Review: "The Devil Has a Name"

A real head-scratcher, though a fitfully enjoyable one, "The Devil Has a Name" is part Western revenge thriller, part corporate intrigue, part courtroom drama and a little bit exploration of the psychotic mind. 

Imagine if Anton Chigurh from "No Country for Old Men" went head-to-head with Daniel Plainview from "There Will Be Blood" in a dispute over oil drilling pollution, and the whole thing wound up in court where Marlene Dietrich was the key figure a la "Witness for the Prosecution," with a bombastic attorney and sniveling media figure tossed in for good measure.

The basic story is an older, small-time California farmer getting muscled by a huge energy company called Shore Oil that has been poisoning the area groundwater for a decade. After he refuses to sell, they bring in their intimidator to try to knock him down, and instead he enlists a crusading lawyer to sue the company for billions.

This screenplay by Robert McEveety is a classic example of too many ingredients in the gumbo. The fact that a lot of them are quite tasty, especially the performances by an eclectic cast of name actors, doesn't mitigate the fact there's just too damn much going on.

I was never bored by "Devil," and enjoyed seeing actors I admire like David Strathairn and Edward James Olmos get meaty parts. But the film -- which Olmos also directed -- feels at once too big and too small for the story it's trying to tell. We get lots of swell little moments but they come and go quickly without a lot of build-up or weight.

This project seems like it would have lived and breathed better as a six- or eight-episode limited series on a streaming service, maybe something juicier and deliberately funnier with a tabloid feel.

Strathairn is the central figure as Fred Stern, who owns a small orchard. He and his wife always dreamed of sailing away together, but she died the previous year and Fred's not much use to anybody these days, letting his foreman and steady friend, Santiago (Olmos), run the show. 

Just as some of his trees start to show evidence of polluted water from the nearby dumping ponds, which Shore Oil doesn't even bother to line with protective material, Fred is approached with a strange offer. Alex Gardner (Haley Joel Osment), who worked for him as a kid and now is a small-town TV personality, offers fifty grand for the property. 

Reading between the lines, Fred figures he can get more by holding out.

Then into the picture enters Ezekiel, played by Pablo Schreiber in a big, loud, energetic performance that feels like it belongs to entirely another movie. He's the enforcer sent by the Big Boss in Houston to ensure things go smoothly,  but it soon becomes clear he's a completely unhinged, power-hungry type playing to his own off-chord tune -- and is unafraid to resort to violence if it suits him.

His back now up, Fred turns to Ralph Wegis (Martin Sheen), an over-the-hill but still feisty lawyer famous for having once taken Ford down over the Pinto. Ralph found out Ford knew the Pinto had a fatal problem that would take $11 to fix, but calculated it was cheaper to pay lawyers to fight wrongful death claims than save lives, and he figures that's what's going on now with Shore.

Standing at the center of the tale but somehow almost entirely unnecessary to it is Gigi Cutler, who has a family stake in Shore and has been sent to watch over things. Gigi doesn't seem to do much but wear furs and smoke cigarettes and gargle booze while giving everyone a femme fatale stare from hell, but Kate Bosworth is obviously having a hell of a time doing it.

A framing story has Gigi giving her account to the Big Boss (Alfred Molina) on how things went south, with her about to lose her stake in Shore as a result. Her character has terrific verve but no real interior as written. We're just supposed to admire the puzzle and not bother putting anything together.

Sheen is always reliable in this sort of role as a man who likes the sound of his own voice, and Strathairn gets to show a few empathetic notes as an old-timer who's been eating regret for so long he surprises himself by learning he's eager for a fight.

I also liked Osment, who's struggled to find good roles after a fantastic stretch as a kid actor, playing a fellow who's a natural bootlicker type, a guy who can't lose his moral compass because he was never issued the equipment in the first place. Please keep casting him, Hollywood.

I was half expecting Ezekiel to go full Buffalo Bill from "The Silence of the Lambs," or Gigi to hook up with the lawyer or the journalist or anybody, really. I've been trying to figure out what this movie is, with all its disparate, ill-fitting pieces. I think I've realized it's a dusty soap opera set in the California desert, where anything can happen and just might, even if it doesn't make a lick of sense.

Video review: "Ralph Breaks the Internet"

First off: Why isn’t it “Ralph Wrecks the Internet?” You’d think a simple callback to the last Disney animated film would be an obvious choice, as we’re bringing back arcade game villain-turned-huggable-hero Ralph for another adventure.

Maybe some wonk in the marketing department said “breaks” would test better. Perhaps if they’d concentrated on coming up with a little more coherent narrative, this wouldn’t have been a mildly disappointing sequel.

The idea here is that Ralph (voice of John C. Reilly) and tiny tot racing demon Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) find themselves leaving their staid little arcade for a trip into the wild, wild internet. It seems the wheel o Vanellope’s game has broken and if they don’t find a replacement one on eBay, she’s going to get permanently unplugged.

Their adventures are fun and colorful, at least at first. All the various Web power players -- Google, SnapChat, etc. -- are represented as their own power hubs that human avatars come to for information and entertainment. They get a little help from one of those pop-up ad barkers, and also from some (initially mean) denizens of an online racing game.

The “Ralph” sequel puts the sidekick character behind the wheel, as it’s really more Vanellope’s story than Ralph’s. The theme is about how people constantly grow and evolve, and sometimes that can mean trouble for their relationships. In this case, Vanellope has grown tired of playing the same game over and over, while Ralph is a creature of habit.

It’s kind of the same thing they did with “Cars 2” by putting Mater to the front -- the difference being it wasn’t the “Lightning McQueen” franchise.

What’s in a name? Apparently, a lot.

Bonus features are quite good, including a hefty making-of documentary. My favorite bonus is “Surfing for Easter Eggs,” which lets you see all the little in-jokes and pop culture references spread heavily throughout the movie.

There are also five deleted scenes, music videos, and features on the music and pretend viral videos.

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Review: "The Front Runner"

“The Front Runner” is an unflattering portrait of American politics, but even more so of the media.

Based on a book by political journalist Matt Bai, who also co-wrote this screenplay, it examines the moment when tabloid and mainstream news intersected, merged and never really looked back. This was Gary Hart’s 1987 campaign for the presidency, when the U.S. senator from Colorado was seen as the prohibitive favorite to win the Democratic nomination, only to have it all unwind in less than month when his serial philandering was reported.

For decades, Washington politicians held the journalists who covered them to a gentlemen’s agreement: look the other way when young ladies are seen going in and out of our doors, and we will give the access you need to do your jobs. It was a nearly all-male environment, both in the corridors of power and the newsrooms charged with checking them -- so the Faustian bargain was accepted.

Consider that just two years before Hart’s implosion, Teddy Kennedy was witnessed assaulting a waitress along with his protégé, Chris Dodd. It went unreported for five years, and only then in a chuckling passage in a men’s magazine.

That was the mentality held by Hart, a wonky and charismatic politician played by Hugh Jackman. Hart is a man of big ideas and enthusiasm for the future who was laid low by clinging to the unsavory practices of the past. He is annoyed, then outraged, that his philandering is not swept under the rug as it always has been.

“This is beneath you,” he seethes at a young Washington Post reporter (Mamoudou Athie) who dares bring up rumors of his affairs. “Follow me around, put a tail on me. You'll be very bored.”

This line has entered the lore of politics, but like a lot of legends it’s mostly fiction. Hart did not challenge journalists to follow him and then openly dally with bimbos. Reporters from the Miami Herald, acting on a tip from a friend of one of Hart’s conquests, staked out his D.C. townhouse and witnessed model/pharmaceutical saleswoman Donna Rice (Sara Paxton) going in and out. They only heard about the “follow me” line after the fact.

(It should also be noted that the Herald reporters, played by Steve Zissis and Bill Burr, did not “hide behind bushes” as Hart contended, which also became part of the erroneous mythology.)

Directed by Jason Reitman, who co-wrote the script with Bai and Jay Carson, “The Front Runner” is an ambitious, contemplative movie that asks hard questions without offering easy answers.

Was it unseemly for reporters to lurk around during Hart’s downtime to see who he dallied with? Should they have looked the other way, as had been practice? Was it fair for Hart’s talents and ambition to be the price our nation paid for demanding more of our politicians?

One female journalist gives a poignant speech pointing out that Hart, for all his blessings, was still just another man willing to employ his power to use and dispose of women who cater to his whims. There’s also a nice sequence where one of Hart’s campaign workers (Molly Ephraim) is charged with “handling” Rice as the story explodes, knowing she is about to be fed to the wolves.

The film reminded me a lot of early Robert Altman movies, with large casts of characters moving in and out of the frame as the camera slides past, their conversations overlapping and receding. It lends a sense of documentary-like authenticity.

There’s too many supporting actors to mention, although Vera Farmiga and J. K. Simmons stand out as, respectively, Hart’s wife, Lee, who is willing to overlook his dalliances until they become an embarrassment her, and the campaign manager who has spent years building a political machine only to watch it turn to ash virtually overnight.

Thirty years later, Hart’s fall seems almost quaint now in this day of presidential porn star mistresses, handsy politicians of all stripes and a media that has grown both quantifiably smaller and more meager in its ambitions.

Making do with the errors of the past is bad, but sometimes in reaching for something better we degrade ourselves. “The Front Runner” is the cautionary tale of our collective rise and fall.

Review: "Ralph Breaks the Internet"

“Ralph Breaks the Internet” has more brains than heart. The filmmakers seem to have thought very carefully through the implications of taking throwback arcade game villain (now reformed) Wreck-It Ralph and shooting him into the wild world of the Internet.

It’s represented as a vast, science fiction-y cityscape where every major Internet player has their own building hub -- Google, eBay, SnapChat, etc. People are represented by little blocky icons as they steer through the landscape. Those annoying pop-up ads are street barkers holding up signs imploring folks to click. Likes are hearts, which can translate into actual money. And so on.

(There’s no hint of a sleazier neighborhood, fleshy pursuits taking up an astonishing portion of the real digital domain. But hey, it’s a Disney animated flick.)

I wish the movie had given as much care to its emotional navigation. If the message of “Wreck-It Ralph” was to not put people in the little boxes society assigns them, then the sequel is a mushier muddle about setting someone free if you really love them, or something.

The story picks up six years later, the same amount of time that’s passed between movies. Ralph (John C. Reilly) and pint-sized racer Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) are still fast friends, spending virtually all their downtime when their arcade is closed sloshing root beers and having adventures in various other games. During the daytime they go to “work,” aka starring as characters in their own games.

In the last movie, Vanellope’s game, “Sugar Rush,” was the hot new thing, but time saps everyone’s glow. Vanellope is getting a little tired of winning all the time on the same old tracks. She’s craving the “not knowing what comes next feeling,” while Ralph is content with the same-old, same-old.

When the steering wheel on her game snaps off, the kindly old arcade owner doesn’t have the cash to buy a new one off eBay. So Ralph and Vanellope take a ride on the wifi he recently installed.

Finding out they need money to buy the wheel, they at first stumble upon the idea of acquiring rare items in online games to sell. They invade a post-apocalyptic game called Death Race, and encounter Shank (Gal Gadot), the smooth leader of a road gang whose car they’re supposed to steal. That doesn’t work out, but leads to the idea of making goofy videos starring Ralph to splash all over a YouTube clone with their head algorithm, Yesss (Taraji P. Henson), lending advice.

Things go from there. The movie hits a torpor around the middle, though it picks up soon enough.

By far the most interesting stuff is when Disney pokes fun at itself, represented as a chaotic mishmash of its classic cartoons and IPs it’s acquired in recent years: the Muppets, Marvel Comics, Star Wars. It’s the sort of thing you’ll want to freeze-frame when it comes out on video so you can catch all the Easter Eggs and inside jokes.

This leads to Vanellope, who’s at least nominally a princess, landing in the quarters of all the Disney princesses -- Snow White, Moana, Rapunzel, Belle, you name it, they’re here. Together they share a freewheeling moment where they trade their stiff gowns for comfy sweats and talk about the foibles of their trade.

There’s the downside, like being expected to wait for a strong man to solve all their problems, but also the bliss of finding your perfect dream song.

They actually bring back most of the original voice actresses to reprise their roles. I loved the self-poking fun of even the other princesses being unable to comprehend the thick Scottish brogue of Merida from “Brave.”

The last act gets very action-oriented and super hero-y, which the kiddies will love but I found a little rote. Still, “Ralph Breaks the Internet” is a fun sequel with lots of color and spectacle. It doesn’t quite pass the test of “Did this movie need to exist?” But I don’t mind having it around.

Review: "Little Men"

"Little Men" is a movie about the little moments and in-between spaces of human relationships. It sets out not to spin a complicated plot but to present a small group of people to you and then observe them closely. It's a tender and true portrait of what it's like to be a 13-year-old boy, or a parent of one.

Theo Taplitz and Michael Barbieri play the boys, and they're just magnificent. Honest, unadorned reflections of the awkwardness and cockiness of that age. Taplitz plays Jake, a budding artist who's reserved and thoughtful, a tiny bit alienated. Barbieri is Tony, outspoken and outgoing, delighting us with a New York patois filled with verbal idiosyncrasies and rhythms.

Tony, not surprisingly, wants to be an actor. They both aspire to get into a fancy Manhattan arts high school.

Jake's parents are Brian (Greg Kinnear, in fine form), an actor who labors for his craft but earns little income doing it, and Kathy (Jennifer Ehle), a psychotherapist who acts as the family's even keel. Tony's only parent is Paulina (Leonor Calvelli), a Chilean expat who runs a quaint little dress shop in Brooklyn.

The group is brought together by the death of Brian's father, who owned the shop building shop and the apartment above, where Brian grew up. They decide to leave their pricey Manhattan place to take up residence there. Their interactions with Paulina are pleasant if a little distant. But Tony and Jake become instant best friends.

Director Ira Sachs ("Love Is Strange"), who co-wrote the original script with Mauricio Zacharias, has an intrinsic feel for the outlook and emotionality of young teenagers. It's a tough age for boys (or anyone), caught between school, girls, video games and parents. Tony feels the pull to maintain a sense of bravado, so he instigates a fight against a friend in the face of some harmless teasing. Jake is more an observer and introvert, so having someone like Tony to push and pull him into socializing is beneficial.

I adored the moment where Tony plucks up the courage to ask a classmate out while they're dancing in a crowded club and she tells him she's "into older men." (Like what? A 17-year-old? Honey, 17-year-olds don't want to date 13-year-olds unless some of their wiring is crossed.) Rather than going screwy with anger, Tony simply says, "Thank you for being honest," then slinks away.

The trouble arises when it comes time to renew the lease for Leonor's store. Brian's dad never raised the rent, so the $1,100 a month she's paying is seriously under-market in a hip gentrifying neighborhood. Brian's more mercenary sister, Audrey (Talia Balsam), insists they could get $5,000. He's a decent man but they could use the money. He offers an in-between price.

When presented with this problem, Leonor tends to just... disappear. She avoids conversations, or steers it in another direction. When eventually confronted, she goes into long speeches about how much Brian's father appreciated having her there, how her ship is a staple of the neighborhood. When this doesn't work she grows more subtly caustic, insinuating the Brian's father questioned his manhood because his wife brings in almost all their family income.

Leonor likes to think of herself as the voice of wisdom, valuing the community over the individual -- but she's got a streak of steel in her, too. Meanwhile, Leonor's friend the lawyer (Alfred Molina) takes a look at the paperwork, ratcheting up tensions.

The boys react to the conflict by drawing closer to each other. They make a pact not to speak to their parents until the matter is resolved. The trio of grownups try to brush off this minor rebellion, but their patience eventually wears thin. (There's only so much nodding a parent can take at the dinner table.)

"Little Men" is a movie of small revelations, not any big "aha" moment. Things end on an ambiguous note, because that's how life mostly plays out. It's a story of people intersecting -- sometimes hugging, sometimes abrading against each other.

Video review: "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"

It crashed and burned at the box office, but “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” is a wry and disturbing look at the underbelly of wartime journalism.

Tina Fey plays Kim Baker, a trepid reporter sent to cover Afghanistan in the years after the American invasion. At first put off by the threatening surroundings, alien fundamentalist culture and hard-partying ways of her fellow expats, she eventually learns to “embrace the suck” until the insane feels normal.

Very loosely based on a memoir by Kim Barker – I’m not really sure what the one-letter name change accomplishes – it’s a dark comedy with some surprisingly dramatic notes.

(If you’re wondering about the title, it’s NATO phonetic alphabet as used by the military; take the first letters of each word to obtain an all-encompassing acronym.)

Kim is a struggling cable TV news producer of a certain age who finds her life stuck. On a whim she accepts an assignment to Kabul, intending to stay three months but eventually signing on for the long haul. She struggles to adapt to life here, where foreign journalists all live in the same compound, drinking, dancing and sleeping together.

Tanya, a stunning veteran played by Margot Robbie, helpfully informs Kim that while she may be a “5 or 6” on the attractiveness scale in New York, here in the macho male-dominated “Kabubble” she’s at least a 9. Kim resists the urge to fall into people’s beds and instead racks up some impressive scoops with the help of Fahim (Christopher Abbott), a smart and sensitive local man who acts as her interpreter and “fixer.”

There is also a charming scamp of a Scottish photographer (Martin Freeman) offering his services, both professional and personal; a powerful Afghan official (Alfred Molina) trading in similar wares, though he wants to trade his for hers; and Hollanek (Billy Bob Thornton), a severe Marine general who views Kim as another annoyance but eventually develops something resembling… grudging tolerance.

“This war is like f***ing a gorilla,” he offers, when asked about the state of the conflict. “You keep going until the gorilla wants to stop.”

It may not be as smart and sharp as, say, “Broadcast News,” but “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” provides a funny peek behind the curtain of those foreign reports we see on television – usually just for a moment before we change the channel.

We’ve cheered and wept aplenty about our foreign adventures over the last decade and a half, so here is a welcome chance to laugh a little, too.

Video extras are quite good, though you’ll have to spring for the Blu-ray upgrade to get them: the DVD contains exactly zero.

With the Blu-ray you get deleted and extended scenes plus a comprehensive making-of documentary, “All In.” There are also featurettes on the real Kim Barker, how the military embeds journalists, Afghan weddings and the vices foreign correspondents use to cope with the threat of constant danger.

Movie: B
Extras: B+

Video review: "Strange Magic"

“Strange Magic” was a 15-year passion project by George Lucas, who said he wanted to make a movie for his daughters after all those science fiction odysseys. This animated musical filled with fairies and goblins and elves, though, ends up as a derivative and largely joyless romp through the enchanted forest.

The animation is decent to look at, with Lucas’ animation outfits in Singapore and California combining efforts. And it’s got an impressive voice cast, including Evan Rachel Wood, Alan Cumming, Kristin Chenoweth, Alfred Molina, Elijah Kelley and Maya Rudolph.

The story centers on Marianne (Wood), heiress to the fairy throne. She rejects her fiancé,  Roland (Sam Palladio), for being a cad, then is horrified when her sister, Dawn, is kidnapped by the evil Bog King (Cumming). His realm is the dank and shadowy antithesis to the fairy world of light and laughter. But somewhere in that crusty old chitinous shell is the beating heart of a guy who’s been knocked around by love.

There’s also the Sugar Plum Fairy (Chenoweth) creating love potions that wreak havoc, a love-smitten elf (Kelley), and the Bog King’s scolding mom (Rudolph), who just wants her son to settle down with a nice frog.

“Strange Magic” seems like an excuse to have faeries and princesses and goblins and get them all to burst into pop music standards, including the title tune. At times it seems like the characters finish a song, speak six lines of dialogue, and then start singing again. The story is just a weak thread in between the warbling.

Little kids might like it, but this is one for parents to pop in the DVD player and leave to go do other things.

Video extras are pretty skimpy. They consist of two making-of featurettes: “Magical Mash Up: Outtakes, Test and Melodies” and “Creating the Magic.”

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Video review: "Monsters University"

Between “Planes” and “Monsters University,” the Pixar/Disney animation empire appears to be stuck in a rut. Once a fountainhead of original storytelling and innovative characters, lately they’ve been spinning out sequels that seemed to spring more from the minds of the marketing department than the creative wing of Walt’s shop.

“Monsters University” is a perfect example of the current state of Pixar -- an agreeable romp aimed squarely at the kindergarten-and-down crowd. It features a lot of cool screwy monsters, the estimable vocal talents of Billy Crystal and John Goodman, and not much else.

We’re going back in time to the college days of green, one-eyed ovoid Mike Wazowski (Crystal) and hirsute blue BMOC Sully (Goodman). Instead of pals they’re rivals squaring off to see who is the best scarer around.

When the top fraternities won’t take them, they’re forced to join the unhallowed ranks of Oozma Kappa, a frat full of losers that includes a middle-aged salesman, a two-headed monster with a split personality and a flaky dude who looks like a big purple “U.”

Playing the heavy is Helen Mirren as Hardscrabble, the old-school dean who doesn’t exactly take a shine to the big-headed frosh pair. She throws Sully and Mike out of the scare program, and to get back in they’ve got to pull together a team of reject monsters and win first prize at the annual Greek contest.

It’s mostly old hat, with a few funny bits and life-lessons moments. It gets a passing grade.

Video extras are quite good – provided you’re willing to spring for the more expensive Blu-ray/DVD combo. The DVD contains only with an audio commentary track and “The Blue Umbrella,” a charming little Pixar short film.

The Blu-ray package adds deleted scenes and nine making-of featurettes, including how to “age down” monsters who appeared in the original “Monsters, Inc.”

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Review: "Monsters University"

I've always thought "Monsters, Inc." was the most underrated of the Pixar films. It came out the same years as "Shrek," which grabbed the Academy Award for animated feature and most of the limelight. But it was a sweet, playful story with a smart twist on the scary monsters every child imagines is hiding in their closet.

The sequel, or rather prequel, arrives 12 years later and can't meet the high standard set by its predecessor, though it's still an enjoyable romp. Since "Inc." pretty much wrapped up all the troubles facing that universe -- with the monsters switching to making tykes laugh instead of scream to solve their energy crisis -- there wasn't anywhere to go, story-wise.

Solution: go backward!

So we tag along as green, one-eyed cue ball Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) and furry blue behemoth James P. Sullivan (John Goodman) make their debut as freshmen on the campus of "Monsters University." Rather than best buds, they're rivals competing for status as the big scarer on campus (BSOC?).

There's an unavoidable disconnect here, since we know all the sweat and toil they put into horrifying kids will eventually come to naught. And Crystal and Goodman, two guys in their 60s trying to pass vocally as teenagers, sound like ... two guys in their 60s straining at the upper ends of their voice range.

Randall, the fearsome disappearing serpent voiced by Steve Buscemi, turns up in a bit part as Mike's awkward roommate, who falls in with the misguided popular crowd. It seems a poor use of a really good character.

The animation is terrific, and we get to see some more crazy variations of monster biology, including a snail student who races to get to class on time, unsuccessfully. I'd advise you to skip the 3D upgrade, since it doesn't really seem to add much to the spectacle.

The story boils down to a pretty standard college comedy, though toned down for a G rating compatible with even the smallest audience members. There are familiar jocks-versus-nerds contests, dissimilar fraternity brothers finding an unlikely bond, and even a scary dean cracking down on all the fun.

The dean, named Hardscrabble, is voiced by Helen Mirren and is the best creation in the new movie. She scritches about on chitinous legs with an insectoid torso, flies around on bat wings and always seems to be standing so her face is cast in shadow. Neat trick, that.

Hardscrabble, a legendary scarer in her own right, doesn't think either Mike or Sulley has what it takes. So they're forced to enter, and win, the annual Greek Scare Games in order to get back into her loathsome graces.

Rebuffed by the top fraternities, the boys have to join up with Oozma Kappa, a lame bunch of reject monsters ("We're O.K.!"). They include Don (Joel Murray), a tentacled middle-aged salaryman giving college another try; Squishy (Peter Sohn), a multiple-eyed pile of goop with a confidence problem; Art (Charlie Day), a dippy hippie type who looks like an inverted "U" with purple fur and four hands; and Terri/Terry (Sean Hayes and Dave Foley), a two-headed dude who doesn't always agree with himself.

There's some nice byplay as Sulley and Mike butt ... well, cranial surfaces. (Mike doesn't really have a head, unless you count his whole body as one.) The set-up is that Sullivan is the natural talent from a prodigious family of scarers who tries to skate by without trying, while Mike is a grind who knows the academia of fright in and out, but lacks that certain something.

Director Dan Scanlon and fellow screenwriters Robert L. Baird and Daniel Gerson are Pixar backbenchers called up for a turn at bat, and they acquit themselves without swinging for the fences. "Monsters University" is a reasonably fun, not terribly original but never boring ride with a pair of old, likable chums.

Note: the film is preceded by a 7-minute short, "The Blue Umbrella," written and directed by Saschka Unseld. It's about everyday city objects secretly coming to life, and it's a charming mix of hyper-realistic animation and cartoony tropes.

Video review: "Rango"

I can't think of a movie I had more fun at so far in 2011 than "Rango," a loopy, occasionally psychedelic animated flick starring Johnny Depp as a bug-eyed lizard. A domesticated pet who lives in a terrarium and invents companions and theatrical productions to amuse himself, he's literally a chameleon, and not just when it comes to the shade of his pebbly skin.

He ends up lost in the Mojave and stumbles into the town of Dirt, populated by every manner of desert critter imaginable. Things are tough in Dirt -- there's a gang of tunneling thieves waiting on the edge of town, a local crime boss looking for newcomers to squish, and the rumor of a slithery gunslinger named Rattlesnake Jake heading back their way.

Through a combination of wild circumstance and his own even more far-fetched boasting, the lizard finds himself appointed sheriff of Dirt, dubbing himself Rango to better suit his new role. Of course, there are all those aforementioned troubles that he's now expected to tackle.

Although kids will surely enjoy it, "Rango" is really a cartoon for adults, stuffed with highbrow humor and sly pop culture references.

Please note, "Rango" hits video outlets on Friday, July 15.

Video features are quite impressive, and you don't have to spring for the top-of-the-line edition to get good stuff.

The DVD version includes both the theatrical version of "Rango" plus an extended cut. To accompany both versions is a feature-length commentary track by director Gore Verbinski and several of his key crew members. There's also a collection of 10 deleted scenes, including an alternate ending, and an educational short about desert animals.

Opt for the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack and you add a number of other goodies, including a digital copy of the film. There's also a virtual tour of Dirt, a doc about this first foray into feature-length animation by Industrial Light & Magic, and a picture-in-picture feature where you can watch the movie in storyboard form.

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

Review: "Rango"

A neon-colored, sun-baked fantasia that's part Western spoof and part surrealist jag through the desert with Johnny Depp as our theatrically unhinged, reptilian tour guide, "Rango" is anything but your standard kiddie animated flick.

It's hard to believe this is the same team behind those "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, which by the first sequel had devolved into formulaic schlock without a shred of story structure. But director Gore Verbinski, Depp and screenwriter John Logan have joined forces for one of the daffiest and most original animated features in a long, long time.

Maybe it's because "Rango," the story of a domesticated lizard who stumbles into a spaghetti Western, didn't issue forth from one of the animation giants like Disney/Pixar, DreamWorks or Blue Sky. It's a partnership between Nickelodeon, Verbinski's production company and George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic, a special effects outfit making its first foray into computer-generated cartoons.

All I can say is, based on everything from the dazzling details on the numerous critters' parched faces to the multihued splendor of the arid landscapes to the crisply-paced action scenes, the ILM gang has announced themselves with authority. The animation in "Rango" -- which doesn't fall back on any cheap 3-D tricks, by the way -- is as good as, or better, than anything Pixar and the gang are doing right now.

Depp voices the lonely lizard passing his days inside his terrarium, imagining himself up some friends for his theatrical productions, in a scene that recalls Jack Sparrow trapped in Davy Jones' Locker in "PotC: At World's End." The film is filled to the brim with references to other movies, including a drive-by homage to "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

After a mishap leaves him by the side of the road in the Mojave, our scaly friend with a penchant for changing identities as easily as he can shift colors winds up in the town of Dirt.

The townsfolk, comprising every manner of reptile, bird, arachnid and mammal native to the desert, are suffering through a horrid drought and an even worse funk. When our lizard friend accidentally sends a local marauder to boot hill, he's given the job of sheriff.

He dubs himself Rango, and quickly creates the persona of a Clint Eastwood-esque Man from Nowhere. Rango is delighted at his new status -- not to mention the attentions of Miss Beans (Isla Fisher), a local rancher who has a tendency to freeze up when flustered.

As he bedecks himself in increasingly flamboyant gunslinger garb and spins outrageous tales about killing the evil Jensen brothers with one bullet -- all seven of them -- we begin to wonder if the attention-craving Rango's noodle wasn't already cooked before he ever set a three-toed foot in the desert.

Of course, bigger challenges await. There's a local bully (Ray Winstone) in need of standing up to, a pack of tunneling varmint thieves on the outskirts of town led by a blind mole (Harry Dean Stanton), and a power-hungry Mayor (Ned Beatty) who appears to have been lifted directly out of "Chinatown," right down to the white 10-gallon hat and watery schemes of John Huston's iconic Noah Cross ... except now he's a turtle.

Even worse is the rumor of a dead-eye outlaw named Rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy) slithering back into town with the tumbleweeds.

It's a loopy, fun ride as we follow Rango on his (mis)adventures, including a posse hunt that culminates in an epic chase sequence complete with mounted bats and Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" arranged for banjos. Even more unexpected is the hallucinogenic amusement of several dream-slash-vision-quest scenes so bursting with colors and freaky-deaky images, I half expected melting clocks to ooze onto the screen.

A wild mishmash of Sergio Leone and Salvador Dali with an all-critter cast, "Rango" is what happens when animators forget about borders and just ride off into whatever sunset their imaginations take them.

3.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time"

This summer's crop of movies featured a lot of disappointments. But one I think just about everyone saw coming was "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time."

An action/adventure from king of schlock Jerry Bruckheimer? Based on a video game? Set in the ancient deserts of Persia? With no actual Persians among the principal cast?

When one considers the progeny of this sun-baked disaster, the question becomes not where did everything go wrong, but how did anyone ever think it would go right.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Dastan, a street urchin-turned-adopted prince of the realm. While sacking an enemy city he finds a magical dagger that can transport the bearer back in time one minute, so they can change the course of events to their favor. Soon Dastan and the dagger's guardian, Tamina (Gemma Arterton), are on the run with everyone pursuing them.
Alfred Molina is worth a few yucks as a criminally-minded sheik who despises how the government is taxing his ostrich racetrack.

Mostly, though, it's a stupefying sequence of action scenes where Dastan -- or at least Gyllenhaal's obvious stunt double -- acrobatically leaps about the screen, clashing swords and getting his derring-do on.

I like video games. And I love movies. But the two just weren't meant to be together.
Bonus features are rather skimpy in the DVD version, but perk up somewhat in Blu-ray.

The DVD comes only with a making-of documentary that touches on various aspects of production. The single-disc Blu-ray also comes with a single deleted scene: A banquet involving the serving of heads that sounds suspiciously similar to the "monkey brains" scene in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom."

The Blu-ray/DVD combo pack has both these features, plus "The Sands of Time," an interactive feature that links to about 40 featurettes about the making of the film.

Movie: 1.5 stars
Extras: 2 stars

Review: "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"

I know what you're thinking: A live-action feature film version of a sequence from a 70-year-old cartoon starring Mickey Mouse and a bunch of ensorcelled brooms?

With Nic Cage in glib blockbuster mode? Reteamed with "National Treasure" director Jon Turteltaub? And Jerry "boom baby" Bruckheimer producing?

It almost sounds like a practical joke. But don't forget Disney previously leveraged a kitschy theme park ride with cheesy animatronic pirates into a multi-billion-dollar franchise.

The good news is the resulting movie is anything but cynical. It's a goofy, silly thrill ride without a thought in its pretty little head.

The fun parts of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" are really, really enjoyable. The parts that aren't fun really make you wish they would get back to the good stuff. The ratio of fun to not-so-fun isn't quite high enough for me to recommend the movie, but it's a lot better than first impressions might suggest.

Cage plays Balthazar Blake, an ancient sorcerer and one of three apprentices to the great Merlin, who was undone by his arch enemy Morgana (Alice Krige) with the help of Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina), another of Merlin's pupils. Horvath went turncoat when his affections for the third apprentice, Veronica (Monica Bellucci), were rebuffed in favor of Balthazar.

In 740 A.D., Veronica trapped her soul along with Morgana's in the Grimhold, a prison inside a magic nesting doll. Over the years, Balthazar has imprisoned many of the evil Morganian magicians inside successive layers of the doll. He's spent the last millennium searching for the Prime Merlinian, the greatest sorcerer in history who will take up Merlin's dragon ring and put an end to Morgana forever.

Balthazar thinks he's found his candidate in Dave Stutler, a physics student with a severe confidence problem. Played by Jay Baruchel, Dave is a collection of tics and shrugs who can't even summon the courage to ask out his dream girl Becky (Teresa Palmer), let alone wield powerful magic in battle against evildoers.

Dave becomes a student to Balthazar, who teaches that science and magic are essentially the same thing, just focused by a sorcerer wearing a special ring. Dave's a screw-up at first, his spells fizzling or bouncing off the walls.

Turteltaub and his trio of screenwriters do include an homage to the animated sequence from "Fantasia," in which Dave zaps a bunch of mops into cleaning up his dank underground laboratory, with predictable results. You know it's coming, but I'm still glad the filmmakers included it.

Cage and Baruchel have a nice chemistry together, with Dave subtly mocking Balthazar's taste for long leather coats and pointy "old man" shoes. Dave's been told he's a loser his whole life, so when this strange guy pops out of nowhere and starts talking about him being mankind's savior, he can't quite swallow it.

Despite only a few days (apparently) of training, Dave soon turns into a half-decent sorcerer, and even gets Becky to notice him. Meanwhile, Horvath recruits his own sidekick, a Chris Angel-type magician/metrosexual who traded his meager sorcery skills for fame and fortune.

Everything builds toward a showdown with Horvath and the resurrected Morgana, who plan to raise an army of the undead, blanketing the land with evil, yada yada.

Was "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" necessary? No. The spell it casts over the audience is a silly one, but it doesn't totally fizzle.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time"

"Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" is a big-budget action movie about a magic dagger that can transport its bearer backward in time. I can certainly think of 116 minutes I'd love to have back.

This bewilderingly bad offering from the house of Jerry Bruckheimer is based on a video game. The lineage of movies spawned thusly is not a noble one, and "Prince of Persia" competes for the top spot at the bottom of a deep trough.

How awful do things get? Well, let's start with the fact that star Jake Gyllenhaal does that annoying thing American actors do when they don't want to attempt a foreign accent: A generic English lilt that summons painful aural memories involving Kevin Costner and archery.

I guess Gyllenhaal can't be blamed, since he's the only Yank in an entirely British cast of principles. I'm hardly a disciple of political correctness, but methinks if you're going to have a movie called "Prince of Persia," you might want to have at least one actual Persian.

The video game (actually, a series) involved lots of sword-fighting and acrobatic jumping and tumbling, and director Mike Newell stages his action scenes (clumsily) to look like Gyllenhaal is in the middle of a really challenging level of the game, and we're directing him with our controller.

The intercutting between Gyllenhaal and his stuntmen is pretty obvious, as the professional busts some of those gravity-defying parkour moves, transplanted from an urban setting to pre-Christendom Arabia. Then we cut back to the star touching down.

The plot, courtesy of three screenwriters, is a whirling dervish of pseudo-history and made-up mythology.

Tus (Richard Coyle), the crown prince of Persia, orders his troops to invade the city of Alamut after discovering some trumped-up evidence they're secretly forging weapons. Dastan (Gyllenhaal), the youngest brother whom the king adopted as a street urchin, is the hero of the battle, even though he opposed the attack.

Dastan finds a magic dagger that contains the Sands of Time. When you press a button on the hilt, you travel backward in time one minute, and can prevent bad things from happening. The sands are consumed, but Tamina (Gemma Arterton), the Alamutian princess, is the dagger's guardian and knows how to get more.

The king is fatally poisoned, and Dastan catches the blame, forcing he and Tamina to flee for their lives, ratcheting up a standard-issue love/hate relationship. I won't reveal who the real villain is, other than to point out Ben Kingsley is hanging around, playing the uncle and wearing a lot of eyeliner. Just sayin'.

Alfred Molina turns up as a shady sheikh who runs an ostrich-racing operation, has a deadly African knife guy as his best friend, and delivers a lot of angry tirades about the government taking all his money through taxes to spend on stuff he doesn't like. I think the Tea Party just found its Adam.

Anyway, things devolve into a seemingly endless series of battles and acrobatics, with everybody trying to get their hands on the dagger -- and the fate of the entire world hanging in the balance, of course.

And speaking of that dagger: If the wielder goes back in time a minute, wouldn't the dagger also travel backward, and thus still have its sand? So theoretically you could just keep pushing the button over and over. Maybe even ... 116 times?

1.5 stars out of four

Review: "An Education"

I had never heard of Carey Mulligan before seeing "An Education." But I'm quite sure many people will know her name after her breakthrough performance in this film, one of the finest onscreen portrayals of 2009.

Mulligan has been in a few things, most notably one of the younger sisters in 2005's "Pride & Prejudice." But in her role as Jenny, a British teen girl who finds herself unexpectedly romanced by an older man, Mulligan blooms like a flower opening its petals to newfound light.

It's like watching Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman," or Angelina Jolie in "Girl, Interrupted" -- you know you're witnessing the arrival of a major new acting talent.

I'm not quite over the moon about the movie as a whole, however.

It's based on the autobiographical novel by Lynn Barber, adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby and directed by Danish director Lone Sherfig. It's the sort of movie that's enjoyable for the excellent execution by the cast and filmmakers, and not because of the freshness of an innovative story.

As much as I was thrilled by Mulligan's performance, the film suffers for the predictability of its conclusion. Think of it as a well-worn path, expertly navigated.

It's 1961, and Jenny is a hard-working, smart girl of working-class origins whose entire life is ordered around getting into Oxford to study English. Her parents (Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour) follow her grades and extracurricular activities as if they have no other interests in life.

One rainy day she bumps into David (Peter Sarsgaard), a suave man about 20 years older who drives a sleek sports car and gives her a ride. He's intrigued by the witty girl so eager to discover the world -- especially France -- and arranges to bump into her again. Soon they're dating.

It's really interesting how David slyly ingratiates himself with Jenny's parents. If you just presented them with the idea of their beloved girl dating a man twice her years (and a Jew to boot), they would probably react with horror. But because David presents himself as smart, well-connected, affluent -- in other words, the epitome of their aspirations for Jenny -- they practically glom onto him.

The teachers (notably Olivia Williams) and headmistress (Emma Thompson) at Jenny's school assail her with warnings about throwing away her future, but she's enraptured by the opportunity to travel, wear fancy dresses and hobnob with David's chic friends (Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike).

There's a great scene where Jenny demands her instructors tell why she must spend the next few years doing something "hard and boring," if her only reward is a job like theirs that continues the drudgery. It's a rebel yell in lilting British tones, an outcry against Jenny's own situation and the societal limitations placed on mid-century women with brains and gumption.

Inevitably, Jenny's fling with David replaces her textbooks as her crucible of learning. She gets a hint of dark tidings when he and his pal steal a painting, revealing themselves as rogues who appreciate art for its monetary rather than spiritual value.

And without overtly giving away the ending ... well, think of the most obvious outcome possible, and you've got it.

Still, "An Education" is a worthwhile film because it will be remembered as Carey Mulligan's coming-out party. Audiences, like teachers, always revel when a star pupil announces herself.

3 stars