “Once-ler’s Wagon.”

Upgrade to the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, and you get three new mini-movies, plus a making-of featurette about them. There’s also a deleted scene, sing-a-long song, a game and a digital copy of the film for taking with you on the road.

Movie: 2 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "The Lorax"

More a civics lesson than a story, "The Lorax" is based on one of Dr. Seuss' lesser-known books -- and it's not surprising that the pint-sized yellow furball with a walrus mustache isn't nearly as iconic as the Grinch or the Cat in the Hat.

Voiced by Danny DeVito as the cantankerous protector of the forest, The Lorax doesn't go on any zany adventures or experience a turnaround of heart from his once-wicked ways. He doesn't even use his magic to zap the bad guys chopping down his beloved Truffula Trees. He's just an environmental steward who gets his way by lecturing people to do the right thing.

His heart may be in the right place, but this woodland sprite comes across as a shrill nag.

Lou Dobbs and some other right-wing bloviators have taken to preemptively criticizing this movie for its leftist, tree-hugging themes. Normally I'd dismiss this sort of self-righteous hot air for what it is, but "The Lorax" sure gives them an obvious target to aim at.

The story concerns the Once-ler, an inventive young man who uses the Truffula Trees, which resemble rainbow-colored swirls of cotton candy, to make his Thneed. The Thneed, an indistinct cloth-like object, is the quintessential cinematic red herring, since nobody (even the Once-ler) knows exactly what it does. But he's determined that everyone will want one.

At first content to harvest the feather-like leaves, the Once-ler soon decides the needs of the Thneeds outweigh those of the adorable forest creatures -- impossibly cute roly-poly teddy bears, singing fish and friendly ducks. He starts lopping down all the trees, until nothing but a barren wasteland is left.

One musical number is especially un-subtle, with the Once-ler (Ed Helms) singing about his property rights and growing the economy as his Thneed factory belches out horrid black goo and choking smog. He even has a framed newspaper story about himself, titled "Too Big to Fail!"

Occupy Whoville, anyone?

The movie isn't helped by the wobbly framing story set decades into the future, involving an inquisitive young lad named Ted (Zac Efron) who wants to find the last tree in the world so he can impress Audrey (Taylor Swift), the older teen he adores. He ventures beyond the confines of Thneedville to seek out the Once-ler, who has turned into a mythical loner chewing over his misdeeds.

The computer-generated animation is quite good -- too good, in fact, for the plasticized world of Thneedville, where no living thing grows and the evil industrialist Mr. O'Hare (Rob Riggle) makes a killing by selling fresh air to the people. It's a bright and shiny menagerie of twisted Seussian buildings and overinflated one-wheeled vehicles, that in some ways is more fun to spend time in than the Lorax's virgin pastures.

Director Chris Renaud and screenwriters Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul, the same team behind the likeable "Despicable Me" from a couple years back, make a questionable choice in adapting the book. Seuss was careful never to show the Once-ler, other than a pair of arms. By fully revealing him as an engaging young fellow who turns bad, it breaks the conceit of the fable and makes everything seem a little less magical.

"The Lorax" isn't bad as far as entertainment for wee tykes. It fails not because it has an environmental tilt, but because -- like the Once-ler -- the movie isn't content to merely plant a few seeds of thought, opting instead to mow down the audience with is message.

2 stars out of four

Review: "The Hangover Part II"

Perhaps inevitably, the sequel to "The Hangover," the surprise comedy smash of 2009, cannot quite live up to expectations. It's still plenty funny, and it's doubtful many fans of the original will walk out disappointed. Still, the novelty has worn thin.

The only thing that really distinguished the first film from any number of comedies about boys getting debauched and behaving badly was its clever narrative construction: They wake up after a wild night of pre-wedding partying with no memory of what happened, and have to piece together events based on clues.
More than one person has described it as "Bachelor Party" meets "Memento."

"Part II" is pretty much a repeat, with the action moved from Las Vegas to Bangkok. The same players are up for another round: Stu, the confidence-challenged dentist (Ed Helms) who's the bridegroom this time; Phil (Bradley Cooper), the hedonistic alpha male; and Alan (Zach Galifianakis), the clueless man-child perpetually fascinated by a world that mystifies him.

The lost boy this time is Teddy (Mason Lee), the 16-year-old younger brother to Lauren (Jamie Chung), Stu's bride-to-be. The "Wolfpack" wakes up in a scummy Bangkok hotel to find Alan's head shaved bald, Stu's face freshly etched with the same tattoo on Mike Tyson's, and Teddy gone missing ... well, mostly missing.

Instead of a lost baby to serve as their mascot, there is a chain-smoking monkey and a wordless monk in a wheelchair. They've got until the next day to find Teddy and make the wedding in time.

Also popping up again is Chow, an Asian-American crime boss with very politically incorrect speech patterns and a nose for trouble. Actor Ken Jeong, who gave a rather revealing performance in the first film, raises his game to new, um, levels.

(I should point out that the movie's release was nearly scuttled by a lawsuit by the tattoo artist who inked Mike Tyson's face for copyright infringement. Fortunately, the justice system interrupted its trivial duties prosecuting rapists to lift the injunction.)

Director Todd Phillips, who co-wrote the screenplay with Craig Mazin and Scot Armstrong, still has a few fresh tricks up his sleeve. The dialogue is sharp as ever -- Alan describes himself as "a stay-at-home son" -- and the repartee between the fellows is somehow simultaneously combative and brotherly.

Still, other sequences seem practically preordained. A visit to a local monastery is bound to lead to the boys being laid low by chop-socky. An excursion to a seedy strip club results in some uncomfortable revelations for Stu that halfway clever audience members will see coming a mile off. And Paul Giamatti is ill-used as a blustery gangster who's a lynchpin for the plot.

If it were to stand on its own, "The Hangover Part II" would register as a better-than-average smutty comedy. Despite a few slow patches, it is loaded with gut-busting laughs. After its much brainier predecessor, though, it feels like a well-meaning kid forced to follow in the footsteps of his genius older sibling.

3 stars out of four

Review: "Cedar Rapids"

Critics are supposed to be repositories of sharp opinions and certainty, but I admit I didn't quite know what to make of "Cedar Rapids." This new comedy is springboarding out of the Sundance Film Festival and into theaters, starring Ed Helms as an incredibly naive insurance agent sent to a big conference in the title city.

When I say naive, I mean that Tim Lippe seems to have reached adulthood without having emerged from the cocoon of puberty. He's literally sleeping with his former sixth-grade teacher (Sigourney Weaver), and it's not a wild guess this is the only semblance of a relationship he's ever had. She's a recent divorcée enjoying her sexual freedom, but Tim thinks he's in love.

Tim appears to be a variant of Andy, Helms' dweebtastic character from TV's "The Office," with a double helping of cluelessness and a schmear of the uptight dentist he played in "The Hangover."

"I said, 'Here's a kid who's gonna go places,'" his boss tells him, "and then somehow you didn't."

Tim was born and raised in Brown Valley, Wisconsin, a small town where everybody knows everyone else, and the bad apples get picked out pretty quick. When the hotshot at Tim's company suddenly dies of auto-erotic asphyxiation, Tim is charged with taking his place at the insurance convention in Cedar Rapids.

His mission: To bring home another Two Diamond Award for excellence in insurance and integrity. They've got a three-year streak going, and the boss wants another.

Awards are funny things. It seems like anybody can dream up a prize with no tangible benefits, and people will trip over themselves trying to win one.

At my first newspaper gig, we were turning a sleepy community weekly into a competitive daily, and our editor cleverly dreamed up the "20 Byline Club" to motivate us to churn out copy. It was just a cheap plaque, but anybody who wrote 20 or more stories in a week got their name on it. Mine was plastered all over it, of which I was exceedingly proud at the time, but now I look back and chuckle. I was working 75 hours a week for 17 grand a year, killing myself so an upstart rag could be filled with stories on the cheap, and the only person who benefited from my 20 bylines was the guy at the trophy shop who got a few bucks to stencil a name.

Anyway, Tim meets up with a host of other characters equally as unlikely as himself. There's Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), a boozing, loudmouthed glad-hander whom Tim was expressly warned to stay from. Of course, they're forced to be roommates, and soon they're downing shots together.

Then there's Joan Ostrowski-Fox (Anne Heche), nicknamed Foxy, who uses the annual convention as a chance to liberate herself from her boring life, married with two kids. She sets her sights on the gullible Tim as this year's dance partner.

Kurtwood Smith is Orin Helgesson, the association president who dreamed up the Two Diamond thingamajig. He explicitly wants to marry God and business, which prefers the secular life.

The only one who seems grounded and plausible is Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), a straight-arrow type who professes a fondness for "The Wire," which is an inside joke because Whitlock was in it.

There are a decent amount of laughs, and John C. Reilly in particular gets off a lot of incredibly tasteless yet funny one-liners. At a morning prayer breakfast, he complains of "big-time beer (poops) this morning."

My ambivalence about this movie is rooted in the way the director Miguel Arteta and rookie screenwriter Phil Johnston approach these characters. We don't believe for a second in them as real people, or that the cast is invested in them beyond a vehicle for yucks.

Helms and company seem like they're mocking middle-America vanilla-ness, which is ripe for mocking, but they also want to embrace it with a cuddly ending. Even Tim Lippe could see through that ruse.

2.5 stars out of four