Video review: "Trainspotting 2"

It’s funny how the long-term cultural relevance of a film has such low correlation with its box office tally. “Trainspotting” earned only $16 million in 1996, but is arguably one of the most influential movies of the past quarter-century. Certainly, director Danny Boyle and star Ewan McGregor have become important figures.

Its sequel, “Trainspotting 2,” made more than double that -- but, I think, is destined to be largely forgotten in popular culture, in much the same way the “Wizard of Oz” sequel was.

(See? Bet you didn’t even know there was one.)

It’s a well-made film: entertaining, smart, sharp performances and plenty of nifty items out of Boyle’s bag of filmmaking tricks. In the end, though, we’re left wondering why this endeavor needed to happen.

We revisit the old gang of addict/criminals 20 years later, now middle-aged guys in various states of evolution, or not. Renton (McGregor), who ripped off his pals after a big drug score, turned to straight work in Amsterdam. Begbie (Robert Carlyle) has been serving hard time in prison ever since, dreaming of getting his hands around Renton’s throat.

Simon “Sick Boy” (Jonny Lee Miller) has taken over his family’s crumbling bar, and runs a little extortion racket on the side. Spud (Ewen Bremner), the gentle, somewhat dimwitted soul of the bunch, is very much the same -- working itinerantly in between getting high and visiting his wife and son.

After a health scare, Renton returns to look up his old friends -- well, not Begbie -- to see if there’s any way he can make amends. Spud is receptive, Sick boy less so. But they’re eventually back to their old ways, doing drugs and dreaming up cons to run. Begbie soon escapes from prison and comes seeking his own sort of reconciliation.

Renton’s old screeds about commercialism overtaking middle-class values are nicely updated for these streaming-and-Tweeting times. Maybe the real lesson of “T2” is the old saw about things staying the same the more they change.

Bonus features form a short list, but it’s pretty meaty stuff. Boyle and screenwriter John Hodge team up for a feature-length commentary track, there’s a making-of featurette with Boyle and his cast, plus deleted scenes.

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Video review: "Beauty and the Beast"

When “Beauty and the Beast” came out in March, I asked why a live-action remake of one of the best animated films of all time even needed to exist. Since then, the movie has provided its own reasons: 1.23 billion of them, to be exact. That’s the film’s global box office take in dollars as of this writing.

It’s a well-crafted film, bright and engaging and full of vivid characters. No doubt there is a new generation of moviegoers who experienced this timeless tale for the first time, since the 1991 animated version now falls into “classic film” category, as strange as it may seem.

I can only hope they experienced as much joy and thrills I had when I first saw Belle and the Beast dance together for the first time.

But I bet not.

Let’s start with the fact that Emma Watson has many wonderful qualities, but a singer she is not. Her frail little voice just can’t carry big Broadway-style show tunes (by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken). Her Belle doesn’t have that sense of hesitation we admired, existing more as a latter-day proto-feminist.

I also didn’t care for the look of the Beast (Dan Stevens), who can’t help looking like a dude in a fur suit. It seemed like the filmmakers were trying to turn him more into a classic romantic figure than a tragic, magically cursed prince.

The story is well-known: inquisitive young girl comes to be the prisoner of the Beast, who is trapped in his castle along with his entire staff of servants by a fell hex placed on him a decade earlier. If he doesn’t find someone to love him soon, the curse will remain forever.

Luke Evans plays the villain, martial hunter Gaston, who covets Belle for himself. Josh Bad is his right-hand henchman, LeFou, who does some pining of his own.

Rounding out the vocal cast are Emma Thompson, Ewan McGregor, Audra McDonald, Ian McKellen and Stanley Tucci. Kevin Kline plays Belle’s (live-action) father.

There are four brand-new songs in addition to all the originals from the animated movie, though only one, “Days in the Sun,” is memorable.

Billion-dollar payday or not, there’s just very little magic in seeing a virtual shot-by-shot remake of one of the most beloved films ever.

Bonus features are truly wondrous, though you’ll have to buy the Blu-ray version to get nearly all of them. The DVD contains only a music video.

There are about 10 minutes of deleted scenes, as well as an extended version of “Days in the Sun.” A sing-a-long version lets you jump straight to all the songs.

Perhaps the neatest feature is “Enchanted Table Read,” in which the cast carries out an elaborate table read of the film, including singing, dances and set pieces.

There is also a making-of documentary and several featurettes focusing on the people in front of and behind the cameras.

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Review: "Trainspotting 2"

“So we all get old and then we can’t hack it anymore? Is that it?”
                --Mark Renton, “Trainspotting”

“You’re a tourist in your own youth.”
                --Simon aka “Sick Boy,” “Trainspotting 2”

File “Trainspotting 2” under Sequels We Never Thought We’d See. (Not to be confused with Sequels Nobody Wanted; e.g., “xXx: Return of Xander Cage.”)

“Trainspotting” from 1996, which followed a rough group of Scottish heroin addicts/thieves, launched star Ewan McGregor and director Danny Boyle, who have both gone on to major movie careers. Serious, Oscar-winning filmmakers tend to shy away from sequels because they’re seen as a generally unworthy endeavor.

But Boyle has long expressed interest in a sequel, though it took a while to round up the old gang. And it turns out that Irvine Welsh, the author of the book upon which the first movie was based, penned a follow-up novel that revisited the characters about 10 years later.

“Trainspotting 2” takes us even further out to 20 years. Our young anti-heroes -- Mark Renton (McGregor), Simon “Sick Boy” Williamson (Jonny Lee Miller), Danny “Spud” Murphy (Ewen Bremner) and Francis Begbie (Robert Caryle) -- are now middle-aged schlumps struggling to get on with meaningful lives.

The story (screenplay by John Hodge) brings the quartet back together to address old grudges, work out their individual disappointments and dream up some new schemes. It borrows heavily from the first movie, from particular shots to musical cues, including a reversal of the famous ending scene where Renton walks toward the camera with a cynical admonishment to “Choose life,” having just ripped off his mates following a big drug score.

I’ve seen the movie and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. Certainly, I liked it. Almost equally as certain, I don’t think it needed to be made.

Watching it is not unlike the experience of an estranged friend showing up on your doorstep after a long absence, a meeting filled with awkward pauses and mumbled apologies. When they leave a part of you is glad to have seen them again, while the other part wonders if some things are better left unsaid, some mysteries savored for remaining just so.

Renton has been living in Amsterdam working a straight job in accounting. He returns to Edinburgh after a couple of life-changing experiences, and to look up his old chums and see if forgiveness is a possibility. He finds Spud clean (albeit temporarily) but out of work, estranged from his wife and son.

A truly gentle soul, who seems to have gotten even more bird-like with the passing of years and the thinning of his plume-like shock of hair, Spud stands a bit apart from the story and acts as our eyes and ears.

Sick Boy is still addicted, though shifted to a more upscale cocaine habit. He runs his family’s run-down old pub, and has a side business setting up his prostitute girlfriend, Veronica (Anjela Nedyalkova), with well-to-do customers so he can film the antics and then blackmail them.

His reunion with Renton is less amicable than Spud’s, at least initially. Soon they’re back in cahoots, reminiscing about old times, running new scams and seeing who can be the first to betray the other.

Even less amenable is Begbie, the truly terrifying psychopath who seems to enjoy hurting others for its own sake. He’s been languishing in prison this whole time, and has Renton’s name on his lips in an unceasing litany for revenge. We know things are going to end grimy and bloody.

“Trainspotting” was an edgy, groundbreaking film because it provided us a funny, caustic window into the lowest dregs of society, then turned that glass around into a mirror that asked if everyday lives were really that much better. “Trainspotting 2” underlines many of the same themes without adding any meaningful postscript.

Review: "Beauty and the Beast"

Time passes for us all, and for the movies. Since “Beauty and Beast” came out in 1991 and became regarded as one of the greatest animated films of all time, an entire generation has been born, grown up and started having babies of their own. Though it might make some of us feel old to say, it’s passing into cinematic antiquity.

I walked into the 2017 live-action remake with but a single word of question on my lips: “Why?” I left without grasping any kind of answer.

The new movie, starring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens, is almost a shot-by-shot remake of the animated film, with a few extra flourishes and minor changes. They reuse the Oscar-winning musical score by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken, with four new songs by Menken and Tim Rice that don’t measure up to the old stuff.

Most of the cast spends the movie in CGI form as enchanted clocks, teapots, harpsichords, wardrobes, candelabras, etc. Directed by Bill Condon (“Mr. Holmes”), it’s a beautiful, colorful film with energetic musical numbers, distinctive characters and an ageless love story.

And it has no reason for existing.

I’m not a purist on remakes and sequels. If you can make something that adds to the mythology of a film, or extends the characters and their individual arcs, then you’ll get no arguments from me. Disney has launched a number of live action remakes of its classic animated flicks, including “Cinderella” and “The Jungle Book,” and I’ve liked almost all of them.

But this one feels different… hollow, somehow. The tragic love story of the Beast (Stevens) and Belle (Watson) lacks the gut-churning emotional wrench of 1991. The best thing about the animated movie was its unexpected dramatic heft. That had the tone of “Romeo and Juliet.” This new one is the TV sitcom version.

It’s not helped by Watson’s singing voice, which is unequal to the task of carrying songs. That’s become a thing lately: casting non-singers as the leads in musicals. (See “Land, La La.”) Maybe it’s time to reconsider.

Stevens’ portrayal of the Beast using a mix of costume, makeup and CGI doesn’t exactly work, either. He looks like a smaller, softer, prettier version of the animated Beast. Even his leonine nose swoops down appealingly toward a modest snarl. I liked the cartoon Beast’s busted, crooked honker and every-which-way fangs. The new one looks like he got Jenny Craig and a plastic surgeon.

You know the story: village bookworm Belle stumbles into the castle of the Beast looking for her lost father, Maurice (Kevin Kline, changed from inventor to artist here). The master of the house and all his servants have been hexed with a terrible curse, which will become permanent if the magic rose loses its last petal before he finds true love. Belle agrees to become his prisoner in exchange for dad, and antagonism gives way to blooming romance.

The heavy is again Gaston (Luke Evans), the swaggering musclebound hunter/soldier who desires Belle for himself. Josh Gad, as the flunkie LeFou, adds notes of jaded longing for his longtime companion. Some people are upset about having a (more or less) openly homosexual character in a Disney movie, but I was more perturbed he falls into the weary cliché of gay man pining for an unavailable straight.

Ewan McGregor takes over the Lumiere role of rapscallion candelabra; Emma Thompson is Mrs. Potts, and does a reasonably good job warbling the title song; Ian McKellen is unctuous butler Cogsworth; Audra McDonald is the operatic wardrobe; Stanley Tucci is a new character as the wardrobe’s musical and marital accompanist.

Originally they were going to weave some of the songs from the stage musical version into the movie, but instead went with four new ones. Two are just short trifles, while the Beast’s “Evermore” is a bland Broadway hollerer. Though “Days in the Sun,” sung by Watson with help from the supporting characters, more adequately explores the dilemma of the servants caught up in their master’s curse.

I think the lesson is if you’re going to remake a beloved classic, you need to let it evolve. Take some risks, change it around and see how audiences react. They may not like it as much. But there’s no magic in mere repetition.

Review: "Miles Ahead"

“Miles Ahead” is Don Cheadle’s riff on the life of Miles Davis, a master of improvisation, so it makes sense in many ways for him to treat the official biography of the jazz genius as a mere stepping-off point for his own concocted refrain.

But just as having masterful technical skills as an instrumentalist doesn’t necessarily mean you have the chops to make up music on the spot, the film’s dizzying attempts to inventively cogitate on Miles’ mythology sometimes wander off into narrative cul-de-sacs and side tracks that just don’t sing.

The esteemed actor gives perhaps the finest performance of his career, showing us the contemplation and calculation behind that ferocious mask of Eff You self-regard with which Davis obscured himself. We see and feel his hunger to create, the rage at anything that stood between him and his music, understand a bit of the towering pride that often harmonizes with talent.

Cheadle also directed and co-wrote the screenplay (with Steven Baigelman), his feature film debut in both roles. It’s technically accomplished work; it hits a lot of emotional scenes solidly and certainly bespeaks of someone who has a future behind the camera if he wants one.

The movie mostly concentrates on Davis’ fallow period from 1975 to 1979, when he stopped publishing music and even ceased playing the trumpet at all, with flashbacks to his heyday in the 1950s and early ‘60s. The early biographical stuff more or less plays it straight, while the later scenes have the barest bridge to reality.

The latter involve a wild scenario in which Davis’ session tape, supposedly the chariot of his comeback, is stolen and re-stolen back and forth between himself and Harper Hamilton, a shyster agent played by Michael Stuhlbarg, complete with squealing car chases and blazing gun duels.

Acting as his wingman/witness is David Brill, a hipster Scottish journalist played by Ewan McGregor who was sent by Rolling Stone magazine to get the scoop on Davis’ return. Though Brill may be fudging about whether he was actually assigned the story, or just knocked on Davis’ door on spec. His initial attempts at an interview don’t go well.

Davis: “My story? I was born, I moved to New York, met some cats, made some music, did some dope, made some more music, then you came to my house.”
Brill: “That's it? …I guess I'll fill in the blanks later.”
Davis: “That's what all you writin' mother****ers do anyway.”

The movie is framed by a formal sit-down interview with the same journalist, apparently meeting for the first time, which is our cue that everything that comes between is mere rumination.

Cheadle gets deep inside Davis’ physicality, somehow bending a slight resemblance into near-doppelgänger accuracy. It starts with that sheathed voice, partly croak and partly purr, as if consciously trading volume for intensity. Then there’s the shuffling limp -- the result of a congenital hip disorder in real life, but something else in the movie’s telling -- and the deadpan snarl.

Cheadle even nails the straight-fingered way Davis bent his digits at the first knuckle perpendicular over the horn’s valves, instead of rounded like they teach you. As in everything, Davis played it his way.

Emayatzy Carinealdi is a vibrant presence as Frances, Miles’ first wife and muse, even appearing on the cover of his 1961 album, “Someday My Prince Will Come.” She was a rising dancer who gave up her career at his bequest, which sets off a downward spiral of resentment and, eventually, violence. The film regrettable short-shrifts Davis’ long history of domestic abuse.

Keith Stanfield, a young actor who’s been phenomenal in small films like “Dope” and “Short Term 12,” plays Junior, a fictionalized young trumpeter who gets unconvincingly caught up in the scramble for the session tape, yet still receives a little mentoring from the legend.

Davis was famously reticent to play his famed standards, preferring to focus on his ever-evolving taste for freeform jazz (or “social music,” as he preferred), bebop, fusion, etc. “If the music don’t move on, it’s dead music,” he says.

In trying to embrace his subject’s ingenuity, Cheadle erred too much on the side of fancifulness to the detriment of coherence. That doesn’t degrade the power of his performance. Sometimes the solo outshines the tune.

Review: "Mortdecai"

"Mortdecai" is a piffle, a lark, an utterly inconsequential movie that wears its insipidness like a badge of honor.

There is virtually no acting in it, only cartoonish behavior. It does not have a plot, but simply a collection of scenes ill-strung together. It bets its entire stake on the onscreen appeal of Johnny Depp, but the former World's Biggest Movie Star seems determined to continue to ostracize audiences with another in a string of precious, fey characters that are amusing only to himself.

Oh, the title character is entertaining, at least for the first few scenes. Charlie Mortdecai, the lord of something-or-other, is a down-on-his-luck British art dealer who owes the government a bundle of money. His latest schemes have proven disastrous, so he's enlisted/arm-twisted into running down a famous stolen painting by MI5.

Mortdecai dresses like the lord of the manor -- which he is, though everything in his massive country mansion is about to go up for hock -- has an elaborately pompadoured sweep of hair, very sophisticated erudition, and an appropriately snobby manner. He has also recently grown a mustache, of which he is very proud, even though it is somehow sparse and splayed at the same time, and most resembles, as his wife puts it upon seeing it for the first time, a female body part that has been grafted onto his face.

But Mortdecai's kvetching and strutting -- the man has not an ounce of courage in him -- quickly grows tiresome. This is the sort of character best used as a foil in another story, rather than the main guy. We feel as if we must have fallen asleep, and the movie took a wrong turn.

Let's put it this way: this is the sort of flick in which Mortdecai has a weirdly devoted manservant/bodyguard (Paul Bettany), who has a tendency to bed women wherever he goes, often in the space of a few minutes, whose name is "Jock Strapp." I thought Mortdecai was calling him Jacques, but it's just his swishy accent.

Gwyneth Paltrow plays Johanna, Mortdecai's long-suffering wife, who is nonplussed by both their impending penury, as well as the aforementioned face fur. Johanna is more or less the only person in the movie who doesn't behave like an over-the-top nitwit, so it's a bit unclear if she's actually mad with Mortdecai or if this is another round in a long game of twisted flirtation they like to play.

Back in college Johanna chose the exuberant Mortdecai over sweet, sensitive Martland (Ewan McGregor), and now he's a top British intelligence agent who's still carrying a huge torch for Mrs. Mortdecai. Martland forces Mortdecai to run down a rare, rumored Goya painting, which the usual array of criminals and rich jag-offs all want for themselves.

Thus we set off on an international escapade to various famed cities, illustrated by some cheap-looking CGI of planes flying hither and yon.

There are a few genuine laughs in "Mortdecai," which is based on a series of books by Kyril Bonfiglioli. But they are fleeting, and mostly we feel like we've been shoved into Johnny Depp's closet full of idiosyncratic marionettes.

Review: "August: Osage County"

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tracy Letts, who also penned the screenplay, “August: Osage County” is the sort of movie that shows its stage roots.

The action -- and by “action,” I mean people talking -- takes place in more or less a single location. There’s a certain showiness to the dialogue and performances, as if broadcasting to the back of the room. And it relies on two or three big, booming plot twists to carry the narrative, which by itself is rather meager.

This is the sort of movie that has close on to a dozen important characters, and every single one of them has at least one look-at-me moment where they get to have a big speech to deliver or an emotional crisis in which to wallow. For the minor characters, it practically feels like a checklist: “OK, here’s the timid son’s time in the spotlight.” The major players enjoy several of these.

All this isn’t to say “August” isn’t a thoroughly enjoyable cinematic experience. It is. It just doesn’t hold a grand sense of newness about itself. It feels like latter-day William Faulkner with a wink.

The film skates by on some pretty tremendous performances by some pretty amazing actors, starting with Meryl Streep. As family matriarch Violet Weston, Streep is like an Oklahoma tornado sweeping through her own house, hurling things this way and that. Suffering from mouth cancer and constantly addled by the many drugs she takes to address it, Violet feels no compunction about saying perfectly horrible things to anyone and everyone around here.

She saves her most venomous bile for her own clan. As the story opens her husband, Beverly (Sam Shepard), a noted poet, has died under mysterious circumstances, probably a suicide. As the family gathers to lay him to rest, it’s also an occasion to hash any number of squabbles, secrets and recriminations.

Oldest daughter Barbara (Julia Roberts) loathes the vindictive creature her mother has become, and fears she’s treading down the same path. Separated from her husband (Ewan McGregor) and estranged from their teen daughter (Abigail Breslin), she’s not spoiling for a fight with Violet, but she’s not about to back down from one, either.

The other two daughters are Karen (Juliette Lewis) and Ivy (Julianne Nicholson), both sporting man problems. Karen, brittle and self-deluded, has shown up with her latest beau, a glib sports car-driving business type (Dermot Mulroney). Ivy, the lonely child who stuck around to care for their parents, is resentful and reticent to share news about a new love.

I really enjoyed Margo Martindale as Violet’s sister, Mattie Fae, who has fewer sharp edges but hides a steely, mean streak underneath, and Chris Cooper as her husband Charles, a man with a tendency to smile through the pain. Their son Little Charles is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, a grown man with a childlike disposition and challenges.

Director John Wells is a TV guy whose only previous stint helming a feature film, “The Company Men,” was seen and appreciated by myself, and few others. He more or less hangs back and lets the actors rip, shrewing and harping and haranguing.

“August: Osage County” is a perfectly serviceable drama that’s worth a ticket, if only to see Meryl Streep’s latest masterwork. Even if she’s not always in the best movies, it’s hard to debate her status as the best film actor working today. She racks up Oscar nominations with astonishing regularity, and there’s a reason why.

Video review: "Jack the Giant Slayer"

Poor Nicholas Hoult. The young actor has the dis-privilege of starring in two of the year’s most underrated films.

First was the whimsical horror-romance “Warm Bodies,” which didn’t cause too much of a ruckus at the box office. And then came “Jack the Giant Slayer,” an action-heavy take on the classic beanstalk tale that bombed, despite lavish production values and a budget approaching $200 million.

It’s a shame, because “Jack” stands much taller as a piece of pure entertainment than similar movies like “Oz the Great and Powerful” or “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.”

Hoult plays Jack, a humble farm boy whose life goes on a wild ride after the magic beanstalk carries the beautiful princess into the clouds. It seems the giants were banished there eons ago by the humans, and their two-headed king has half a mind to seek his heaven on earth.

Stanley Tucci, Eleanor Tomlinson, Ewan McGregor and Ian McShane nicely fill out the cast as, respectively, the villain, the princess, the dashing knight and the gruff king.

But the real stars are the computer-generated giants – great, hairy burping beasts whose brutish manners and seeming lack of a feminine gender make their abode seem like the ultimate oversized frat house.

Director Bryan Singer, a veteran of the “X-Men” films, keeps the mood light and the action scenes coming at a furious pace. A great many men and animals get squished underfoot by the less-than-graceful giants, and the CGI captures the mayhem in all its glory.

“Jack the Giant Slayer” is a fun, goofy, giddy ride that never dares to take itself too seriously.

Unfortunately, the film’s lackluster performance in theaters may have contributed to a paucity of goodies for the video release. The DVD comes with a few deleted scenes and a gag reel. Upgrading to Blu-ray adds the “Become a Giant Slayer” interactive feature, and that’s it.

Too bad they didn’t go big for the video rollout.

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Video review: "The Impossible"

A semi-fictionalized account of the 2004 tsunami that swept across the southeast Asia coastline, claiming nearly a quarter-million lives, “The Impossible” is a spectacle of computer-generated effects and big human emotions.

Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor play Maria and Henry, a British couple vacationing in Thailand with their three sons when the tidal wave hits their seaside resorts. Their family separated by the enormous power of nature, the splintered factions struggle to survive and find out if the rest of their clan is still alive.

Maria is a doctor, so she immediately knows that the injuries she has suffered are life-threatening if she doesn’t get medical help soon. Her 12-year-old, Lucas (a terrific Tom Holland), must switch from antagonist preteen to brave protector, as the caretaker role gradually shifts from mother to son.

Meanwhile, Henry is trapped between caring for their youngest boys (Oaklee Pendergast and Samuel Joslin) and searching for his missing wife and firstborn. Completely unarmed for this ordeal both emotionally and logistically – he doesn’t even have a shirt or shoes – Henry is the passive everyman who must rise to the occasion.

The film, made by a pair of Spanish filmmakers based on the tale of a real Spanish family, doesn’t attempt to look at the broader impact of the tsunami, focusing instead on the drama of a clan of Westerners. It may not be fair to ignore the plight of hundreds of thousands of native people killed in the disaster, but it does make for a very effective movie drama.

It didn’t get much play here in the U.S., but this international tale is universally affecting.

Extra features are decent in quality, if not quantity. There is an audio commentary track by the filmmakers and producers, a few deleted scenes, and two making-of featurettes focusing on the casting and production of “The Impossible.

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Review: "Jack the Giant Slayer"

Just a short review here today; Joe Shearer is handling the main review over at The Film Yap, so head there to get his complete write-up.

There sure is a trend lately of turning children's fairy tales into splashy CGI action spectacles. Last summer's "Snow White and the Huntsman" was the testosterone-ized counterpart to "Mirror, Mirror." Earlier this year we had "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters," a title that suggests how successful it would be. Now "Jack and the Giant Slayer."

All these movies have employed the same methodology: Take a well-known (and conveniently public domain) story, punch it up with huge action sequences, add scary boogums rendered with computer animation, and then slather it all with a dark-and-grimy look and mood.

"Jack" is easily the best of the lot, perhaps because it doesn't take it self quite so seriously. Yes, there are some profoundly silly moments, but the cast and crew seem to recognize and embrace them. Stanley Tucci as the titular villain is practically doing a stand-up routine in medieval garb.

Nicholas Hoult is by design the least interesting character in the picture as Jack, a pleasant, placid farmboy stand-in for the audience in this high-flying adventure. There's a beautiful princess -- of course! -- played by Eleanor Tomlinson who's in need of rescuing. Ewan McGregor has a nice supporting turn as the plucky captain of the guard, and Ian McShane is around to do that growly thing that McShane keeps getting called upon to do.

The giants are the real stars of the movie. Thirty feet tall, hairy, lumpy and barefoot, they stroll about their kingdom in the skies, having been banished there by a mythical human king who wielded a magic crown to command them. They spend their days eating sheep, picking their noses and issuing troubling sounds and smells from various parts of their bodies.

Basically, it's Big Bachelor Heaven.

Anyway, those pesky magic beans turn up, accidentally get dropped in some water and grow into a massive beanstalk. Unfortunately, the princess is trapped inside Jack's house at the time and gets carried into the sky. The beanstalk also provides a convenient mode of transport for the giants to come back down and wage destruction.

Bill Nighy does the voice of the giant general Fallon, who has a second head that is not quite as developed. The little one mimics the speech of the big one, but in slurred, halting words. It's almost like the giant king having his own jester permanently attached to him, whispering idiot nothings into his ear.

Director Bryan Singer stages clean, thrilling action scenes and encourages his cast to keep the mood light. And the CGI melee is decently gruesome in a PG-13 sort of way, with plenty of unfortunate extras getting squished underfoot by giants or become fodder for their craving for man-meat.

"Jack the Giant Slayer" is a big, goofy thrill ride that manages to metastasize its fairy tale legend without getting too full of itself.

3 stars out of four

Review: "The Impossible"

“The Impossible” is an impressive and deeply troubling picture, both for intentional and unintentional reasons.

As a harrowing depiction of the 2004 tsunami that swept over much of southeast Asia, it’s a top-drawer portrait of humans struggling to survive and help one another. Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor are brilliant as parents whose family is sundered by the massive tidal wave hitting their Thai beach resort, each valiantly struggling to keep their sons alive while not knowing if the other is dead or not.

I do question the filmmakers’ purposes in choosing to focus on the plight of five Westerners amidst a disaster that claimed more than 230,000 lives – most of those native people, and with only a small sliver of the victims in Thailand. The tale is based on a real Spanish family, but director Juan Antonio Bayona and screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez – both Spaniards – choose to make the people British.

The answers to those sorts of questions are not hard to guess. People from English-speaking countries are more likely to identify with the plight their own, rather than a bunch of brown folks yammering in another language. It's understandable, since it’s an effective storytelling device that makes the main characters more identifiable with their target audience.

In focusing on how the disaster impacted a bunch of well-to-do Europeans, though, the filmmakers simultaneously make the horror more immediate and decouple the audience from its broader impacts.

Still, these sorts of concerns to not present themselves during the film, which unfolds with a riveting portrayal of the tidal wave and immediate aftermath. Terrific computer-generated effects bring the colossal onslaught of the tsunami right into our faces.

Maria (Watts) is a doctor who’s not currently practicing, while Henry (McGregor) is an engineer for a Japanese company. Their base is Tokyo, but they’ve adopted a jet-setting lifestyle that has grown comfortable to them.

Certainly their three boys seem to be typical lads. Simon (Oaklee Pendergast), 5, and 7-year-old Thomas (Samuel Joslin) are scrappy and stubborn. The eldest, Lucas (a marvelous Tom Holland), is about 12 and in full-blown preteen rebellion mode.

But when Lucas and Maria are separated from the rest of the family and she is seriously injured, he’s forced to grow up fast. As a doctor, she knows how badly she needs medical help, which only amplifies her plight. Watching the power balance shift, as son gradually becomes caretaker to mother, is the film’s high point.

Henry is a passive type, not your prototypical alpha-male movie hero. But his determination to see his entire family reunited is a sight to behold. Even when the survivors from their hotel are being shipped to safer ground, he stays behind to continue the search. Lacking even a shirt or shoes – they were swimming in the pool when the wave hit – Henry sets off bravely like a knight on a noble, if seemingly fruitless search.

“The Impossible” exists on only a single level of emotion and peril. The characters aren’t really defined other than by their reaction to a deadly challenge. But watching them rise to it is a compelling journey, as their incredible experience stands in for many others who did not make it to tell their tale.

3.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Haywire"

"Haywire" is a gimmick movie, and not a very good one. Its entire premise is built around the now-ubiquitous figure of the globe-trotting super-spy, a la Jason Bourne, who has amazing hand-to-hand combat skills. Except in this case, the butt-kicker supreme is a woman -- specifically, novice actress and MMA star Gina Carano.

Director Steven Soderbergh doesn't do anything particularly bold or imaginative with this tired genre other than flip the gender of the protagonist. It's almost as if he and screenwriter Lem Dobbs are saying, "See! We can make a movie with a female lead where the characters are just as stilted, the combat is just as repetitions and the plot just as much a nonsensical bramble as one starring a dude."

Imagine any Jason Statham movie with long hair and breasts, and you've pretty much got the flavor.
The film stars a lot of recognizable male actors -- Channing Tatum, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, Michael Fassbender -- most of whom get into fisticuffs with Carano, seemingly just to see them get pasted by a girl.

Carano, who resembles Rachel Weisz on human growth hormones, isn't asked to do much beyond scowl and kick. If the movie's entire reason for existence is to prove that a woman can be convincing as a brutish action star, then Carano certainly passes muster.

If, on the other hand, the idea is to create a believable, identifiable character and see how they react to seemingly insurmountable circumstances, then this mixed martial artist is out of her league.

Soderbergh keeps threatening to retire from movie-making, and un-clever projects like this don't exactly give us a reason to convince him to stick around.

Extra features, which are the same for both Blu-ray and DVD editions, are mercifully brief. There's "Gina Carano in Training," a 16-minute featurette whose title says it all, and the 5-minute "The Men of Haywire," which also pretty much says it all.

Movie: 1.5 stars out of four
Extras: 1.5 stars

Review: "I Love You Phillip Morris"

"I Love You Phillip Morris" is Jim Carrey's Big Gay Comedy.

Or maybe it's a drama; sometimes it's hard to tell. The studio is pushing it hard for Oscar nominations, so somebody wants it to be taken seriously. But the most important thing you need to know about this movie is that it's gay -- really, really gay!

Carrey, as serial con man Steven Russell, tells us so in his honey-dipped narration, flashing that big Cheshire grin: "Did I forget to mention that I'm gay? Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay!"

The story of Steven Russell, a real guy who repeatedly broke out of prison under the most audacious circumstances, would have made a compelling movie -- especially since, according to the book by Steven McVicker, he did it all out of love for Phillip Morris, another inmate played by Ewan McGregor.

But Carrey and McGregor don't play their romance straight (pun intended.) It's a jokey, flirty pile of wink-wink to let the audience know these two heterosexual actors are pretending to be in love just to get a laugh. Other than a few smooches, even their sex is shunted off-screen or just out of frame.

Co-writers/directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra treat the material as absurdist comedy. Steven is a former police officer with a Bible-thumping wife (Leslie Mann) who secretly sports around with other men. After a near-fatal car accident, he resolves to stop telling lies and live as his true self.

After moving to Miami and picking up some boy-toy arm candy (Rodrigo Santoro), Steven has an epiphany: Being gay is really, really expensive! To keep his boyfriend decked out in finery and fun times, he turns to insurance fraud and winds up in prison.

There he meets Phillip, a timid twink (Google it) who needs protection. Convincing him that they're soul mates, Steven arranges for them to share the same cell, and later even poses as Phillip's attorney to get him sprung early.

Steven's biggest con is getting hired as the CFO of a large company, where he proceeds to embezzle money to keep himself and Phillip in luxurious style. Curiously, Steven does not actually steal from the company's coffers, but discovers an ingenious way to earn interest on their holdings, adding to their bottom line -- and keeping half for himself.

The film's main entertainment value is in watching all the crazy schemes Steven comes up with to get out of jail. He impersonates a judge phoning the court clerk to get his bail lowered, and even uses felt markers to dye his prison uniform green so he resembles a doctor, and simply walks past the guards.

Steven's M.O. is to be openly contemptuous of those he's fooling -- and it's also the same for the filmmakers. To them, it's the corporate honchos and church-going wives and gullible corrections employees who are the suckers deserving of mockery, not the criminal who outwits them.

The exception, of course, being Phillip, who is Steven's one true love -- until, that is, a sudden flashback near the end that casts his affection for Phillip into doubt.

The moral is supposed to be that Steven Russell tells so many lies, he loses sight of the person inside. But really, the people "I Love You Phillip Morris" is most putting one over on is the audience.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "The Ghost Writer"

"The Ghost Writer" starts off at a slow boil, and for a long time the plot simmers without gaining momentum. It bubbles away and doesn't seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere. But then the last 30 minutes or so kick into high gear, with big reveals and satisfying twists.

It's based on the novel "The Ghost" by Robert Harris, who adapted it for the screen along with director Roman Polanski.

(Polanski was still working on the film when he was incarcerated as a fugitive from justice after raping a 13-year-old girl back in the 1970s. I won't linger on the debate about whether the Polish director is a great artist or a sexual deviant, other than to say I've never understood why people insist the two are mutually exclusive.)

"The Ghost Writer" isn't among Polanski's finest works ("The Pianist," "Chinatown") but it's certainly a worthy mystery/thriller.

Ewan McGregor plays the (unnamed) ghost, or ghost writer, for former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan, clearly enjoying himself.) Lang -- who bears a not-at-all accidental similarity to Tony Blair -- was popular but drew criticism near the end of his term for playing poodle to American interests.

Just as the ghost arrives at Lang's secluded beach mansion to fix up the dry memoirs, one of his former ministers (Jon Bernthal) steps forward with allegations that his boss aided in the kidnapping of British citizens to be waterboarded by the CIA.

After Lang decamps to deal with the charges, the ghost starts digging into the mystery. His predecessor, a longtime Lang aide, drowned mysteriously on the same island, and the ghost finds photographs and documents among the deceased's effects that don't jibe with the autobiographical history Lang provided.

Lang's wife Ruth (Olivia Williams) gave up her own political ambitions to foster her husband's, and resents how his life overshadows and restricts hers. She certainly has charismatic skills of manipulation, which she's soon exercising on the writer.

The ghost's investigation eventually leads to the secluded house of a Harvard professor (a great Tom Wilkinson) whose connections to Lang may be more than meets the eye.

Mysterious men start following the writer around, as the cat-and-mouse game gains intensity and energy.

Nowadays most movies of this sort start out strong and peter out with an illogical or unnecessary ending. "The Ghost Writer" moves in the opposite direction, dithering early on and growing stronger and more purposeful as it goes.

The biggest weakness of the film is the ghost, who never gains any substance as a character. We don't know anything about who he is, so it's peculiar that a professed political agnostic would become so obsessed in ferreting out the truth.

I won't reveal anything about the big twist at the end, other than to say it will probably bolster the mood of those contemptuous of the Bush/Blair anti-terror strategy. For Polanski, the horrors of history are an ample springboard for his distinctive, neurotic style of filmmaking.

3 stars

Video review: "Angels & Demons"

Tom Hanks' hair is sleeker, shorter and just plain less ridiculous. The movie, too.

"Angels & Demons" is the sequel to "The Da Vinci Code," which managed to be both controversial and lackluster. Hanks, as symbologist Robert Langdon, wore a silly, swoopy hairdo and a perpetually glum expression as he uncovered nefarious plots by the Catholic Church.

"Angels" was actually written by author Dan Brown before "Da Vinci" and takes place earlier, too, but director Ron Howard and his screenwriters neatly sidestep that issue, rejiggering the timeline so Langdon is ostracized by the church for airing their dirty laundry.

This time, though, they need his help. The ancient order of Illuminati, a group of scientists persecuted by the church, has vowed to destroy Vatican City. Most of the cardinals are in conclave to elect a new pope, but four have been kidnapped. One will die each hour, publicly, until a device containing antimatter detonates at midnight, killing thousands.

Ultimately, it's the chase rather than the history lesson that makes "Angels & Demons" something "The Da Vinci Code" was not: Fun.

Despite the lack of a commentary track, video extras are fairly broad in scope, and include the participation of all major cast and crew. However, they tend to be a little more geared toward hype than illumination.

The DVD comes with seven featurettes totaling nearly 90 minutes of material on such topics as special effects, props and the writing process (Brown himself chimes in). There's even a bit about the guy who created the upside-down ambigrams used in the book and movie, who lent his name to the Langdon character.

Especially interesting is how the filmmakers recreated Vatican sites such as the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Square using a combination of real footage, sets and computer-generated images.

In addition, the Blu-ray version comes with an unrated extended version of the film that adds eight minutes to the run time, and "The Path of Illumination," an interactive guide through Rome with additional information and interviews tied to key locations. And, a digital copy of the film.

Movie: 3 stars
Extras: 3 stars