Video review: "The Croods"

“The Croods” was pretty typical of this year’s crop of animated family films. Pleasant enough, great-looking and featuring a catchy song or two, it nonetheless didn’t offer anything that was especially engaging or clever. Designed to entertain wee ones with lots of bouncy slapstick action and cute critters, it accomplished exactly that, and little more.

It’s not a bad movie; not a great one, either; just good enough to satisfy as throwaway entertainment.

Set in prehistoric times, the titular family is a gaggle of ape-like cave people who live in utter fear every second they spend outside their darkened cave. Dad Grug (voiced by Nicolas Cage) has a motto: “Never not be afraid,” and it’s one they live by religiously.

Until, that is, rebellious daughter Eep (Emma Stone) pushes them to explore the wider world out there. They encounter danger and some fantastic creatures – the walking land whales were my favorite -- but also have amazing adventures. They hook up with a somewhat more evolved guy named … Guy (Ryan Reynolds), who shows them neat things like fire and shoes.

If this sounds familiar, as if it’s been repurposed from other movies, that’s because it has. It’s basically a stitch-together of “Ice Age” and “The Flintstones.” Some characters, such as the inexplicably reptilian-tailed Gran, exist only as comic relief.

Visually, “The Croods” is a marvel, with even stuff in the corners of the frame worth looking it. I just wish they could’ve given the same level of attention to the storytelling.

Extras are decent, and like the movie tend to be aimed at kids and ignore their parents.

The DVD comes with a handful of deleted scenes and two featurettes, one of which consists of music videos from other DreamWorks Animation flicks. “Belt’s Cave Journal” is a new short film featuring a couple of supporting characters.

Upgrade to the Blu-ray/DVD combo, and you add another featurette, “The Croodaceous Creatures of Croods!” spotlighting more of the film’s colorful beastiary. There’s also a drawing game for children, and a mobile app that lets kids build their own Croods storybook and color it, too.

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Review: "Kick-Ass 2"

"This isn't a comic book! If you die, there is no do-over! There are no sequels!"
--Dave Lizewski, aka Kick-Ass

I lost track of how many times the characters in "Kick-Ass 2" reminded me that what I was watching was real, not just pretend -- as if to give weight to the proceedings that did not otherwise exist. The joke, of course, is this is very much a comic book movie, super-heroes get do-overs all the flipping time, and it's a sequel that is trying so hard to convince us that sequels and reboots are soulless affairs with little point for existing.

I'm not sorry they made a sequel to "Kick-Ass," or that I watched it. But it feels like the original's vital juices all got sucked out of it.

The 2010 film, directed and co-written by Matthew Vaughn based on the comic books by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., was shocking, hard-edged, hyper-violent and whip-smart. The sequel is jokey, surprisingly soft around the edges, sorta-violent and not half as clever as it thinks it is.

Writer/director Jeff Wadlow takes over the reins, and to his credit the characters haven't just been frozen in time since last we saw them. Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), the rail-thin high school dweeb who first started the masked vigilante craze, is now a burned-out senior who looks like he's been living at the gym. Seeing so many would-be superheroes copycatting his style finally convinces him to get back in the game.

More problematic is Hit-Girl, the pint-sized terror who spewed vile curses while literally chopping up bad guys with her arsenal of blades and guns. Now she's a trembly 15-year-old freshman, uncertain of her place in the world and feeling ostracized by the mean girls at school.

Chloë Grace Moretz is one of the brightest lights of her generation, but her character's back-and-forth dithering gets really old, really fast. We know she's eventually going to put the purple wig back on again, so everything until then feels like marking time.

There's a long sequence where Hit-Girl gets sucked into the bitchy schemes of the ruling clique, led by Brooke, deliciously played by Claudia Lee. It's like the movie goes all "Heathers" for a time, and while it's engaging enough in its right, this section belongs in another movie.

Rejected by Hit-Girl in his quest for a partner, Kick-Ass hooks up with a bunch of other supers, who dub themselves Justice 4 Ever. These include Battle Guy (revealed to be Dave's oldest friend), Dr. Gravity, Night Bitch and Insect Man. For wannabes, they sure come up with lackluster names for themselves.

They're led by Colonel Stars and Stripes, a deranged fascist played by Jim Carrey, nearly unrecognizable under a mountain of prosthetics. The Colonel teaches his disciples not to use foul language, but sees nothing wrong with siccing his attack dog (also masked) on the nether regions of his foes.

Of course, you couldn't have a super-hero story without a villain, and it's Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Chris D'Amico, former Kick-Ass friend-turned-foe after the latter killed his mob boss father.

Recognizing that his super-power is that he has gobs of money, he gives himself a new (unprintable) moniker and sets about recruiting an evil army. His own costume is salvaged from his mother's S&M outfits, which aren't improved by his wearing them.

This leads to the inevitable showdown between the two teams, which carries a certain amount of thrills -- especially Hit-Girl's faceoff with Mother Russia, a former KGB enforcer vividly portrayed by bodybuilder Olga Kurkulina.

I didn't hate "Kick-Ass 2," but I didn't particularly like it, either. The movie just sat there for me, going through the motions of the original but with the violence and swearing toned down about 40 percent. What's most clear is that very little ass is actually kicked.

Review: "The Croods"

The storytelling in “The Croods” isn’t as sharp and emotionally engaging as the better recent animated flicks -- “Wreck-It Ralph,” “Rise of the Guardians.” But it’s such a visually imaginative landscape, one filled with sproingy action, that it turns out a good bet for families -- especially those with smaller children who will savor the heaping helping of cool creatures and goofy slapstick.

The set-up isn’t awfully original, the tale of a prehistoric family that must leave the safety of its cave and traditions in response to a radically shifting landscape. There’s an ape-like father, rebellious teen, cantankerous oldster, feral toddler and primordial pets as comic relief.

Basically, it’s a mashup of “The Flintstones” and “The Land Before Time.”

But despite its lack of innovative flair, it’s still a rousing good time and a never-ending feast for the eyes. I was especially impressed with all the different critters populating the film’s environment. There are walking land whales, a flock of killer dino-parrots, a giant rainbow kitty, an ancestor of Maurice Sendak’s wild things, and something that looks like a genetic splicing of a dog, a skunk and an alligator (it’s much cuter than it sounds).

It’s quite a computer-generated menagerie, and the animators’ imaginations are so dense they even put things in the corners and backgrounds that are neat to look at.

The Croods are hardcore homebodies. They spend days at a time scrunched together in their cave hiding from predators, coming out just long enough to round up some grub and skedaddle back to safety and darkness. Physically, they’re fearsomely strong and agile – they can bound and run fast enough to keep up with the beasts they hunt and those that hunt them.

Despite this, patriarch Grug (voice of Nicolas Cage) is one seriously conservative guy. He sees his role as clan leader/protector depending on never trying anything new: “Never not be afraid” is the family motto.
Mom Ugga (Catherine Keener) is a generic maternal-worrier type. Son Thunk (Clark Duke) is dad’s chubby, under-athletic protégé, Sandy (Randy Thom) is a pint-sized terror, and Gran (Cloris Leachman) is the resident complainer and Grug antagonist. Gran is literally a throwback, sporting a vaguely reptilian tail.

(One amusing running gag is that Grug is continually disappointed when Gran survives their various ordeals. “Still alive!” she crows, taunting her son-in-law.)

But Eep (Emma Stone), the oldest child, yearns to live in the sun and experience new things, leading to obvious conflict with Grug. That rift grows when they encounter Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a more advanced type who can make fire and invent things. He warns the Croods that continental drift will destroy their home, urging them to seek out high land.

Various adventures and hijinks ensue, with Guy and Grug vying for leadership of the little band, and Eep’s affections. “Ideas are for weaklings,” Grug insists, but his brute strength is no match for the intellect of Guy, who teaches them how to make shoes and use animals to their advantage, instead of just for munching on.

The Croods are drawn in bold exaggerated lines, with thick limbs and thicker torsos offset by incongruously itsy-bitsy hands and feet. The creatures are even more out of whack, such as Guy’s pet/advisor/accessory Belt, a little sloth-like creature with arms twice as long as his body and a tendency to vocalize their plight with a funny triad of beeps.

Writing/directing team Chris Sanders and Kirk De Micco probably needed to give the screenplay a few more rewrites to punch up the storyline. The more serious “life lessons” parts tend to feel like tacked-on accouterments. And Eep, the narrator and ostensibly the main character, keeps getting shunted aside in favor of Grug during the second half.

But whatever you want to say about the conceptual crudity of “The Croods,” Sanders and De Micco certainly elicited solid voice performances out of their cast, and led their animation team to a place of wonderment and joy.

3 stars out of four

Review: "Hot Tub Time Machine"

A movie called "Hot Tub Time Machine" sounds like a really bad sex comedy from the '80s -- except that it's actually a pretty decent comedy about some fortysomething guys who get to relive their wild teen days.

It even stars John Cusack, a guy who made his bones in flicks like "The Sure Thing." He gets to headline a movie that is not so much poking fun at the Decade of Reagan, as mocking movies of that era.

In fact, when Cusack and his crew get back to 1986 Kodiak Valley, the setting is almost a straight lifting of "Hot Dog: The Movie": Lovable losers take on preppie bullies at a partying ski lodge, with a whole lot of binge drinking and topless shenanigans.

It's an orgy of teased hair, DayGlo-colored outfits and hard-rock love ballads. And it's actually pretty dang funny.

Cusack, Craig Robinson and Rob Corddry are Adam, Nick and Lou (whose nickname is "The Violator," which I hope he did not give himself) -- three best buds and former party animals turned middle-aged has-beens.

As the story opens Adam has just been dumped by his girlfriend, Nick is stuck working at a pet clinic called 'Sup Dawg?, and Lou nearly dies rocking out to Motley Crue sitting in his garaged Firebird as deadly fumes spew.

They decide to recapture their glory days at Kodiak, but find the town hit hard by the Great Recession. Their old ski lodge is falling apart, and the surly one-armed bellhop looks suspiciously like Crispin Glover.

But after they jump into the hot tub and zap themselves 24 years into the past, they get a chance to right some wrongs.

For Adam, that means not breaking up with the dream girl he let get away. For Nick, it means not whiffing at his big shot on stage with his band. For Lou, it means not getting repeatedly beat up by the preppy ski patrol head goon.

Initially, the guys are not happy about going back in time. When they look at each other, they see their lumpy, graying selves. But in the mirror and to others, they're 19 again. After some dithering, they decide to revel in and remake their youth.

Adam's nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) is along for the ride, which threatens the sanctity of the time-space continuum since he wasn't even born in 1986. But given that the time machine is a hot tub, metaphysical musings are perhaps misplaced.

Oh, and Chevy Chase turns up as a cranky hot tub repairman who may or may not be in on the time travel. He keeps promising to repair the temperamental machine, and then disappears. He's like Mr. Miyagi crossed with Carl Spackler.

The constant stream of jokes about how strange and funny things were in the '80s somehow never gets old. The ski patrol convinces themselves that the iPods, cell phones and energy drinks they confiscated from the guys are actually a Russian plot.

And I liked the bit where Jacob meets a girl, and asks how he'll get in touch with her since he can't e-mail, text or call her on her cell: "You just come find me." "That sounds so exhausting."

"Hot Tub Time Machine" is essentially just a clever retread, but at least it's a consistently humorous one.

3 stars