Review: "The Willoughbys"

It's built into the DNA of the modern animated family film that there must be "life lessons" aimed at wee ones. "The Willoughbys" has that, too, though it's buried pretty deep in this tale, based on the book by Lois Lowry, about fractured families.

Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby are... really terrible parents. And not in a strictly ha-ha, they'll-come-around-in-the-end kinda way. They truly, deeply, madly do not like having children.

Living in virtual isolation inside an old mansion surrounded on all sides by skyscrapers, the Willoughbys (voices of Jane Krakowski and Martin Short) do have lots of love in their hearts -- but only for each other. Their ravishing romance holds no room for any ardor to escape when Tim, their firstborn, suddenly arrives. Same goes for daughter Jane and twin boys, who even have to share the same name, Barnaby (Sean Cullen).

(In the narrative safe space of movies aimed at kids, babies simply arrive unheralded, like the mail or the pest cat, voiced by Ricky Gervais, who also acts as the jaded narrator.)

The kids are basically left to their own devices, meals delivered infrequently as the parents remember to dispose of their leftovers, and any minor transgressions rewarded with confinement to the basement coal bin. This is mostly aimed at Tim (Will Forte), who as the oldest is put in charge of the litter by default.

Mostly the parents stay in their living room, cooing and kissing, and dreaming of a day when the children are gone. Unbeknownst to them, the kids are planning the same thing.

They hatch a plan to lure their parents into taking an extended trip around the world, ending with their demise in trying to climb "the tallest Alp." They're trying to manufacture their own orphanhood.

Alas, the parents did have the foresight to hire a nanny -- albeit the cheapest one possible -- and thus arrives Nanny (Maya Rudolph), a plus-sized bundle of energy. Jane (Alessia Cara), a budding songstress, immediately takes a shine to her, but the boys hatch plans to catapult her out the attic window into the city streets, and thus beyond their ken.

I really liked the look of this film, which is done in CG animation but made to seem like stop-motion, with little hiccups in the way people move. The Willoughbys all have vivid red yarn-like hair, including prodigious mustaches when they reach adulthood -- men and women.

The rest of the populace comes in all sorts of hues and shapes. Later on we meet Commander Melanoff (Terry Crews), the fictional mascot of a line of candy the kids are shocked to discover is an actual person, running a massive factory in solitude. He wears a military uniform made of gumdrops and other sugary confections, with a chest the size of a Buick and itty-bitty legs.

This is a fun, bright movie that adults will enjoy as much as children -- an increasingly rare thing you can say these days. Tim, Jane and the Barnabys share a strong bond even as they resign themselves to the fact their parents aren't going to suddenly turn into good people.

"Some people just weren't meant to have children" is not the sort of message you're used to hearing in a children's movie. It has the virtue of being true while also, in this take, quite funny.

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.

Video review: "Gamer"

"Gamer," the latest attempt to meld video games with movies, starts out with a cool, compelling premise. And then it devolves into a bunch of hyper-fast action scenes, maudlin emotions and exploitative imperatives.

The filmmakers, the same team behind the "Crank" movies, seem to have their own peculiar formula. It's like a marriage of 1970s exploitation movies and modern, ultra-hip music video style.

The set-up is that the world is slowly being taken over by video games -- literally. Gerard Butler stars as Kable, the star of a combat game that billions of people watch on pay-per-view. The only twist is that he's a real person, playing against other live would-be soldiers. They're being controlled by players, who can determine whether they live or die.

The heavy is Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall), the gaming wizard who devised the system, and played by Hall as a Ted Turner spoof, only younger and crazier. He wants to use his nefarious code to turn the brains of everyone on the planet into easily-manipulated hardware.

The computer-animation-assisted action scenes have a nice kinetic feel. But whenever these video-game avatars try to emote like real humans, I wanted to hit the Off switch.

Extras cover a pretty wide range of material, although the ratio of substance to hype is pretty low.

The DVD has a 16-minute featurette that's essentially a commercial for Red, a new type of digital camera. Co-writers/directors Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine team up with supporting stars Amber Valletta, Alison Lohman and Terry Crews for a rambling commentary track of dubious value.

There's also a making-of documentary that's nearly as long as the movie itself, though not much more entertaining.

In addition to these features, the Blu-ray version also comes with Cheat Codes, additional scene-specific audio and video commentary, and I-Con Mode, an "interactive time-shifting multi-dimensional exploration" of "Gamer."

It's notable that star Butler is almost totally absent from these extras -- although he does moon the camera at the end of the making-of feature. I'd say that's about how much regard this movie has for its audience.

Movie: 2 stars
Extras: 2 stars