Film

British invasion

The World’s End

Director Edgar Wright teams with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost for the raucous conclusion to their “Cornetto” trilogy with The World’s End, a twisted homage to male bonding, beer crawls and John Carpenter sci-fi. What makes this movie so much fun is that sense that anything can, and will, happen. Pegg plays Gary King, a relatively troubled but good-natured man determined to get his old crew back together and complete a pub crawl in his English hometown. This gathering would take place 20 years after the gang had failed to make it to the last pub on the infamous crawl, an incident providing King with a nagging sense of unfinished business. A good chunk of the film is actually a warm hearted, funny and well written gathering of old friends, told in straightforward fashion. Some of the men from the old gang are fairly happy to see King, while others, like the still recovering Andy (Nick Frost) would prefer he piss off. Still, even the apprehensive Andy joins the crew for what looks to be a taxing crawl drinking 12 pints in 12 clubs. If The World’s End just stayed the course and was a story about arrested adolescence, the dangers of going “back,” and the perils of drinking too much, it would be a pretty great movie. Pegg and Frost actually display solid dramatic chops to go with their comedic instincts. Thankfully, Wright and Pegg (both responsible for the screenplay) have more, much more, in mind. The film takes a crazy turn in a manner akin to the big twist in From Dusk Till Dawn, and suddenly becomes an alien invasion movie. This is prominently mentioned in the film’s ad campaign, so I hope I didn’t ruin your day.

It turns out their hometown has become overrun with blue-blooded robots from another world, robots that are determined to replicate Earthlings and dispose of their bodies (shades of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Carpenter’s The Thing). This sets the stage for awesome man-on-robot fight scenes. With this film, and Scott by Bob Grimm Pilgrim vs. the World, Wright has proven himself a modern master of cinematic bgrimm@ hand-to-hand combat. The choreography is newsreview.com hilarious and nasty. On top of everything, the film works as a 4 scathing satire of the infiltration of technology in our society, and how those damned iPads and smart phones are taking over. Please don’t count my saying this as any indication that I am against advancing technology. I love my gadgets, even if they are swallowing my soul. They’re just so damned cool to play with! In addition to Pegg and Frost, the cast includes Rosamund Pike as Sam, doing a fine job of kicking ass and looking flabbergasted. Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins!) reminds that he is a master comedic actor as an uptight real estate agent who never, ever removes his earphone, even when he’s pub-crawling. Eddie Marsan breaks hearts as Peter, a once-bullied man who is actually distraught when his former bully (Darren Boyd) fails to recognize him. If one were to rank this one in the Cornetto trilogy (named for a brand of ice cream that appears in all three films), this one is just a notch below Shaun of the Dead, yet a little better than Hot Fuzz. All three are solid, funny, smart films that make me wish they were part of a 10 movie series. Many of the summer blockbusters have been big, bloated messes that delivered messy action with little to no thrills. The World’s End makes up for a lot of the summer garbage with its big heart, many laughs and eye-popping visuals. Wright and Pegg remain supremely sick in the head, and we moviegoers benefit from their particular brand of insanity. Ω

“Damn! Did you ever imagine a seagull could eat so many beets?”

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excellent 5 Blue Jasmine There was a time in film history when Woody Allen was consistently making the best movies in the business. His latest, one of many movies he has made in the last 10 years, is that return to form that some of us former Allen fans have been waiting for, thanks in large part to a phenomenal central performance by the sure-to-be-Oscarnominated Cate Blanchett. Blanchett plays Jasmine, the wife of a Bernie Madoff-type financier (Alec Baldwin) who must relocate from New York to San Francisco after she is bankrupted and emotionally destroyed. She gulps martinis, criticizes her helpful sister (Sally Hawkins), and, quite frighteningly, is prone to bouts of talking to herself. Allen finds the dark humor in the story, and employs a supporting cast that includes comedians Bobby Cannavale, Louis C.K. and, most astonishingly, Andrew Dice Clay, who, doggone it, delivers one amazing performance as Ginger’s financially destroyed ex-husband, Augie. Above and beyond the humor, Allen makes his film a parable about how some deeds are irredeemable, and some folks are simply doomed. It’s as bittersweet as any movie you will see this, or any, year for that matter. As far as the Allen film canon goes, it’s a top five installment. It’s one of those films where everything pulls together perfectly, with Blanchett at its powerful center.

3Elysium Writer-director Neill Blomkamp follows up his strong feature-directing debut District 9 with another solid sci-fi effort, a film that delivers terrific action in service of a screenplay that takes a few missteps. Matt Damon stars as Max, a future resident of a nearly uninhabitable planet Earth. As he struggles to get by, rich people live the good life on a huge space station. After an accident leaves him full of radiation, he must get to the space station to use one of its healing chambers. Since the rich don’t allow the poor in their digs, Max winds up getting a super robot skeleton grafted to his body in order to provide some forceful incentive to let him in. The movie is equal parts brilliant and stupid, a visual feast that almost loses it in the end due to a hokey finale. It’s still one of the year’s better big blockbusters and proof that Blomkamp is not a one hit wonder. Jodie Foster is on hand as a narrow-minded government type who wants nothing to do with poor people. Sharlto Copley steals all of his scenes, playing against type as an evil killer agent in the service of Foster’s baddie.

1Kick Ass 2 And with this, a great movie is followed up by a complete piece of crap. Aaron Taylor-Johnson returns as the title character, a high school student determined to spend his off time as a superhero. You will wish he hadn’t. The same can be said for Chloe Grace Moretz returning as Hit-Girl. Her pint-sized character was a total trip the first time out; now she just looks silly. The plot has something to do with Hit-Girl retiring to become a normal student (her subplot is straight out of Heathers) while Kick-Ass looks for other superhero comrades. He finds them in a group led by Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars and Stripes. Carrey, who is the best thing in the movie with his few scenes, has disowned this film, citing its extreme violence. I think he wants nothing to do with it because it’s absolutely terrible. All of the style, successful humor and sharp acting is gone, replaced by abrasive performances and failed, stale humor. Christopher Mintz-Plasse, so good in the first movie, is a monstrosity as the film’s villain. I hated watching this, and I hate that it means Kick-Ass has come to an unsuccessful and shameful end at the cinemas.

3Lee Daniels’ The Butler Director Lee Daniels, prominently mentioned in the film’s title after a much publicized lawsuit, delivers a fine emotional wallop with this historical epic very loosely based on the life of Eugene Allen, a butler at the White House for 34 years. Those going to this film for its true historical significance take note: the film contains much fiction. Allen is renamed Cecil (played by Forest Whitaker), and is given a fictional son in order to depict a family conflict regarding the Civil Rights movement. So, this film, which shows the butler interacting with presidents from Eisenhower (Robin Williams) thru Ronald Reagan (Alan Rickman), is mostly made up. That doesn’t hurt the film’s dramatic significance. It’s an ultimately moving experience. What does damage the film a bit is horrible makeup, especially a goofy fake nose for John Cusack as Richard Nixon. The makeup is sometimes so bad, that the film turns into unintentional comedy when some characters are on screen. Whitaker holds the whole thing together, and Oprah Winfrey, in her first starring role since her excellent turn in Beloved, does strong work as Cecil’s wife. Other stars playing presidents include a relatively makeup-free James Marsden as John F. Kennedy, and an absolutely covered Liev Schreiber as Lyndon B. Johnson.

5The Spectacular Now Miles Teller delivers his breakout performance as Sutter, a partying high school senior that everybody loves but nobody takes seriously, until well-balanced Aimee (Shailene Woodley) comes along. They start a complicated relationship that is ill advised at both ends, but sometimes that’s the best way to start a relationship. Teller is a marvel here, turning Sutter into something far from your average high school screw-up. Woodley, so good in The Descendants, is proving to be one of cinema’s great young actresses. This film is a unique and intelligent take on growing up. This is directed by James Ponsoldt, who piloted last year’s terrific Smashed, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who appears here as Sutter’s sister. Ponsoldt is officially a force to be reckoned with, having made two of the best films of the last two years. Others in the cast include Jennifer Jason Leigh as Sutter’s mom, and Kyle Chandler as his idiot dad. And while he only has a couple of scenes, Bob Odenkirk is terrific as Sutter’s tolerant employer. To read a plot synopsis of this film is to make it seem ordinary. It’s far from ordinary. It’s spectacular.

3We’re the Millers Jason Sudeikis plays a small-time drug dealer who gets in over his head and is forced to smuggle drugs from Mexico by his boss (Ed Helms). Realizing that border agents seem to go easy on families, he hires a fake family to make the trip in an RV. The family includes a wife (a stripper played by Jennifer Aniston), a daughter (a homeless girl played by Emma Roberts) and a son (a hapless neighbor played by Will Poulter). The film has a Vacation movie vibe, especially because Sudeikis is charming in a way that Chevy Chase was for a brief time in his career. Aniston plays a mighty good stripper for sure; she has another calling in case the whole acting thing doesn’t work out. Roberts gets perhaps her best role yet as Casey, delivering some great eye-rolling moments. As for Poulter, he steals scenes nearly every time he speaks, and his encounter with a tarantula is priceless. Sure, the movie gets a little gooey and sentimental by the time it plays out, but we’ve come to like the characters by then so it’s OK. It’s not a grand cinematic effort by any means, but it does provide some good laughs, with a fair share of them being quite shocking.

2You’re Next This one is a little bit better than The Purge, the summer’s other home invasion horror film … but only a little. A rich family goes out to their vacation home in the countryside where they gather for a feast, only to have unseen visitors start picking them off with a crossbow. Those unseen visitors eventually show themselves as dudes wearing various animal masks, and they are a little on the creepy side. But, overall, this feels like standard, worn-out territory made sporadically tolerable by director Adam Wingard’s ability to tender the occasional unique scare. A seasoned mystery/horror watcher will see the big twists coming a mile away. Still, Sharni Vinson is pretty kick-ass as the girlfriend with a surprising ability to survive. The movie is a showcase for her talents in the end. As 2013 horror films go, this one isn’t nearly as fun as The Conjuring, but is markedly better than the snore fest that was The Purge. Apparently, it sat on the shelf for a long time. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if it had just stayed there or gone straight to video.