Movie Box Review

HAPPY FEET TWO:  Watch It At Home - Not So Happy This Time

Most sequels, by and large, exist only because an earlier movie made lots of money--that's just a fact.  But sequels often at least try to find some justification beyond that, even if it's only a commitment to do the same thing as before, only bigger.  HAPPY FEET TWO isn't able to rouse itself to that kind of effort; it feels like a contractual obligation.

This is in spite of the fact that HF2, like the original, was directed by George Miller (who once upon a time was known for his Mad Max movies, a franchise which he keeps saying will return), and that Miller and Warren Coleman remain two of the writers, this time with Gary Eck and Paul Livingston.  Clearly much time and effort was put into the new feature, but in such a dogged way that the audience feels the strain as much as the filmmakers.

The first Happy Feet, you'll recall, told the story of Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood), who in the film's penguin universe was the only bird who couldn't sing.  Instead, he danced, and in the way of oddball fantasy heroes from Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer on down, he was exiled from the community.  This inevitably caused him to have adventures, come in contact with strange beings (humans), and ultimately find true love on his way to using his unique talents to save all those who had once doubted him.

Happy Feet Two is a much more tired exercise in "Hey, we can do this if we all work together!" cliche.  Years have passed, and Mumble is mated to Gloria (the late Brittany Murphy in the original picture, now Pink).  The singing vs. dancing debate has ended, and the irony is that Mumble's own son Erik (Ava Acres) can't dance.  So Erik leaves home, eventually finding the other penguin colony from the first movie where 2 of the more colorful characters are voiced by Robin Williams, and where a strangely gifted flying bird (Hank Azaria) is mesmerizing the crowd.  Meanwhile, an avalanche has trapped Erik's colony in a newly-formed valley with no escape and no food.  Mumble, who had left in search of Erik before the avalanche hit, has to join with a sea lion (Richard Carter) and other Antarctic creatures to help free the penguins.  There are also a couple of philosophical krills, Will and Bill (Brad Pitt and Matt Damon), wanderers from their own colony, who are searching for the meaning of their existence.

All of this comes together in the most routine way.  There are no narrative surprises equivalent to the discovery of humans in the first picture, and Erik's journey of discovery is far less interesting than Mumble's had been.  Although the animation is on a huge scale (the movie reportedly cost $135M) and its quality is very fine, the static storyline basically means that half the action consists of watching thousands of penguins marooned in the valley looking up as our heroes stand on the cliff staring down, wondering how to help.  (It's also unclear just how these few penguins are managing to transport enough fish down to the valley to keep more than a handful of their trapped brethren alive, but let's not worry about narrative logic.)  

Happy Feet Two isn't badly made, it's just dull.  The movie is hardly going to end with thousands of penguins dying of starvation, so there's no particular suspense, and the way the trapped birds are ultimately freed is the most obvious way possible in the movie's universe (hint:  it involves dancing).  Robin Williams frantically does his schtick, as does Hank Azaria, and beyond that the voices are none too interesting (Pitt and Damon sound like they riffed their lines while floating in one of their pools), while the device of having the animated characters perform (mostly) well-known songs is now old-hat.  

There are plenty of family movies opening between now and Christmas week, animated and otherwise.  Feet aside, the odds are you'll be happier with one of the others.

THE IDES OF MARCH:  Watch It At Home - An Excellent Play Becomes a Merely Good Movie

The Ides of March, one of the most eagerly awaited of this year's festival crop, is more entertaining than it is good. Oddly both low-key and melodramatic, claptrap and high-minded drama, it represents a series of curious choices by director/co-screenwriter/co-star George Clooney. 

The film is based on a crackling good play called Farragut North by Beau Willimon, but although Willimon is one of the credited screenwriters, the script makes broad changes in both the story and tone of the play. Both concern Stephen Myers (Ryan Gosling), a rising star in the campaign team of Mike Morris (Clooney), a Governor running for the Democratic presidential nomination. Stephen works for campaign manager Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman), but on a fateful day when Tom is out of town, he takes a call from the opposition's campaign manager Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti), an act that sets quite a few lives in turmoil.

In the play, the aftereffects of the opposition's call was the main storyline, and Stephen was an overtly ambitious, even arrogant young man. The Ides script introduces an entirely new story about intern Molly (Evan Rachel Wood) and her relationship with the campaign, which amps up the plot considerably. Stephen is also more idealistic at the start than he was in Farragut. The grafting of the new plotline onto the original results in tonal inconsistency and some plot fogginess. 

Clooney's direction is also uneven. The movie starts out too muted for its theatrical origins, all the actors underplaying. By the end, we're in full -on soap opera mode, with Phedon Papamichael's initially naturalistic photography reaching into Godfather territory. None of this is a favor to the extremely fine cast, which is hard-pressed to traverse Clooney's shift in tone. It also has the effect of turning the movie's final act into an exercise in familiar political cynicism. 

For all this, Ides of March is smart and compelling most of the time. The scenes that preserve Willimon's play still zing, and while the new plot is less convincing than the old, it's still fun. Oscar hopes may be more of a reach than the film's credentials had seemed to promise, but Ides is still worth a vote.

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Is WILFRED more than a one-trick puppy?  We'll see.  It joins the FX line-up of off-center comedies (Louie, The League, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) with a promising pilot, offering an original spin on a familiar plotline.

Based by David Zuckerman (who hails from the Seth MacFarlane writers' rooms of Family Guy and American Dad) and Jason Gann, and based on Gann's Australian series (created with Adam Zwar) of the same name, Wilfred is basically the one about the wimpy loser who's never taken a stand in his life and his new friend, a wild man who does all the wrong things and yet may have a valuable lesson to teach about living life to its fullest.  (Think any buddy comedy with Vince Vaughn.  Hell, think The Producers.)  Except this time, that wild man is actually a dog.  And the wimp may or may not be hallucinating him.

In the US series, Ryan (Elijah Wood) has failed as a lawyer, disappointed his family, and as the pilot begins, is attempting suicide.  But the pills don't work; instead, Ryan sees his next-door neighbor's pet Wilfred (Gann) as an Australian in a dog suit.  Wilfred smokes (weed and cigarettes), drinks beer, lies non-stop, and also has the bad habits of a canine, like rubbing himself on any available woman and digging holes in the yard (albeit with a shovel).  The show doesn't make any attempt to explain why this is happening; it's just Ryan's life. 

The pilot works all this out quite cleverly, and the performers are game.  Gann also played Wilfred in the Australian show; his matter-of-fact attitude sells the central joke.  Wood, a long way from Middle Earth, is quite funny as an ordinary guy who can't figure out if he's completely insane or on the road to some kind of psychic renewal (or both).  The other major character is Wilfred's owner Jenna (Fiona Gubelmann), who's mostly just attractive in the initial episode.

In an era that so recently gave us "The Kennedys," possibly the worst piece of pop culture history ever produced for American television, it seems downright rude to criticize Robert Redford's new film THE CONSPIRATOR for sticking to the facts.  Accuracy and drama, however, are not always the best of friends.

The Conspirator illuminates a little-known corner of one of the most famous stories in US history.  While the name of John Wilkes Booth is known to everyone (one would hope), relatively few people are aware that after Booth was killed by soldiers, the government prosecuted several others for conspiring in Lincoln's assassination.  One of those charged was Mary Surratt (played by Robin Wright in the film), who had been the landlady at a boardinghouse where her son, among others, reportedly helped plot the crime (which was intended to include not just the attack on Lincoln, but also on the Vice President and Secretary of State).  Surratt was specifically accused of supplying weapons and other materials to Booth and his cohorts.

Surratt's arrest and trial took place in the glare of the country's shock and fury over Lincoln's killing, and the fear that further attacks by recently defeated Confederates might well be coming--Redford and his screenwriter, James D Solomon, want the audience to recognize the similarities to America after 9/11.  Surratt was subjected to trial by a military tribunal, where the normal rules of evidence did not apply, and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (Kevin Kline, doing a good job as essentially Dick Cheney/Donald Rumsfeld) was instrumental in making sure her civil liberties were kept to a minimum, partly in the hope that this treatment would bring her son, who was on the run, to justice.  In the end (Spoiler Alert?), she was convicted and--despite a seeming commutation--hung. 

 

Redford and Solomon are dogged about recreating the details of the testimony against Surratt and the details of her trial--chunks of the film are taken from the 1865 tribunal transcripts.  These are informative and certainly prove the point, but somewhat lacking in pace and drama.  The "personal" story in the film, such as it is, concerns Surratt's lawyer, the young and inexperienced Frederick Allen (James McAvoy); I don't know the history on him, but the story told--a Union war hero who reluctantly takes the case, only to become increasingly convinced of his client's innocence and thus jeopardize his own bright future by his efforts on her behalf (his socialite fiancee, played by Alexis Bledel?  Not as loyal as he'd hoped)--feels too hackneyed by half.  

Despite the film's muted tone, Robin Wright gives a performance that's intense and haunting; it's the best part she's had in a long time (probably since White Oleander, almost a decade ago), and she acts the hell out of it. McAvoy is passable in the thinnest role, and a lot of very fine actors make appearances, some to good effect (Tom Wilkinson is the senior lawyer who enlists McAvoy to the case, Evan Rachel Wood is Surratt's daughter, Danny Huston the chief judge), some not so much (Justin Long should never again do a period film).  

One doesn't want to diminish The Conspirator too much.  It's a genuinely worthy film, made with nothing but the best of motives.  It oozes seriousness in every frame, from Newton Thomas Sigel's dark photography to Mark Isham's somber score.  You walk out of it knowing more than you did before about American history, and able to make worthwhile connections between the country's past and its present. Ultimately, though, Redford has illustrated a lesson plan more than he's made a movie.  

(THE CONSPIRATOR - Roadside Attractions - PG 13 - 123 min. - Director:  Robert Redford - Script: James D Solomon, from a story with Gregory Bernstein - Cast:  James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Tom Wilkinson, Alexis Bledel, Danny Huston, Evan Rachel Wood, Kevin Kline - Moderate Release (700+ theatres)