Review: "The DUFF"

High school movies are practically carbon copies of each other these days, but "The DUFF" is smarter, braver and more novel than the average bear. It follows a few of the conventions of the genre, but also ignores some, bends others or stands them on their head.

Yes, it's got the usual array of actors who are closer to 30 than 17, but that's about par for the course.

Mae Whitman is terrific as main character Bianca Piper, a smart, nervy girl who generally ignores the sort of ridiculous pressures teenage girls are subjected to: weight, clothes, popularity, boyfriends, etc. She writes for the school paper, favors denim coveralls, is kind and a bit kooky, loves horror flicks, and 25 years ago she would've been played by Winona Ryder.

Her two BFFs are Casey (Bianca Santos) and Jess (Skyler Samuels), who are super-cute and super popular. They are all warm and close with each other, but Bianca does notice that other people tend to either ignore her or talk to her about her friends rather than engaging with her. Meanwhile, she pines from afar for the blond, sensitive, guitar-strumming Toby (Nick Eversman).

The trio's foil is Madison (Bella Thorne), the bitchy "mean girl" who rules the popularity roost through intimidation and cyber-bullying. Her sometime boyfriend, Wesley (Robbie Amell), is captain of the football team -- and also Bianca's next-door neighbor and one-time childhood friend.

Things are going great until Wes casually observes to Bianca that she is her social clique's "DUFF" -- aka, Designated Ugly Fat Friend. Bianca is hardly ugly or fat, of course -- in the grand tradition of high school movies, she's a shlumpy swan just waiting for her transformation.

But Wes notes, in a joking but still somewhat mean way, that Bianca is the non-threatening, less attractive girl the others keep around to make themselves look good, and act as a social screen. He even points out that, among the football players, they use freshmen as their own DUFFs.

Needless to say, once the veil is lifted from her eyes Bianca's not too happy about her social status. She dumps Casey and Jess as friends, and begins a Eliza Doolittle-like transformation into a cool, self-reliant chick.

As her tutor she picks Wes because, despite his immature jocularity, he tells the truth and seems to instinctively grasp male-female electricity. They go shopping for clothes -- he advises her to dress "less like Wreck-It Ralph" --  talk about how to move in for the first kiss, share some jokes, and find out the other isn't as terrible as they thought.

If the Bianca-Wes pairing might seem out of left field, Whitman and Amell sell it well. He's solid as the guy who's spent so long playing the inconsiderate doofus that he can't immediately turn it off when genuine emotions intrude. And she is compelling as the girl who's convinced herself she's above all this petty stuff, until it starts to swallow her.

Director Ari Sandel won an Oscar for his short film a few years ago, and now makes his confident feature debut. Josh A. Cagan adapted the screenplay from the book by Kody Keplinger. The pacing and tone, two of the hardest things for young filmmakers to get right, are spot on.

The filmmakers keep things on a brisk, youthful level, with screen text and animation reflecting the way modern kids' lives are filtered through digital aids and social media. (When Toby flips his hair in slo-mo, Bianca mentally projects "Amazeballs" all over the image.)

Ken Jeong livens things up as Bianca's dippy-yet-demanding journalism teacher, and Allison Janney plays her distracted mom. I also enjoyed Chris Wylde as a snippy science teacher. ("When I was in high school in the '90s, we didn't have emoticons.")

"The DUFF" ends up more or less exactly where you expect it to, but the main characters actually seem to grow and gain a little insight about themselves and the world, rather than just competing to fall in love.

Review: "Penguins of Madagascar"

The “Madagascar” movies have run their course, and if spinning off the cute penguin sidekicks into their own movie seems like a cheap grab for more bucks, that’s because it is.

There really is no reason for this film to exist, or more accurately there is no reason for it to exist as a film. Lots of animated movie franchises now replicate themselves into straight-to-video shorts, including “Toy Story,” “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda.” There’s no shame in it – my kids love to watch these off the DVR or Netflix.

The problem comes in taking a story that is all television and trying to pass it off as a whole movie. “Penguins of Madagascar” is like that. The trio of screenwriters are all TV guys, and it shows. It’s just a bunch of goofy jokes and antic capers with barely a story thread to connect them.

It likely will keep wee ones entertained, though adults may find their eyelids growing droopy (as did I).

As you’ll recall, the running joke about the penguins is that they act like secret agent men. Their chief, Skipper (voice of Tom McGrath), talks like a G-man from a 1950s television show. Of course, it’s funny that clownish, winsome penguins act like mini-James Bondses … for a while. Trying to run out the gag for 92 minutes quickly grows weary.

To help string it along, they add an extra dimension: the youngest penguin, Private (Christopher Knights), is the adorable mascot of the foursome, beloved more for his endearing ways and looks than as integral member of the team. Over the course of the show… er, excuse me, movie, he gets to grow in their esteem.

The other two penguins are Kowalski (Chris Miller), Skipper’s right-hand man and teller of truths, even when inconvenient and upsetting; Rico (Conrad Vernon) has a penchant for swallowing things, and blowing stuff up, and swallowing things that later blow up after he’s expectorated them.

John Malkovich is really good as the heavy, an octopus named Dave who sometimes masquerades as a human scientist who looks exactly like Dwight Schrute from “The Office.”  It seems he’s a former zoo resident who hated having his limelight stolen by penguins, and now he’s created an energy ray that makes them less pretty, or something.

(Sorry if I’m a little fuzzy on the details; seriously, I think I may have nodded off.)

The X-factor in the story is another team of group of critter agents. They call themselves the North Wind, as all the animals are arctic-oriented, and they drive the penguins mad with jealousy because of all their cool equipment and vehicles. Compared to them, the penguins are old-school amateurs.

The interlopers are: Agent Classified (Benedict Cumberbatch) – his name isn’t classified; it’s actually “Classified”; Short Fuse (Ken Jeong), a peevish seal; Eva (Annet Mahendru), an alluring snow owl; and Corporal (Peter Stormare), a Russian polar bear who acts as the outfit’s muscle.

The humor is largely of the slapstick-and-bodily-emissions variety, perfectly suited to the kindergarten crowd. Co-directors Eric Darnell and Simon J. Smith stage action scenes that are generally pretty coherent.

There are also a few in-jokes scattered throughout the dialogue, in which names of celebrities are buried inside seemingly mundane chatter: “Elijah, would you hand me that?” And listen carefully to the narrator at the beginning – it’s probably the best laugh of the movie, for those who get it.

I tittered at a few of these, while recognizing this movie was not made for me. Or anyone who counts their age in double digits.

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.

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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: "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: "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.

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