Film

Take flight

Non-Stop

Liam Neeson continues his relatively new career as the thinking older man’s action hero with Non-Stop, essentially Taken on a plane. This time it’s a big flying mechanical bird being kidnapped as opposed to an overacting, so-obviously-not-a-teenager Maggie Grace getting abducted. I sort of hate the Taken movies, so my writing the above statement might imply that Non-Stop stinks, too. It doesn’t. It’s one of those trashy movies that you can’t help but like because all of its implausibility and overwrought performances combine into something strangely entertaining. There’s nothing wrong with a little well-done trash cinema. We first see Nelson’s Bill Marks drinking an alcoholic beverage in an airport parking lot before he boards a plane. The opening passages of the movie slowly reveal what we already know from every commercial for this movie: Bill is a U.S. air marshal, and he’s going to have a dilemma on this particular flight. His plane … is going to be taken! The twist here is that a hijacker, through text communications and various manipulations, will make it actually look like Bill is the one hijacking the plane in the eyes of the passengers and the media, who get to see some of the onboard action via YouTube. The film has your basic assortment of terrorist suspects, everybody from the seemingly sweet female seat neighbor (Julianne Moore classing up the place) to the mysterious fellow (Scoot McNairy) who asks for a light before Bill boards the plane. There’s also a Muslim doctor, a grouchy NYC cop, a computer programmer, suspicious flight attendants and so on. It’s a gold star for you if you can figure out who is bad before the big reveal.

One twist after another hits you, and the movie goes beyond ridiculous into some forgivable zone where you get the feeling it’s all being done with a big wink at the audience. The folks making this movie must’ve been aware that their little thriller is completely nuts, right? This is the second time Neeson has by Bob Grimm teamed with director Jaume Collet-Serra, who helmed the also ridiculous but far less bgrimm@ fun Neeson vehicle Unknown, and the creepy newsreview.com Orphan. As he did with Orphan, Collet-Serra does a decent job keeping his audience off 3 balance when it comes to the mystery in Non-Stop. The overall feel of the movie is like a ’70s disaster flick, like Airport or, better yet, Airport ’77, the cinematic piece of awesomeness that saw a 747 sink in the ocean, with the plane staying intact and the survivors searching for options to reach the surface, eventually opting for really big balloons. If there was a missed opportunity here, it’s that the producers should’ve thrown in a couple of disaster film vets to augment the cheese factor. How much more fun could this have been with, say, people like Robert Hays (Airplane!), Robert Wagner (The Towering Inferno) or Richard Roundtree (Earthquake) occupying some seats. That would’ve been a sweet, daring way to acknowledge this film’s goofiness and obvious obligations to outlandish ’70s disaster epics. Non-Stop is one of those movies that you will stop on if you are flipping through channels a few years from now, and you just want to be entertained while switching your brain off. It won’t win any awards for smarts, but it will keep you riveted and Neeson makes for good company in this kind of crap sometimes. There are plans for Taken 3, and time will tell whether Bill Marks gets another air adventure. I would rather see Neeson drunk on a plane again before watching him have another one of those stupid “You’re going to be taken!” phone conversations with family members. Ω

“Don’t call me Shirley.”

1

Poor

2

Fair

3

Good

4

Very Good 5

excellent 2 3 Days to Kill Well, shucks. Kevin Costner and Hailee Steinfeld deliver good performances as father and daughter in this hot mess from sloppy director McG. Costner plays a Secret Service Agent who finds out he’s dying of cancer, and he wants to make his last days on Earth count. So he reconnects with his daughter (Steinfeld) and his ex-wife (Connie Nielsen) in Paris while taking on one last assignment. That last assignment is giving him a lot of money, and an experimental drug that only exists in the movies that could extend his life. Costner is on his game here, and Steinfeld holds her own in the scenes they share together. Unfortunately, the movie is all over the place tonally. Sometimes it’s a thriller, sometimes it’s a comedy, and so on. There’s also terrible editing choices and lousy sound editing to boot. Amber Heard shows up as Costner’s boss trying to pull off some sort of femme fatale routine that feels as if it should be in another movie. Only Costner and Steinfeld save this thing from being totally awful.

3About Last Night Don’t just file this one away as another unnecessary remake of an ’80s film, because Kevin Hart and company make the latest adaptation of David Mamet’s play Sexual Perversity in Chicago a wildly entertaining endeavor. Hart, who lights up any film he shows up in even when they stink, plays Bernie, a player who finds himself in a relationship with the fiery Joan (Regina Hall). While Bernie and Joan experience a wild rollercoaster ride of sex and spats, Bernie’s best bud Danny (Michael Ealy) winds up dating Joan’s best friend Debbie (Joy Bryant). The two have a one-night stand that turns into a long-term relationship replete with all the problems of a relationship that started up way too fast. The main reason to see the film is Hart and Hall, who are a crack up under the direction of Steve Pink (Hot Tub Time Machine). However, Ealy and Bryant make for an appealing and intriguing screen couple, so the movie doesn’t nosedive when the action switches to them. It’s better than the original, which starred Rob Lowe, Demi Moore and flippin’ James Belushi. Screw that movie.

3Frozen I have to admit I was more into the strange Mickey Mouse short that precedes this musical adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Snow Queen” than the actual feature. It features retro Mickey busting out of a black and white film and becoming 3-D as he battles a bad guy kidnapping Minnie. It’s worth the price of admission. As for the actual feature movie, Kristen Bell and Idina Menzel have wonderful voices, and the visuals are fun to behold in this middle-of-the-road Disney fare. It has a lot of music—some of it quite good, some of it, well, not—and a beautiful look to it. For recent Disney animation, my vote goes to Tangled for best, but that’s not to say this one is a letdown. It’s OK. Just OK. It’s about on par with Pixar’s latest, Monster’s University. It’s fun to watch, but not altogether memorable.

4The Lego Movie Fast paced, frequently hilarious, and visually fun, this is the sort of movie we’ve come to expect from Pixar, one that appeals to both kids and adults on many levels. It’s also notable that it isn’t a Pixar film, but a product of the still formidable but inconsistent Warner Brothers animation wing. The plot follows Emmet (Chris Pratt), a “generic” builder as he goes about his homogenized life, building structures under strict deadlines, listening to the same song (Tegan and Sara’s terrific “Everything is Awesome”) every minute of the day, and following the rules of the omnipotent President Business (Will Ferrell). President Business demands conformity in a decidedly socialistic way, but he keeps everybody at bay by promising Taco Tuesdays. Things change instantly when Emmet meets Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), who reveals to Emmet that he’s living in a pre-programmed world, and there’s the possibility for real life beyond its walls (echoes of The Matrix and Terry Gilliam’s Brazil). Emmet joins forces with Wildstyle and her extremely cool boyfriend, Batman (Arnett) to take down the establishment and restore freewill. The Lego Movie is a bit exhausting at times, but at least the constant stream of activity is laced with super intelligence rather than bombastic, vapid visuals. It’s a cliché, but I’ll say it: “Fun for the whole family!” 3 The Monuments Men Director George Clooney’s war epic about historians racing to save art from the Nazis looks and feels like it was just taken out of a time capsule buried in 1958. It’s quite breezy for a war movie, peppered with laughs provided by a strong cast including Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban and John Goodman as men trying to thwart Hitler’s plan for a giant museum. It has one of those whistle-infused soundtracks, and it doesn’t hurt that Clooney and Dujardin look like Errol Flynn and Gene Kelly. The movie moves briskly, and is perhaps a bit too weightless for a movie of such heavy subject matter. It also has a useless subplot involving Damon and Cate Blanchett. Still, Clooney has great command of the camera here, the ensemble (especially Murray and Goodman) shines, and it’s fun to watch. This is an interesting piece of World War II history, and it’s good that somebody has made a decent movie to cover this chapter of Hitler insanity.

1Pompeii If ever there was a good setting for a decent movie featuring lots of lava, I would think the story of how Mount Vesuvius blew would be intriguing. However, if you put Paul W.S. Anderson in charge of such a movie, well, you will probably end up with a pile of crap. Anderson has a way of destroying interesting premises with his sloppy directorial hand. For prime examples of how he screws things up, see Alien vs. Predator, Resident Evil: Afterlife, The Three Musketeers or Death Race. Or, better yet, don’t see them. Anderson takes the historic eruption and makes it the basis for what he probably hoped would be his Titanic. He has a love story, he has a lot of people scurrying for their lives, and he even has mournful female vocals that sound a lot like Celine Dion. What he doesn’t have are magnetic stars, decent special effects or a sense of pacing or continuity. When the volcano finally erupts, people have time for serious conversation, various sword fights and whatnot. I don’t think so, fellas. It should be noted that this film contains the very worst Kiefer Sutherland performance ever put to film, so it accomplishes something in the end.

3Robocop RoboCop is a remake that totally rewrites an original in a way that won’t piss off its legions of fans. Joel Kinnaman steps into the role of Alex Murphy (played in the late ’80s original by Peter Weller), a Detroit cop in the year 2028 who gets himself blown up after causing too much trouble for a criminal kingpin. Murphy, with the permission of his wife (Abbie Cornish) has his life saved by being placed into an armored endoskeleton with the purpose of making him a law enforcement superhero. In the original, Murphy (well played by Peter Weller) started his crime crusade not really knowing who he was, with memories suppressed. He eventually figured out his identity and solved his own murder. The new film drastically diverts from the original, having its Murphy freak out upon waking up as a robot, fully cognizant of who he is. It’s only when his emotional stability comes into question that his doctor (Gary Oldman) decides to mess with his brain and shoot him full of dopamine, turning him into a robot zombie. Paul Verhoeven’s original is a far superior film, but this one has its merits.

5The Wind Rises In director Hayao Miyazaki’s enchanting and somber The Wind Rises, Jiro, a character based on one of the designers of WWII Japanese bombers, shares his dreams with Caproni, an Italian airplane builder who intends to retire near film’s end. As it turns out, The Wind Rises is allegedly the last animated feature from Miyazaki, the legendary animation director of such films as Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle and Ponyo. Like the grandiose Caproni, the builder of airplane dreams in his latest feature, the 73-year-old Miyazaki plans to call it a day. If this is, indeed, his final film, he’s going out on a very high note, for sure. The film is a bittersweet mix of the joy of creation dream fulfillment, and how innocent dreams can sometimes foster terrible destruction. Miyazaki avoids politics for the most part, but there’s an underlying sadness in Jiro and the movie. It’s a beautifully made, complex film, far more than your average animated movie. The English dubbed version features the voices of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt and Martin Short.