Video review: "The Greatest Showman"

“The Greatest Showman” was perhaps the quietest blockbusters of the past year. Released around Christmastime, it garnered respectful but not gushing reviews, and opened to modest buzz and box office. But this energetic musical, starring Hugh Jackman in a (very) fictionalized portrait of circus pioneer P.T. Barnum, kept staying around -- it “has legs,” as they say in the biz -- and ultimately grossed more than $400 million worldwide.

It’s a solid picture, filled with Broadway-style spectacle and songs, the sort of thing where the characters look right at you and belt their stories out in crescendoing first-person power ballads. It doesn’t feel particularly fresh or new, but it’s hard to deny the sheer entertainment value.

In this telling -- original screenplay by Bill Condon and Jenny Bicks, directed by rookie Michael Gracey -- Barnum is a dreamer who wants to spread joy to the world, as well as give a home to those who have been cast out and kicked aside as freaks. Michelle Williams plays his long-suffering wife, Charity, and Zac Efron is Phillip Carlyle, the young business-minded fellow who becomes his right-hand man.

The circus performers are a rogues’ gallery of bearded ladies, strongmen, Lilliputians and the like. A few stand out, notably Keala Settle as Lettie, the furry-chinned woman who can also knock the barn doors down with her voice, and Zendaya as Anne, a trapeze artist who dares a mixed race romance with Phillip.

Jackman, who also closed the book on his Wolverine character last year, is back in his element as a song-and-dance man, charismatic and haunted. During the course of the tale, Barnum goes from low to high and back again, tempted by a famous songbird (Rebecca Ferguson) he signs to a contract to show the world he’s not just a purveyor of oddities.

People keep saying “the musical genre is back,” until it goes away again. As long as we get a good one every few years like “The Greatest Showman,” I’m all in tune.

Bonus features ae pretty good with more than two hours of extras, including a sing-along edition and music machine “jukebox” function. There’s also a making-of documentary, dance tutorial, feature-length audio commentary with Gracey, still photo galleries and a featurette on the Barnum family.

Movie:

Extras:

Video review: "Baywatch"

Stretching is good if you’re exercising but not if you’re making movies. “Baywatch” is a sorta-spoof of the television show that has about 30 minutes’ worth of decent material, but then tries to string that out to a two-hour movie. The end result is a flick with a few good laughs and a whole bunch of filler in between.

Dwayne Johnson plays Lieutenant Mitch Buchannon, the veteran leader of the local lifeguard crew. (Motto: “Risking Our Lives and Flexing for $9/hour.”) The running joke is that he takes his job way too seriously, behaving more like a special ops operative than a dude in jams and flipflops.

As the story opens Mitch is recruiting two new spots on the team. Matt Brody (Zac Efron) would seem to be the top candidate, an Olympic swimming star who can cut through the water like nobody else. But he’s also an arrogant ass who disgraced himself and is looking to take the next steps.

Summer (Alexandra Daddario) is the competition he takes a shine too, who’s too smart to fall for his bro-dude antics. Rounding out the cast of contenders is Ronnie (Jon Bass), a schlubby but good-hearted guy who would seem to be a long shot to make the team.

It’s a pretty raunchy affair, with the boys showing off a lot more skin than the girls. The plot is a forgettable lark, something about an evil businesswoman buying up the beach. Mitch and his fellow lifeguards take on the extra duty of solving some murder and fraud in between elliptical workouts.

There’s been a whole slew of old TV shows turned into movie spoofs in recent years. I’m not opposed to the idea, but I can’t think of a one of them that’s been better than mediocre. “Baywatch” doesn’t sink, but it doesn’t exactly swim, either.

Bonus features include an extended version of the film with new and longer scenes, plus four-making of featurettes. They’re only available on the Blu-ray, though, as the DVD edition has none.

Movie:



Extras:

Review: "Baywatch"

I never watched a single episode of the "Baywatch" TV show, or wanted to. They couldn't just have lifeguards resuscitating poor swimmers every week, so they brought in drug dealers, inter-squad passion/spats, earthquakes and even a serial killer to spice things up.

It sounded like a weird amalgam of a crime procedural and fleshfest, complete with the slo-mo running "jiggle cam" that became its signature.

Basically, it was a stripper cop show.

"Baywatch" at least seemed aware of its own silliness, and to the extent possible, embraced it. So the logical thing to do if you were going to make a movie out of it is to spoof the TV version, in the way that "21 Jump Street," “The A Team” and the more recent “CHIPS” did.

(Though perhaps these are not the… best examples.)

Director Seth Gordon, a TV and film comedy veteran (“Identity Thief,” “Horrible Bosses”), and screenwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift start off reasonably well, gathering together a gaggle of eye-pleasing hardbodies and concocting a bunch of goofy, raunchy scenarios to put them through.

But the film loses steam pretty early, and then hangs around way too long -- nearly two hours. If any movie needed to rock an 82-minute run time, it’s this.

It’s very aware of what it’s trying to do, at least for a while. The actors mock the TV show while paying homage to it. For instance, one of the women questions why it is their familiar fire red one-piece bathing suits ride so far up their rear ends. It makes us faster in the water, or something, the other responds… and we all know it’s the “or something.”

Interestingly, a whole lot more male flesh is on display than female which, other than some cleavage and the aforementioned butt-age, is pretty much kept under wraps. That is largely provided by Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron, two famously buff actors who butter their bread with getting their kits off.

Johnson is built like the former WWE and NFL prospect he was, massive in the Schwarzeneggerian mold. He basically looks like an 18-wheeler encased in flesh. Efron, a former teen idol, seems intent on completely ridding his body of all fat to the point he resembles those “visible man” cut-out models you saw in biology class, where every muscle strand and the guts are naked to the eye.

Apparently, this is considered attractive nowadays. I guess the next step is for people to start making their internal organs visible. Soon there’ll be a market for cosmetic surgery of the liver.

There is one schlubby guy, a new recruit named Ronnie (Jon Bass), because it’s supposed to be funny to have the rippled crew running on the beach together, and here’s this big belly sloshing around in slo-mo. But the movie awards him… other attributes as compensation.

Other newbies to the Baywatch team are Alexandra Daddario as Summer, a tough and smart girl, and Efron as Matt Brody, a former Olympic champion more famous for his out-of-the-pool tomfoolery than his gold medals. Think Ryan Lochte with gastrointestinal issues. He’s cocky as all get-out and must be put in his place, starting with Summer responding to his brodude overtures.

Johnson is Lieutenant Mitch Buchannon, a legend on the beach with hundreds of confirmed saves. One of the running jokes is that Mitch acts like a military special-ops badass -- the exact origin of his rank is nebulous -- and people have to keep reminding him he’s just a lifeguard.

Ilfenesh Hadera plays Stephanie, Mitch’s seasoned and capable #2. Rob Huebel is the jerk suit ostensibly in command. Kelly Rohrbach rounds out the team as CJ, whom Ronnie is smitten with, and she might just have a little smit running the other direction, too.

There’s a plot, but that’s not really the point. Something about a powerful businesswoman buying up beach properties, muscling politicos and offing anyone who gets in the way.

“Baywatch” actually starts out pretty funny and fresh, but they only really had about two solid “SNL” skits worth of material to go on. The rest is unfunny filler. But I guess they spent so much effort trimming the fat from the beach bods, they couldn’t bother to do the same with the script.

Review: "Dirty Grandpa"

Well, he's certainly dirty alright.

If you were expecting the presence of acclaimed actor Robert De Niro to having a taming effect on this raunch-and-roll party, think again. De Niro plays a hard-partying gramps who has just lost his wife of 40 years, and decamps to Florida with his grandson to let his inner 21-year-old out.

On her deathbed, he insists, she told him to get out there and live the life he wants, and now he's carrying through on that pledge -- and not even waiting until her body is cold to do it.

De Niro plays Dick Kelly, a retired Army guy who, by his own acknowledgement, was an awful father. His son (Dermot Mulroney) turned into an uptight jerk, and now third generation Kelly Jason (Zac Efron) is following in his footsteps. He's already a junior associate in his dad's corporate law firm, more concerned with forming LLCs and getting married to a controlling rich witch (Julianne Hough) than pursuing his dreams.

Protesting the suspension of his driver's license due to cataracts, Dick shames Jason into driving him from Atlanta down to Boca Raton, with a few "stops" along the way. They play golf, chase some girls, head to Daytona for spring break, chase more girls, drink a lot, drug a lot, get into some fights and maybe, just maybe, learn some life lessons.

If it sounds like a goofball bender, a young-meets-old version of "The Hangover," that's because it is. Director Dan Mazer and script man John Phillips keep things loose and fast-paced. It may be 102 minutes of debauchery, but it's got just a smidgen of class.

Along the way they hook up with a threesome of hotties: Shadia (Zoey Deutch), who shared a freshman photography class with Jason and is interested in another exposure; Lenore (Aubrey Plaza), a slutty girl with a thing for oldsters; and Bradley (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman), a fabulous gay black man who can't tell if the crass grandpa is pulling his leg or not.

Both De Niro and Efron show off a considerable amount of skin in the movie, proving that the 72-year-old screen legend still has a body of iron, and that the 28-year-old Efron is a frequent patron at the hair waxing salon. There's also a bed-sharing scene that ups the ante from a similar one in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" -- though with some stunt, uh, body parts, methinks.

One of the running jokes is how lax law enforcement is in Florida. Jason Mantzoukas plays Tan Pam, who runs a souvenir shop that's just a front for his drug operation. He fires pistols randomly -- "This entire state is licensed as a gun range!" -- and has endeared himself to the local cops so much that they pat him on the head and tell him to run along whenever he does something bad, like selling meth to 8th-graders.

It's a weird kabob of a movie, one bite tasty and the next one foul, though there's probably enough good to recommend if you're into this sort of thing. Just know what you're getting: this grandfather isn't cantankerous, he's one crude dude.

Video review: "The Lorax"

Subtle as a buzz saw mowing down those cotton-candy-colored Truffula Trees, “The Lorax” (PG, 86 min.) fitfully combines a heavy-handed environmental message with bright, shiny animation for little kiddies.

Adapted from one of the lesser-known books by Dr. Seuss, this story has as its hero a grumpy little yellow furball who acts as the protector of the forest. His nemesis is the Once-ler (voice of Ed Helms), an amiable young man who wants to use the Truffulas to make his Thneed, a mysterious product (even to him) that will make him rich.

The Lorax (voiced well by Danny DeVito) possesses magical powers, but he never actually uses them to put a stop to the Once-ler’s nefarious antics. Instead, he waits until the devastation is complete and then tries to make people feel bad about it.

As eye candy goes, “The Lorax” is a treat, with wonderfully crisp images and fanciful critters who feel like they jumped right off Dr. Seuss’ pages. Even the supposedly sterile city that sprung up in the Once-ler’s path is fun to spend time in, with its gravity-defying buildings and one-wheeled vehicles.

“The Lorax” will likely keep tots engaged, but this one’s meant for the adult to hit “play” and go read a book.

Like a lot of fare aimed at younger audiences, “The Lorax” is being given a strong video release with lots of extras.

Both the DVD and standalone Blu-ray editions come with a feature-length commentary track, plus three featurettes: “Seuss to Screen,” “Seuss It Up” and “Once-ler’s Wagon.”

Upgrade to the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, and you get three new mini-movies, plus a making-of featurette about them. There’s also a deleted scene, sing-a-long song, a game and a digital copy of the film for taking with you on the road.

Movie: 2 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "The Lorax"

More a civics lesson than a story, "The Lorax" is based on one of Dr. Seuss' lesser-known books -- and it's not surprising that the pint-sized yellow furball with a walrus mustache isn't nearly as iconic as the Grinch or the Cat in the Hat.

Voiced by Danny DeVito as the cantankerous protector of the forest, The Lorax doesn't go on any zany adventures or experience a turnaround of heart from his once-wicked ways. He doesn't even use his magic to zap the bad guys chopping down his beloved Truffula Trees. He's just an environmental steward who gets his way by lecturing people to do the right thing.

His heart may be in the right place, but this woodland sprite comes across as a shrill nag.

Lou Dobbs and some other right-wing bloviators have taken to preemptively criticizing this movie for its leftist, tree-hugging themes. Normally I'd dismiss this sort of self-righteous hot air for what it is, but "The Lorax" sure gives them an obvious target to aim at.

The story concerns the Once-ler, an inventive young man who uses the Truffula Trees, which resemble rainbow-colored swirls of cotton candy, to make his Thneed. The Thneed, an indistinct cloth-like object, is the quintessential cinematic red herring, since nobody (even the Once-ler) knows exactly what it does. But he's determined that everyone will want one.

At first content to harvest the feather-like leaves, the Once-ler soon decides the needs of the Thneeds outweigh those of the adorable forest creatures -- impossibly cute roly-poly teddy bears, singing fish and friendly ducks. He starts lopping down all the trees, until nothing but a barren wasteland is left.

One musical number is especially un-subtle, with the Once-ler (Ed Helms) singing about his property rights and growing the economy as his Thneed factory belches out horrid black goo and choking smog. He even has a framed newspaper story about himself, titled "Too Big to Fail!"

Occupy Whoville, anyone?

The movie isn't helped by the wobbly framing story set decades into the future, involving an inquisitive young lad named Ted (Zac Efron) who wants to find the last tree in the world so he can impress Audrey (Taylor Swift), the older teen he adores. He ventures beyond the confines of Thneedville to seek out the Once-ler, who has turned into a mythical loner chewing over his misdeeds.

The computer-generated animation is quite good -- too good, in fact, for the plasticized world of Thneedville, where no living thing grows and the evil industrialist Mr. O'Hare (Rob Riggle) makes a killing by selling fresh air to the people. It's a bright and shiny menagerie of twisted Seussian buildings and overinflated one-wheeled vehicles, that in some ways is more fun to spend time in than the Lorax's virgin pastures.

Director Chris Renaud and screenwriters Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul, the same team behind the likeable "Despicable Me" from a couple years back, make a questionable choice in adapting the book. Seuss was careful never to show the Once-ler, other than a pair of arms. By fully revealing him as an engaging young fellow who turns bad, it breaks the conceit of the fable and makes everything seem a little less magical.

"The Lorax" isn't bad as far as entertainment for wee tykes. It fails not because it has an environmental tilt, but because -- like the Once-ler -- the movie isn't content to merely plant a few seeds of thought, opting instead to mow down the audience with is message.

2 stars out of four

Review: "17 Again"

Yes, "17 Again" is, by some counts, the 5,765th body-switcheroo flick. And no, it doesn't make us want to see the 5,766th.

And yet it's not terrible. In an unfortunately resilient genre that's produced exactly one genuinely terrific picture (that would be "Big") a whole lot of dreck, though, it passes as a reasonably entertaining bit of candy. Even if it never quite rises to the level of being more than a disposable distraction, at least it manages to never become tedious.

One thing I liked about the movie was that it is self-aware. It does not try to fool us with plausible arguments for why a guy nearing 40 would suddenly be transformed back into his 17-year-old self, or skirt around the obvious implications of doing so.

For example, when Mike O'Donnell first meets his estranged wife, Scarlett, again after losing 20 years (only he has aged backward; everyone else has stayed the same) she immediately remarks how much he looks like her husband in high school. And Scarlett can't explain why she's so attracted to her son's new best friend, even after getting the necessary cougar jokes out of the way.

And when Mike goes to his nerdly friend, Ned, to find out how this could have happened, they consult a host of books, comics and videos to see what other fictional versions of his experience have to say. "It's your basic transformation story," Ned ponders. "Were you by any chance struck by a gamma ray?"

Mike is played by Zac Efron as a youngster and Matthew Perry as the elder. The two actors bear little physical resemblance to each other, and there doesn't seem to have been much of an effort to match the performances, either. Perry's still doing his ironic wiseguy routine from "Friends," and Ephron is still the blandly nice heartthrob from "High School Musical."

With the help of Ned (Thomas Lennon), who got rich off the downloadable music thing, Mike figures he's been given a second shot to re-live a life gone awry. He blew off a college basketball scholarship to marry his pregnant girlfriend, and has become a stepped-upon dweeb who blames his wife and alienates his kids.

So he spends his days befriending his son, Alex (Sterling Knight), coaxing him out of his shell to try out for the basketball team and ask out that cute cheerleader. There's also a bully to be put in his place, who also happens to be the boyfriend of daughter Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg), who's been admitted to Georgetown but is looking to throw it all away to be with the loser.

Scarlett is played by Leslie Mann, who's been a standout in supporting roles in movies like "Knocked Up." She brings an earnest, believable quality to the role -- which helps when you're talking about a woman approaching middle age who gets the hots for a teen-ager.
"17 Again" is an old familiar story that didn't need to be told again. But at least it doesn't feel like we're wasting our time. That's good, because there are no body switcheroos waiting to give it back to us.

2.5 stars