Review: "Angel Has Fallen"

“He knows how we do this. He knows all our tricks.”

Any spy thriller character who hangs around long enough eventually makes it to the betrayal phase. The top guy -- it’s nearly always a guy -- is set up as the stoolie for some nefarious scheme to sabotage the agency from within, and is hunted by the government.

Bond, Borne, Smiley -- it’s always the same thing. They find themselves on the run, having to outwit their own team.

You could argue that “Fallen” isn’t technically in the spy genre, since protagonist Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is a Secret Service agent, not CIA or something similar. But all the hallmarks are there: unstoppable combat skills, stubbornness bordering on mania, international plots and lots of cool technology able to do stuff straight out of, well, a movie.

I liked the first film, “Olympus Has Fallen,” well enough though the sequel, “London Has Fallen,” got tedious and not a little overly macho. All three have the same basic plot: the President’s life is threatened, and only Mike can save him. This time around it’s Allan Trumbull, played by Morgan Freeman with signature gravitas

In most movies like this, the action scenes propel you onward and the slower talkie sequences are what you must suffer through to get back to the pyrotechnics. This time around I was impressed by the “downtime” more than the parts with flying bullets.

Piper Perabo is an empathetic presence as Mike’s suffering wife, put through hell along with their baby girl when he is fingered as the culprit behind an elaborate assassination attempt on Trumball. Freeman spends most of the movie in a hospital bed, but when he was not I was reminded why it’s pleasing to have a man who is seemingly so wise and kind as POTUS.

I really was touched by Nick Nolte as Mike’s long-lost father, Clay, whom he eventually turns to when the chips are down. Clay ran out on the family a long time ago, and is stuck doing the crazy-loner-in-the-woods thing. But Nolte’s wet, pleading eyes, along with a couple of solid speeches about his motivations, genuinely hit the heart.

Quality acting in a dumb blow-em-up flick? Imagine my surprise.

The rest of the story is fairly forgettable, though it moves along at a nice clip under the direction of Ric Roman Waugh, one of the first stunt coordinators to move behind the camera. He co-wrote the screenplay with Matt Cook and Robert Mark Kamen.

Danny Huston plays Wade Jennings, an old Army buddy of Mike’s who now runs his own training facility with a hand-picked crew of mercenaries, and OMG if you don’t know where that’s going then you must not have seen Danny Huston in any movies over the past 20 years.

Seriously, Danny, get a new agent. Otherwise your first scene might as well come with a title card like the silent movies: "The villain has arrived."

Mike’s rumored to be in line for the director’s job at Secret Service, and could steer some business Wade’s way. Secretly he frets about not wanting to hang up his gun for a desk job, plus his body is breaking down after years in the field, leading to some ferocious pill-popping.

Jada Pinkett Smith plays the lead FBI agent hunting Mike; Lance Reddick is the outgoing Secret Service chief; and Tim Blake Nelson plays the nervous nelly vice president who has to take over the reins of office while the president is in a coma.

Butler is decent at the physical stuff, despite looking rather puffy and jowly these days, though the other actors have to carry him through the touchy-feely stuff.

He looks like his skin is sliding off his face and all gathering around his neck. I think the filmmakers were trying to make him look like crap, but also they went that way because that's the clay they had to work with.

Butler seems poised to take over the “Kickass Geezer” mantle that’s been passed down from Harrison Ford to Denzel Washington to Liam Neeson.

Filled with some decent action sequences and even a few well-plucked heartstrings, “Angel Has Fallen” surprises as the best of the trilogy.

Video review: "Arthur"

I daresay audiences missed the boat on "Arthur."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 2 stars

Review: "Arthur"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3.5 stars out of four

Review: "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore"

It has been nine years since "Cats & Dogs" first exposed us to a secret underground war fought between talking canines and felines, with super-spy agents facing off with James Bond-esque gadgetry.

Now we have a sequel, of sorts, which has improved the sleekness of the computer-generated antics, but not the bone-headed approach to making kiddie flicks.

As near as I can determine, nobody involved with the first movie had anything to do with this one, other than Sean Hayes, Michael Clarke Duncan and a couple others reprising small roles voicing critters -- essentially, they're vocal walk-ons. Even the humans have been swapped out.

By the title, "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore," we might be led to believe that a dastardly arch-villain has returned to wreak more havoc. But no, Kitty Galore is a new creation, a hairless cat voiced by Bette Midler, and with an origin story that's an homage/rip-off of the Joker's.

Kitty wants to broadcast "The Call of the Wild," a nefarious high-pitched recording that will drive all the world's dogs mad, thus estranging them from their human companions, and leaving cats free to take over as, er, top dogs.

Nick Nolte provides the voice of Butch, the veteran dog agent (voiced by Alec Baldwin last time around) forced to partner up with Diggs (James Marsden), an accident-prone police dog recently recruited into the doggie agency. They've got fancy comm links in their dog houses, collars hiding lasers and lockpicks, and subterranean rocket transit tubes for high-speed travel to Dog World Headquarters.

Turns out the cats have their own spy outfit, Mousers Ensuring Our World's Safety (I'll let you figure it out), and Catherine (Christina Applegate) is their top agent. After briefly tangling with Diggs and Butch, she decides to join paws to foil Kitty's evil plot.

Tagging along is Seamus (Katt Williams), a dodo-headed dove who turns out to be an unwitting stool pigeon, but mostly is one jive-talking turkey.

There's a few occasional inspired moments. I liked the trapped room slowly filling with kitty litter. And a houseful of catnip-tripping kittens. And there's a cookie after the end credits worth sticking around for.

But this is low-wattage entertainment aimed at very small children -- kindergartners would likely grow impatient with it. It's an unimaginative collection of shiny things, cute critters and goofy action meant to distract tykes for 82 minutes.

Call me catty, but I think we can do better by our kids, and our pets.

The 3-D effects are decent, but not worth the ticket upgrade. Though "Coyote Falls," a new Road Runner cartoon preceding the movie, is a nostalgic treat.

1.5 stars out of four