Video review: "It: Chapter Two"

I liked the first “It,” even though it had a very derivative Goonies-meets-Stand By Me-meets-Stranger Things vibe to it. It’s about a bunch of kids who battle an ancient evil spirit that takes the form of a wicked clown, eating flesh and swallowing souls. It was moody and scary as heck, with Bill Skarsgård seriously stoking nightmares as Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

The sequel, “Chapter Two,” picks up 27 years later with the kids all 40ish adults to once again battle Pennwise, aka “It.” And it’s an often dull, discombobulated mess.

Let’s start with the fact the movie is nearly three hours long. The list of horror movies that run three hours is very short, and the ones that are any good is an even shorter, possibly empty enumeration.

It relies way too much on “jump scares,” aka sudden bursts of something bursting out at you rather than building a pervasive mood of dread. And characters, who were distinctive and interesting as kids, are rather drab and indistinct as adults. A few I had trouble telling apart.

They are:

• Bill (James McAvoy), the leader of the self-named Losers Club and now a mystery novelist;
• Beverly (Jessica Chastain), the only girl who overcame abuse to become a fashion designer;
• Richie (Bill Hader), the mouthy one who became a stand-up comic;
• Mike (Isaiah Mustafa), the quiet, resilient one who become the town librarian;
• Ben (Jay Ryan), the chubby, shy writer kid who is now a ripped architect;
• Eddie (James Ransone), the hypochondriac of the group;
• Stanley (Andy Bean), the pragmatic one who kinda gets lost in the mix.

As the story opens in the present day, all of the Losers except Mike left their hometown of Derry, which seems to have an overabundance of children who go missing over the years. These wave of kidnappings -- never solved -- coincide with the return of Pennywise to feed on his pet prey.

“It: Chapter Two” isn’t particularly scary, and many of the adult characters are just plain annoying. It’s one thing to root for kids, and another to be bored by the adults they turned into.

The Blu-ray combo pack contains the following special features:

• “Pennywise Lives Again!”
• “This Meeting of the Losers Club Has Officially Begun”
• “Finding the Deadlights”
• “The Summers of IT: Chapter One, You’ll Float Too”
• “The Summers of IT: Chapter Two, IT Ends”
• Commentary with Director Andy Muschietti

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Video review: "The Angry Birds Movie 2"

I’m not sure if we needed a second Angry Birds movie. Heck, I’m not sure if the first one was really necessary. But it made a lot of money, so here’s a second helping.

If you’ll recall from the based-on-a-video game setup: a diverse array of flightless birds live happily on an island. They are constantly beset by their enemies, the bright green pigs from across the waters who want their eggs.

Red, the hot-headed outcast voiced by Jason Sudeikis, managed to devise a way to beat the porcine interlopers, led by King Leonard (Bill Hader), and earn a little status among his peers, too.

Now they find a common enemy in Zeta (Leslie Jones), who leads a secretive third island inhabited by eagles. It’s a frozen wasteland, and she wants to take over the other two islands to improve her chilly digs.

Also returning are zippy speed bird Chuck (Josh Gad); Danny McBride as the amiable but volatile Bomb; Peter Dinklage as Mighty Eagle, the past-his-prime hero of Bird Island; and Silver, a more conscientious bird (Rachel Bloom).

“The Angry Birds 2” is low-ambition animated fodder for kiddies. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I’m all in favor of families having wholesome stuff on Blu-ray/DVD when you just need the kids to settle down for a while.

I just wish people could try a little harder than this.

Bonus features are quite healthy, and include a new short film, “Live Stream,” as well as six mini-movies starring the Hatchlings -- a crew of cutesy young birds who get into scrapes during the movie.

There’s also a travelogue of the real birds who inspired the animators; Thanksgiving featurette; a Christmas-themed singalong; a making-of documentary short, and more. There are also three DYI family features on how to make your own pig snot, volcano and popcorn balls.

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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: "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.

Video review: "Sausage Party"

I have heard “Sausage Party” described as one of the best movies of the year, by people whose opinion I respect. I’ve heard it called a smutty smear of cinematic excrement. Both descriptions leave me puzzled.

Certainly, “Sausage Party” is foul-mouthed, foul-minded, foul-humored, just… foul. It’s in the “dirty animated movie” tradition of “Fritz the Cat,” “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut” and the like. Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Salma Hayak, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, Michael Cera and a host of other big names give voice to pieces of anthropomorphized food living in the grocery store who dream of one day being bought and taken home with humans.

To them, it’s their very reason for existence, their ticket to “the Great Beyond.” Little do they know that their destiny involves being chewed up and swallowed. Of course, they soon find out about their gruesome fate and set out to escape it.

Rogen and Wiig are the centerpieces as Frank and Brenda, who are a hot dog and bun with a burning desire to one day be together. Along the way there’s plenty of violence, cursing, and the whole thing culminates in a massive food orgy. Yeah.

Let’s put it this way: the villain is a real douche -- as in, the feminine hygiene product.

There are certainly some funny moments in “Sausage Party.” And the movie is more thoughtful than you might initially think, with some clever observations on how our political, ethnic and religious divides are largely constructed illusions.

In the end, though, it’s a breezily entertaining flick that will pass the time, but deserves neither the accolades or vitriol that have been heaved its way.

Bonus features are pretty good, though some of them are only available as digital downloads available through certain retailers. These include an alternative ending that occurs in the real (non-animated) world.

The DVD comes with a making-of doc, “Animation Imaginatorium,” as well as three featurettes. The Blu-ray adds another featurette, appropriately titled, “Shock and Awe: How Did This Get Made?” Plus a gag reel and “Line-O-Rama.”

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Video review: "Maggie's Plan"

A smart and sharp comedy with a streak of insightful social commentary, “Maggie’s Plan” is the latest starring Greta Gerwig, the current queen of indies. Writer/director Rebecca Miller fashions a story that’s funny, sad -- even enraging at times – about the conflicting choices young women face these days.

Maggie is an accomplished woman who has a great job, great friends (Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph) and an overall wonderful life. The one thing she’s lousy at his relationships. But she hears the tick-tick-tick of that biological clock, and determines to have a baby on her own. She arranges a donor and seems headed for a life of bliss as a mother.

But then she falls for John (Ethan Hawke), a brilliant but troublesome academic who wants out of his miserable marriage to Georgette (Julianne Moore), a domineering type. Flash forward a couple of years, and Maggie now has a wondrous little girl, takes care of John’s kids… and John, too. He’s writing a novel that will never be finished, and Maggie finds herself burdened with an extended family she didn’t really plan on.

So she hatches a scheme to get John and Georgette back together. He’s like a car she bought that, showing a bunch of knocks and pings once it got down the road a bit, she’s looking to trade into the dealership.

“Maggie’s Plan” is very funny, with wonderful performances by the three main actors. Mina Sundwall also is terrific as John’s teenage daughter, who knows a lot more about what’s going on than the adults do.

But the film goes the extra mile to explore these people and their confounded relationships, and question whether having a spouse is really necessary to a rewarding life as a parent.

Bonus features are decent. Miller provides a feature-length audio commentary track; there are funny outtakes; a Q&A at the Sundance Film Festival; and a making-of documentary short.

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Video review: "The Angry Birds Movie"

“The Angry Birds Movie” is an exemplar of the generational divide: I loathe it, but my kids love it.

Since the Blu-ray showed up in the mail, my 5-year-old has watched it twice and asked about a third, at which point a parent’s protective instincts kick in. The quality of entertainment for children has gone through the roof since my day, so lazy and inept stuff like this is even more egregious.

People like to disparage movies based on video games as dredging the bottom of the cultural barrel. But Angry Birds isn’t even a real video game, in the same way that tic-tac-toe bears little resemblance to Monopoly. It’s a smartphone app in which birds hurl themselves via a giant slingshot at the buildings and other structures of evil green pigs.

(Oddly, no one has ever thought to question why none of these birds have functioning wings. I mean, you figure any multicultural bird community is going to have a few penguins, ostriches and the odd emu here and there. But 100% flightless? Darwin says, “Uh uh.”)

Directors Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly and screenwriter Jon Vitti give us a paint-by-numbers cast and story. Red (voice of Jason Sudeikis) is a bird with anger management problems and the ostensible hero. His buddies include Chuck, a motor-mouth yellow guy voiced by Josh Gad, and Bomb (Danny McBride), who does as his name implies when he gets excited.

There’s also Terence, a massive red fellow who just growls at everyone, never speaking. He’s voiced (if you can call it that) by Sean Penn.

When the pigs land on bird island, they befriend the locals before making off with all their eggs. Bill Hader does the voice of Leonard, their smarmy leader. It’s only a matter of time before Red and company follow them back home and start slinging themselves at piggy places.

Perhaps the film’s only genuine laugh is provided by Peter Dinklage as Mighty Eagle, the mascot/mythical protector of the birds, who lives the high life up in his eyrie.

The rest is a generic jumble of fart jokes and zippy pratfalls. It’s just lazy moviemaking.

But enough parents got dragged to the theater by their kids to make this a huge hit, so get ready for the sequel. In the meantime, “The Angry Birds Movie” is the sort of thing you set your little guys up with in the living with some popcorn, and go get 97 minutes to yourself.

Bonus features are middling. With the DVD there is a single deleted scene; the Blake Shelton music video, “Friends”; character sketch gallery; music vignettes with composer Heitor Pareira; and a “symphony mode” where you can watch the movie with only music.

Upgrade to the Blu-ray version and you add five making-of featurettes; more deleted scenes; several mini-movies featuring the Hatchlings characters; and the short film, “The Early Hatchling Gets the Worm.”

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Review: "The BFG"

“The BFG” is a homecoming of sorts, with director Steven Spielberg reuniting with “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” screenwriter Melissa Mathison for the first time. (And, alas, the last: she passed away last year.) The theme and tone of the films are very similar, about lonely children bonding with a fantastical creature who helps them take their first steps into a bigger world.

Based on the Roald Dahl book, it’s a dreamy and delightful tale in which actor Mark Rylance, who won an Oscar playing for Spielberg in last year’s “Bridge of Spies,” is transformed into a 40-foot-tall giant through motion capture and computer animation.

Known simply as the “Big Friendly Giant” -- in contrast to his nine fellows, who are crude and crave human flesh -- BFG is a cheerily odd fellow with enormous ears and (for his sort) an intellectual bent.

Though he has a habit of using words all wrong or making up new ones to substitute -- “gobblefunk,” Dahl called it -- BFG is thoughtful and kind. His “work” involves catching dreams, represented as colorful balls of spritely energy, and blowing them into the bedrooms of humans using his trumpet. He can also hear most everything owing to his outsized ears -- even, he says, the very stars.

Ruby Barnhill plays Sophie, a young British orphan who spots the BFG at his labors one night. Fearing discovery, he snatches Sophie and takes her to Giant Country, a place of indeterminate geography where he and the other giants live, pilfering human stuff (and sometimes humans) for their amusement.

Sophie, a brave and inquisitive lass, is fearful but intrigued, and figures living with an affable giant certainly beats life at the orphanage. But the threat of discovery from the other giants is ever-present. Even more disturbing, it is apparent that BFG has repeated this act of stealing himself a companion before, with tragic results.

The CGI is just fantastic, married with Rylance’s tender performance. BFG’s quizzical smile, dash of thinning gray hair and crane’s neck make him seem strangely authentic.

Mathison’s script is similarly a marvel, beckoning us in as we explore the spectacle of the giants’ world, but then going further and developing themes about bullying. Indeed, BFG is a mere stripling compared to the other giants, who call him “runt” and mercilessly push him around. Jemaine Clement brings a growly, threatening aspect to their loathsome chief, Fleshlumpeater.

Kids will love the goofy antics and kooky language, which the film frequently combines. For instance, BFG ferments a green drink from snozzcumbers, the vile vegetable he is forced to eat, which he calls throbscottle. The bubbles flow downward instead of up, and instead of burps (which giants find rude) you get… uh, prodigiously forceful emissions from the other end (which giants celebrate heartily).

If you think it’s funny when it happens to BFG, wait’ll you see how the Queen reacts.

Oh yes, I forget to mention this is the sort of tale where the Queen of England herself shows up as a character, along with nice, helpful servants (Rebecca Miller, Rafe Spall). Sophie gets the idea to mix up one of BFG’s dream brews to induce “your Majester,” as he puts it, to lend a hand with Fleshlumpeater & Co.

In a lot of ways “The BFG” is the completion of full circle for Spielberg, who made his name as a wizard of childlike wonder, then went on to soberer adult fare. How wonderful it is not to put away childish things.

Review: "Maggie's Plan"

About 25 years ago Vice President Dan Quayle caused a stink when he criticized Murphy Brown’s decision to have a baby without getting married, or even locking down a permanent male partner (beyond providing the requisite genetic material). The controversy seems almost quaint today, given society’s rapidly changing mores on what constitutes a proper family (not to mention that Murphy was a fictional TV character).

I thought of this while watching “Maggie’s Plan” because the film serves as the unwitting antithesis of Quayle’s argument. Greta Gerwig plays the titular young woman whose plan to go the single mother route is derailed when she falls in love with a married man, and suddenly finds herself thrust into stewardship of an entire family.

With all the heartbreak and pain she suffers -- and causes -- it becomes pretty clear by the end that staying single would’ve been the best route to happiness for everyone involved.

The film is written and directed by Rebecca Miller, her fifth feature film over the past two decades. It’s a smart and wry exploration of yet another fully fleshed Gerwig character, and also provides some interesting thoughts on the ever-brewing Mommy Wars.

Maggie is in her early 30s, settled and accomplished as an administrator in the arts program of a New York City college that remains unnamed. (It’s obviously NYU, my alma mater, as evidenced by the locations, especially Washington Square Park; I assume there was a legal reason for remaining coy.)

She’s awesome at most everything, except romance, which is why as the story opens she’s decided to get pregnant using a donor. The male half of her best friend couple, Tony (Bill Hader) and Felicia (Maya Rudolph), offers his sperm, but she’s decided to obtain it from some guy from college -- whose name is Guy (Travis Fimmel) -- who used to be a promising mathematician but is now a crunchy type selling organic pickles.

Meanwhile, Maggie falls hard for John (Ethan Hawke), a slightly older adjunct professor who’s married with two kids. He’s a rock star in his field, fictocritical anthropology, which basically means he can write about whatever wants and receive an academic stipend for it. Currently he’s trying to write a novel, and escape the clutches of his controlling wife, Georgette.

Just as Maggie is about to culminate the, uh, transaction with Guy, John shows up on her doorstep and professes his love. Flash to 18 months later, and now she is ensconced as the mother of an adorable little girl, as well as playing den mother to John, still working on that novel, as well as his kids. Mina Sundwall plays the knowing, critical teenager.

Georgette turns up, played by Julianne Moore, after having written a book about the dissolution of her marriage, Maggie seeks her out, and the two spark up an unlikely friendship. She’s a strange, cold woman of vague Nordic background, also an academic, who tries to dominate every interaction she has. Moore plays her rather broadly, which is how Georgette is written, but the performance could’ve benefited from more shading.

Maggie realizes that, behind her veil of Valkyrie-like power, Georgette is vulnerable and still loves John. This also forces Maggie to admit that she is miserable with him. So she hatches a scheme to get her husband to leave her for his ex-wife.

Hawke is terrific as John, a generally decent guy whose worst instincts come out when he’s allowed to lean on someone else for everything, instead of being the lean-ee.

Ultimately it’s Gerwig’s show, though, and she continues to demonstrate why she’s one of the best actresses her generation. Maggie may be just as fictional as Murphy Brown was, but this movie gives us a funny, nuanced look at the choices and expectations Millennial women face.

Review: "The Angry Birds Movie"

Movies fail for all kinds of reasons. Poor casting, bad story structure, uninspired direction -- even the music can ruin a moment. I’ve seen it all, and generally don’t hold it against the filmmakers. They swung, they whiffed, maybe they’ll do better at their next at bat.

The one reason I can’t abide, though, is sheer brute laziness.

“The Angry Birds Movie” is a merchandising opportunity in search of a movie. It’s based on a video game, and the batting average for that conversion is still .000. And the Angry Birds games aren’t even really games, they’re apps -- ways to pass the time on your smartphone while you’re waiting for the dentist.

There are no characters, no story, no drama. You just plink bird ordnance at pig structures to smash them. Ostensibly it’s because the pigs stole the birds’ eggs and they’re angry about it… but you never even get to the eggs.

You might as well try to make a film out of tic-tac-toe.

Still, the total lack of a format means rookie directors Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly and screenwriter Jon Vitti had no structure to hold them back. They could make up any kind of scenario they wanted and inserted imaginative characters and situations into them. Totally free reign.

Instead, they slapped together a droning mélange of quips, crude body humor and zippy action. Entire scenes and exchanges of dialogue seem improvised on the spot, which is impressive (in a way) for an animated film with an estimated budget of $80 million.

Little kids may be carried along by the bright colors and goofy action. But this parent was bored nearly to the point of walking out.

Here the birds all live on one happy island, protected by legendary guardian Mighty Eagle, who’s more aspirational than operational these days. The one malcontent is Red (voice of Jason Sudeikis), a pugnacious bird with Groucho Marx eyebrows and a tendency to lose his cool. For his crimes he’s sentenced to anger management class, led by hippy-dippy chickie Matilda (Maya Rudolph).

His classmates are Chuck, a hyper-fast yellow bird voiced by the excitable Josh Gad, and Bomb (Danny McBride), a burly black fellow with a tendency to literally explode when stressed, though his body is only slightly singed in the process. (The movie’s metaphysics are suspect.)

Oh, and there’s a massive red bird named Terence the size of a blimp -- he mostly resembles Red on steroids, eyebrows and all – who only ever glares at people and grumbles. I’m astonished to learn he is voiced by Sean Penn, who has hereby accomplished the Method Acting pinnacle of getting paid to grunt.

Anyway, the green pigs roll up on the beach one day offering friendship, led by the officious Leonard (Bill Hader), and they quickly set about spoiling bird paradise with their machines and noise. It’s all an excuse to make off with the birds’ eggs for their feast … which they sure seem to take their time getting around to. (Three-minute boil, anyone?)

Eventually, an hour into the movie, the birds starting launching themselves into the pig town via a giant slingshot the pigs brought with them, also for reasons unknown.

Mighty Eagle makes an appearance, gallantly voiced by Peter Dinklage, having now gone to seed. His first undertaking, after Bomb and Chuck have bathed in the mystical lake on top of his mountain, provides the movie’s sole laugh-out-loud moment.

As I say, I don’t often get mad about bad movies. But when you can feel the people who made them not trying, consider my feathers ruffled.

Review: "Trainwreck"

The difference between writing for sketch comedy and doing a feature-length comedy script stretches wider than the Grand Canyon. Sketches rely on a quick set-up/punchline rhythm and absurd concepts, the zanier the better. Making a whole movie is exponentially tougher: you've got to weave the humor into a broader narrative, fashion engaging characters and come up with a satisfying arc for them to journey along.

"Trainwreck," written by and starring Amy Schumer, has a few good individual laughs but fails pretty miserably at the big-picture stuff.

It's essentially a two-hour-long iteration of the quasi-autobiographical version of herself Schumer presents in her standup routine and television show: hedonistic, hard-partying girl who loves to sleep around and mocks the idea of commitment. It's made for a lot of winning gags for TV, with Schumer's sly intelligence and feminist undertones percolating through the laughs.

There are three or four decent scenes like that in "Trainwreck," but the connective tissue in between is tough to wade through. The answer that Schumer and director Judd Apatow seem to have to come up with is to feature well-known actors or celebrities in punchy minor roles to spice up the dull patches. It works a little, but only a little.

You've probably heard that NBA superstar LeBron James plays himself in the movie, as a patient of wunderkind sports surgeon Aaron Conners (Bill Hader). Amy is Amy, a writer at a Neanderthal men's magazine called "Snap" who's been assigned to profile the doc, despite knowing exactly zilch about sports.

For instance, we're supposed to laugh at the notion that Amy has no idea who LeBron is when he pops into Aaron's office while she's meeting him. Except you'd have to have lived underground since birth not to recognize King James. In a common refrain in comedies these days, LeBron plays a goofy version of himself. Here, he's a cheapskate who insists on splitting the lunch bill and pals around with dweeby doctors.

Tilda Swinton plays Amy's boss, who has an abundance of confidence and a paucity of taste; Brie Larson is her younger, wiser sister; Colin Quinn plays their father, a philanderer who taught them "monogamy is unrealistic"; Ezra Miller is the impressionable young intern with a dark side; Mike Birbiglia is the kind-yet-dull brother-in-law; John Cena shows up -- and flashes a lot of skin -- as Amy's initial 'roided-up boyfriend; Amar'e Stoudemire portrays himself as a fictional patient of Aaron's; Dave Attell plays a mouthy panhandler; and Norman Lloyd, a bonafide 100 years of age, twinkles as a sparring partner of Amy's dad at the old folks' home.

One of the chief weaknesses of the movie is that I never bought the romance between Schumer and Hader for even a second. The idea is that Amy, having promptly slept with the guy she's supposed to be profiling, gets unwilling sucked into a relationship with him. But Hader isn't given much to do in the script that would make him endearing to such a wild-and-crazy gal... or anyone. He feels like a personality vacuum who got lucky.

At 125 minutes "Trainwreck" is about a half-hour too long, a near-universal feature of Apatow films that I had previously chalked up to his own undisciplined writing style and apparent unwillingness to hire an editor with any kind of clout. (Someone needs to tell him less is more, and with his style of motormouth comedy, less less is even more more.)

But even with Schumer handling script duties, this movie is still an overstuffed mess with jangled pieces that never really fit together. It's a one-night stand in which the evening grows old, fast.

Review: "Inside Out"

Up until 2009, Pixar was where you went in Hollywood for original filmmaking. The fact that their movies were animated was merely a byproduct. The studio with the freshest ideas and the most novel concepts churned out great, inventive films one after another: “Finding Nemo,” “The Incredibles,” “Cars,” “Ratatouille,” “Wall·E,” “Up.”

These films were superlative not just because they told terrific stories and featured characters who mattered to us, but because they were unlike anything we’d ever seen before.

Then a curious thing happened. Almost overnight, Pixar stories became derivative – stale, even.

We got three sequels which, even when exquisitely well-made like “Toy Story 3,” lacked the vitality of the originals. “Brave” seemed like a self-conscious rebuttal to the Disney princess tradition, and as such felt more about the things it was not than the things it was. (Not to mention, it essentially stole the plot of another Disney animated flick, 2003’s “Brother Bear.”)

Suddenly, Pixar movies seemed less like ingenuity and more a commodity.

I’m happy to report the latest, “Inside Out,” is a return to form. It’s hardly among the top tier of Pixar movies, but it’s dizzy with wondrous ideas, interesting things to see and places we’d like to visit.

It all takes place inside the head of one kid, Riley (voice by Kaitlyn Dias). The idea is that a person’s personality is ruled by five emotions: joy, sadness, fear, anger and disgust. Each is represented by little cartoon entities, who collaborate and clash with each other and this in turn governs how the person behaves.

They sit in an isolated central headquarters in the mind, watching a TV screen and seeing the world as their person does. Experiences are recorded as memories, which are glass-like orbs, which the emotions help collate, store and recall. The most vital memories form the core of the person’s being.

It’s a rather cerebral concept, but one that small children can take to easily. (My 4- and almost-2-year-olds sat rapt the entire time.) It helps that the emotions each have distinct identities themselves.

Joy (the irrepressible Amy Poehler), a pixie-like waif, is the dominant emotion for Riley, acting as major domo and subtly ordering the others around. Anger (Lewis Black) is a little red rager who literally blows his top with fire. Disgust (Mindy Kaling) is both protective and disdainful, and Fear (Bill Hader) is the kvetching voice of caution.

Then there’s Sadness, terrifically voiced by (Phyllis Smith), who played a somewhat similar character on TV’s “The Office.” A purple nerdy type, Sadness can’t seem to summon much enthusiasm for anything, mostly likes to just lie around and complain, and has the nasty habit of touching the memory orbs and infecting them with her mope.

“Crying helps me slow down and obsess over the weight of life’s problems,” Sadness drones.

But Riley’s parents (Diane Lane and Kyle MacLachlan) move the family from Minnesota to San Francisco, and their daughter struggles to fit in. Joy heroically tries to enforce happiness, but this only makes things worse. Then through a series of events, she and Sadness get exiled to the hinterlands of Riley’s subconscious, leaving the three remaining emotions to deal.

I enjoyed the filmmakers’ elegant depiction of Riley’s mind – and those of others, for we get to go inside the heads of other humans, too, where the same five emotions exist in different iterations. Director Pete Docter (“Up”) co-wrote the script with Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley. Ronaldo Del Carmel is credited as co-director.

Along their journey to try to get back to HQ, Joy and Sadness have various sorts of adventures, wandering through Riley’s dreams and finding out what happens to faded memories – even an old imaginary friend from Riley’s toddlerhood, Bing Bong, vividly voiced by Richard Kind. We learn that each emotion exists for an important reason, even if it isn’t instantly obvious.

“Inside Out” is a fun, colorful movie that also offers a little insight into each of us might tick. Pixar has got their mojo back.

Review: "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2"

I didn't much care for the first "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," and the sequel is no improvement. The characters are flat, the story is unimaginative, and the humor is aimed straight at the pre-kindergarten crowd. If it weren't for the terrific animation and amazing creature designs, it would have nothing to recommend.

For those who don't remember the last flick: never-do-well inventor Flint Lockwood (voiced by Bill Hader) invented a machine that could spontaneously produce food out of water. Of course, it went berserk and began raining down house-sized cheeseburgers and pizza on his island home town. Flint and a crew of unlikely pals eventually shut it down.

The sequel picks up right where we left off, with the folks celebrating even as their dwellings are uninhabitable. Cue the arrival of Chester V (Will Forte), Flint's childhood hero, a scientist who creates all sorts of neat stuff while exuding a sense of superior cool. He's the best thing about the movie, with his weird body that has the rubbery quality of a yoga master and the studied mannerisms of Steve Jobs.

Chester's company, LIVE Corp., is a not-at-all disguised spoof of Apple. They offer to relocate the people of the town while things are tidied up. Meanwhile, Flint is enticed with a job offer, including the potential to join the ranks of the Thinkonauts -- Chester's geek elite.

But, wouldn't you know, it turns out Flint's food machine is still cranking out exotic eats, so he's recruited to go back and set things right.

Joining him out a sense of camaraderie are meteorologist/girlfriend Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), grumpy beetle-browed dad (James Caan), bully-turned-doofus-sidekick Brent (Andy Samberg), doctor/videographer Manny (Benjamin Bratt), police officer/acrobat Earl (Terry Crews) and Steve (Neil Patrick Harris), Flint's monkey assistant. New to the crew is Barb (Kristen Schaal), Chester's pushy orangutan assistant.

Things get interesting when they arrive on the island, where it turns out the food is not only still getting cranked out, it's actually taken on sentient animal form. So Flint and friends are chased by a cheeseburger spider (much scarier than it sounds) and buddy up with a walking, talking strawberry.

I just loved the huge menagerie of critters the filmmakers came up with -- it's a real feast for the eyes. There are hippos that resemble potatoes, leek brontosaurus, a taco tyrannosaur, "shrimpanzees," and a whole lot more.

I just wish co-directors Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn, and screenwriters John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein and Erica Rivinoja, could've come up with a story and characters to match the excellent visuals. The people struggle to qualify as one-dimensional, since they each have exactly one defining characteristic.

As for the 3-D, I would advise you to skip the upcharge -- the special effects really aren't special enough that you need to see them splayed out across your field of vision.

My almost-3-year-old seemed reasonably engaged throughout the movie, but rarely laughed out loud or started chattering or clapping excitedly. "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2" is competent, nice-looking entertainment for little ones that will soon be forgotten, and deserves to be.

Review: "The To Do List"

I wish Aubrey Plaza had made this movie a few years ago when she was just starting out as the acerbic April on TV's "Parks and Recreation." It's a classic transitionary role perfect for a new star, playing a high school goody-goody on a mission to lose her virginity before college.

When you're 23 or 24 playing 17 or 18 is a stretch, but still doable. Plaza is 29, so when they put her in the right clothes and makeup she looks exactly like ... someone pushing 30 playing a teen.
I also wish "The To Do List" was just plain better than it is.

It's part of the chicks-can-do-raunch-too movement, of which I am fully supportive. Comediennes have grown tired of their male counterparts eating up all the sex-and-cursing bandwidth, and have launched their own front with "Bridesmaids" and the like.

Written and directed by Maggie Carey, "List" certainly doesn't shy away from the dirty talk, though depictions of sex acts are more coy than flagrant.

The setup is that class of '93 valedictorian Brandy Klark is a total grind who's deliberately ignorant of even the basics of sex. Sister Amber (Rachel Bilson) is a party girl and her parents (Clark Gregg and Connie Britton) are pretty buttoned up, so she determines to achieve her deflowering before summer's end, as sort of a rite-of-passage meets science project.

Brandy being the methodical brainy sort, she researches sex acts and makes a comprehensive list of everything she wants to do. We've seen gosh knows how many sex comedies in which young lads determine to lose their cherry. But Brandy's list looks more like the chapter titles on a porn DVD.

She even has her sights set on the ultimate prize: going all the way with Rusty Waters (Scott Porter), a dude-ish older guy who works at the same pool where she does during the summer. Meanwhile, waiting in the wings is Cameron (Johnny Simmons), a nerdy classmate and longtime pal who'd like to be more than the warm-up act for Rusty.

Bill Hader plays Willy, the slacker pool manager who's both her boss and chief teaser; Andy Samberg is a rocker and potential checkmark on Brandy's list; Donald Glover and Christopher Mintz-Plasse play hangers-on and hopefuls.

The primary other relationships in the story are with Brandy's best buds, Wendy (Sarah Steele) and Fiona (Alia Shawkat). I liked the foul-mouthed repartee between the trio, which combines hardcore sex talk with a certain sweetness. They all call each other "Pancake" while discussing the intimate details of their sexual encounters.

The main problem with "The To Do List" is that it's structured like a series of skits rather than a cohesive narrative. The characters are merely props for the jokes. Plaza tries hard to find the neurotic center of Brandy, but it's tough when the script calls for her to be brazen one minute and a wallflower the next.

There are some individually funny scenes and throwaway jokes -- make sure to check out the graffiti that gets sprayed all over the pool house by a rival gang. And there's one instant classic bit where Plaza pulls off a water joke that's ... well, let's just call it a reverse "Caddyshack."

I think Aubrey Plaza has serious potential as a comedic lead actress, but this movie feels like a stumble. If you want to see her in something infinitely more clever and less bawdy, check out last year's "Safety Not Guaranteed." That little-seen gem should be on everyone's to-do list.

Review: "Men in Black III"

"Men in Black III" gets brownie points simply for not being "Men in Black II."

It's been 10 years since "MIIB," and while I've completely forgotten the plot of that movie, the bad taste it left in my mouth lingers. I remember thinking it was one of the laziest sequels I'd ever seen, simply taking the quirky original film and repackaging its key elements for a cynical, money-grubbing do-over.

Despite that, it made something like a half-billion dollars, so the question becomes: why did it take a decade to make another movie? The jaded, cynical critic in me can't help but take note that the careers of star Will Smith and director Barry Sonnenfeld have not exactly been afire as of late.

Sonnenfeld's been stuck doing low-profile television since the disastrous "RV" six years ago, which also pretty much marked the end of Robin Williams as a leading man. Smith hasn't starred in anything since 2008, when he gave us the lackluster "Seven Pounds" and the lackluster-er "Hancock."

Even if "MiB III" exists simply to gobble up cash and rejuvenate some careers, it's a reasonably engaging bit of disposable entertainment. It's not nearly as funny as it ought to be, and I kept feeling like the characters were explaining the movie to me rather than letting it just happen. But there's plenty of slapsticky action, more enjoyably scary/goofy aliens, and a few unexpected poignant moments.

Agents J (Smith) and K (Jones) are back as footmen in the Men in Black, a super-secret agency serving to protect the many alien species that are secretly residing on Earth (and the humans from them). Their jobs and their relationship have grown stale, with J frustrated with K's inability to ever open up to him. "I'm getting too old for this. I can only imagine how you feel," J riffs after a particularly nasty dust-up in a Chinese noodle shop.

Unfortunately, a superbad dude named Boris the Animal -- "It's just Boris," he repeatedly insists, not that anyone pays any attention -- breaks out of Lunar Max, the alien prison on the moon. A creepy alien with camera lenses for eyes and a pet that lives inside his hand and spits deadly spikes, Boris (Jemaine Clement) swears vengeance on K, who blew his arm off back in 1969.

Boris goes back in time and alters the temporal reality so K no longer exists. Now it's up to J to travel back to the days of hippies and decent rock 'n' roll and put things right.

Josh Brolin plays the young K, expertly mimicking Jones' curt mannerisms and high-pitched Texas drawl. The '60s-era aliens are a trip, made up to resemble extra-terrestrials from movie and TV of that time.

I really enjoyed Michael Stuhlbarg as Griffin, the sole survivor of his alien race who can see across the dimension of time and envision all possible outcomes at once. He's a got a daffy lost-puppy vibe, sweet-natured but with a bit of bite.

There's also a clever bit where J and K encounter Andy Warhol, who turns out to be another Men in Black agent in deep undercover (Bill Hader) to infiltrate the counterculture. "I'm so out of ideas I'm painting soup cans and bananas!"

The run-up to the big showdown is a blur of chases and quips, culminating in a fight on the launch pad of the Apollo 11 rocket as it's getting set to shoot the moon. There's also something about an ArcNet protecting the earth from a Boglodite invasion, and a love flame for K (played by Alice Eve when young and Emma Thompson when not) and a half a dozen other untidy story threads that screenwriter Etan Cohen never bothers to knit together.

It's hard to say that "Men in Black III" is worth the wait, since I don't get the sense much of anyone was really waiting for it. But now that it's here, at least you won't feel like zapping yourself with one of the MiB forget-it-all gizmos after watching it.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Paul"

"Paul" is quite possibly the first extraterrestrial stoner comedy. At least, I couldn't think of any others offhand. I Googled "movies in which aliens get stoned" and got zippo. Maybe I should've used Bing.

The alien and his human cohorts do not actually spend the entire movie getting high, but this film definitely has a crunchy road-trip vibe. Think "Cheech & Chong" meets "Starman," with some "Shaun of the Dead"-type genre spoofing. This latter flavor is not surprising, considering that "Shaun" collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost wrote the screenplay and star in "Paul."

The title character, a buggy-eyed protagonist who can turn invisible and heal people and animals with a touch, is voiced by Seth Rogen in his blowsy, cool-dude mode. We get the distinct impression that on his world, he's the Jeff Spicoli. At least, we hope he is. Paul (a nickname, and later we discover how he got it) crashed his spaceship in the desert more than 60 years ago, and seems to have little ambition or direction in life.

He's been the guest-slash-prisoner of the U.S. government ever since, and would've been content to stay there until he recently learned that he's outlived his usefulness. He goes on the lam, smashes his stolen car and gets a lift from Graeme and Clive (Pegg and Frost), a pair of British nerds taking a tour of Area 51 and other alien-themed hot spots in a rented RV.

There's a lot of funny in-jokes about why all aliens in pop culture have the same general resemblance as Paul. He tells them the government disseminated those images so in case more of Paul's folks show up, people will at least have a frame of reference and not totally freak out. There's even a hilarious flashback where Paul gives Steven Spielberg the idea for E.T.'s glowing magic finger.

Hot on his trail is Zoil (Jason Bateman), a Secret Service agent who's really serious about his job, and seems impervious to humor. He takes orders from a female boss we only hear over the phone, and has to deal with a pair of nitwit rookies (Joe Lo Truglio and Bill Hader) assigned to help.

Paul, Graeme and Clive hide out in a trailer park, where they bump into Ruth (Kristen Wiig), the daughter of a Bible-thumper. She wears those odd glasses with one frame blacked out to conceal an eye condition, and it doesn't take special powers to guess Paul will have something to say about it.

His intervention helps her cling a little less bitterly to her religion, and soon Ruth is tagging along, determined to try out some new swear words and maybe break a few commandments. It's a charming, cheeky and funny role, and underlines the burning necessity that Hollywood give Wiig her own star vehicle, now.

"Paul" is directed by Greg Mottola, who helmed the ridiculously overrated "Superbad," but also the criminally ignored "Adventureland." Together with Frost and Pegg's script, they manag to find a loose, entertaining groove that's way funnier than "Pineapple Express." The humor is generally in well-traveled terrain with a generous helping of dick jokes, but somehow having it coming out of the mouth of a little green man makes it fresh and ironic.

3 stars out of four

Video review: "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs"

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" falls into that spectrum of animation aimed squarely at kids. It's clear to me that "Meatballs" is a well-made film, even if I didn't like it all that much. I simply am not the target audience.

It's about a scientist, Flint Lockwood, who invents a machine that can turn water into food. Through a series of misadventures, his gizmo gets launched into the stratosphere over the island town of Chewsandswallows, resulting in a downpour of burgers, pizza, steak and candy whenever it rains.

Flint had been the town screw-up, but now he's hailed as a hero. He even finds a love interest in Sam Sparks, an intern at the Weather Channel who gets her big break when she's sent to cover the weird weather. Sam's a brainiac who is forced to hide behind a veneer of weather-girl dorkiness, but Flint sees through it.

Trouble looms when the food keeps getting bigger and bigger, until Buick-sized meatballs are raining down and causing havoc.

Although anyone over the age of 10 may find the movie tedious, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" is likely to leave young audiences hungry for more.

Video extras are rather meager with the DVD, but really pile on the buffet in the Blu-ray version. (A DVD/Blu-ray combo is available, which also includes a digital copy.)

Both versions come with a commentary track by co-directors/writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller plus star Bill Hader, who did the voice of Flint -- few insights, but moderately entertaining.

The making-of and voice casting documentaries are pretty typical fare; I liked the shots of animators working at their computers with big plates of food close at hand so they could study how spaghetti behaves when whirled about, or how a burger plops when dropped.

There's also two extended scenes; featurettes detailing the animation process; the "Raining Sunshine" music video; a "Food Fight" Space Invaders-type game; and a "splat mode" where kids can throw digital food at the screen while watching the movie.

Movie: 2.5 stars
Extras: 3.5 stars

Review: "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs"

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" falls into that spectrum of animation that makes no bones about the fact that it's aimed squarely at kids.

Yes, it's nice when a movie can appeal to both adults and tykes, such as "Kung Fu Panda" or pretty much any of the Pixar flicks. And I've been very pleased with the growing number of animated films that are best appreciated by adults -- "9," "Waltz with Bashir," "Persepolis," etc.

But let's give the kiddie flicks their due: Somebody's got to entertain the wee ones, and they might as well do it well.

So it's clear to me that "Meatballs" is a well-made film, even if I didn't like it all that much. I simply am not the target audience.

Co-writers/directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller -- both rookies -- adapted the best-selling children's book by Judi and Ron Barrett. It's about a young scientist, Flint Lockwood, who invents a machine that can turn water into food. Through a series of unintended mishaps, his gizmo gets launched into the stratosphere over the island town of Chewsandswallows, resulting in a downpour of burgers, steak, pizza and candy whenever it rains.

Flint had been the town screw-up, with all his many backfiring inventions, but now he's hailed as a hero. The island had been stagnating because its main staple, sardines, had been discovered to be gross by the world population. (I love the newspaper headline: "Sardines are gross!") So everyone on the island is sick of eating sardines, with the possible exception of Flint, who runs the local bait and tackle shop.

The daily manna from heaven is a huge boon to Chewsandswallows, even attracting the attention of Sam Sparks, an intern at the Weather Channel who gets her big break when she's sent to cover the weird weather. Sam's a brainiac who is forced to hide behind a veneer of weather-girl dorkiness, but Flint sees through it and soon they're an item.

Trouble looms when Flint overloads the machine at the behest of the town's greedy mayor, and soon things start to go screwy. The food keeps getting bigger and bigger, until Buick-sized meatballs are raining down and causing havoc.

The movie has a terrific voice cast, with Bill Hader as Flint and Anna Faris as Sam. James Caan, as Flint's dad, manages to find an emotional center despite only uttering a few dozen words. The redoubtable Bruce Campbell is the mayor, Neil Patrick Harris is a hoot as Flint's best friend/pet monkey Steve, and Mr. T is a revelation as the town's overly enthusiastic police chief.

As we've come to expect, the computer animation is crisp and inventive. Watch people's hair, in particular -- you can almost feel it tickle. If you can, make sure to catch the movie in 3-D -- the filmmakers manage to achieve a multitude of layers in every scene, without too many obvious objects flinging themselves at the camera.

Although anyone over the age of 10 may find the movie a bit tedious at times, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" is sure to leave young audiences hungry for more.

2.5 stars