Thor
If I had a hammer...
Release Date: 2011
Ebert Rating: *½
By Roger Ebert May 10, 2011
I didn't attend the critics' screening for "Thor" because it was at the same time Ebertfest was showing "A
Small Act," about an 88-year-old woman named Hilde Back. She'd flown from Sweden, and I wanted be
onstage to present her with the Golden Thumb. Missing "Thor 3D" was not an inconsolable loss, because I
was able to see it in Chicago in nice, bright 2D. The house was surprisingly well-populated for a 8:50 p.m.
screening on a Monday, suggesting that some people, at least, will make an effort to avoid 3D.
"Thor" is failure as a movie, but a success as marketing, an illustration of the ancient carnival tactic of telling
the rubes anything to get them into the tent. "You won't believe what these girls take off!" a carny barker
promised me and my horny pals one steamy night at the Champaign County Fair. He was close. We didn't
believe what they left on.
The failure of "Thor" begins at the story level, with a screenplay that essentially links special effects. Some of
the dialog is mock heroic ("You are unworthy of your title, and I'll take from you your power!") and some of it
winks ironically ("You know, for a crazy homeless person he's pretty cut.") It adapts the original Stan Lee
strategy for Marvel, where characters sometimes spoke out of character.
The story might perhaps be adequate for an animated film for children, with Thor, Odin and the others played
by piglets. In the arena of movies about comic book superheroes, it is a desolate vastation. Nothing exciting
happens, nothing of interest is said, and the special effects evoke not a place or a time but simply special
effects.
Thor to begin with is not an interesting character. The gods of Greek, Roman and Norse mythology share the
same problem, which is that what you see is what you get. They're defined by their attributes, not their
personalities. Odin is Odin and acts as Odin and cannot act as other than Odin, and so on. Thor is a
particularly limited case. What does he do? He wields a hammer. That is what he does. You don't have to be
especially intelligent to wield a hammer, which is just as well, because in the film Thor (Chris Hemsworth)
doesn't seem to be the brightest bulb in Asgard.
The land (sphere? state of mind? heaven?) known as Asgard is described in Norse mythology as being near
Troy, or perhaps in Asia Minor. In the movie, as nearly as I can gather, it is not of this earth and must be
elsewhere in the universe. It consists of towering spires and skyscrapers linked by bridges and buttresses
and betraying no sign of a population, except when untold thousands of Asgardians are required to line up at
attention like robotic Nazis to receive dictates from the throne of Odin (Anthony Hopkins).
Asgard's ancient enemies are the Frost Giants, whose home is Jotunheim. I believe, but cannot promise you,
that Jotunheim and Asgard are linked by a bridge, although this bridge also seems to be the way Thor
reaches Earth, so perhaps it's more of a gateway through time and space, which would explain why
Asgardians hurtle across intergalactic light-years and land in New Mexico without a hair out of place.
Thor is the first to arrive, and encounters three human scientists. Whether he is human himself is a question
the film sidesteps. We know from mythology that gods sometimes mated with humans, which is a hopeful
sign. The humans are astrophysicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), her friend Darcy (Kat Dennings) and the
distinguished Dr. Erik Sevig (Stellan Skarsgard). I mention she's an astrophysicist because behaves more
like a Storm Chaser, cruising the desert in a van and peering into the skies, which won't get you far in
astrophysics. Their van hits Thor after he unluckily lands in front of it. This is not a Meet Cute for the gods.
Later there's a meteoric event in which Thor's hammer hurtles to earth and becomes embedded so firmly that
it can't be pulled lose by a pickup truck or even the federal government.
So now Thor is on Earth, his hammer is stuck, and I am underwhelmed. Thor luckily speaks English and
Jane and her friends take him to the local diner, where he eats lots of Pop Tarts and, when he finishes his
coffee, smashes the empty cup to the ground. "We don't do that," Jane explains as if to a child, and advises
him to simply order another cup, after which he apparently absorbs human behavior and the movie drops the
Taming of the Thor angle.
The three scientists are thin soup. Jane flirts demurely with Thor, Kay stands next to her and does nothing
very important, and Dr. Sevig regards them gravely and looms slightly above a low-angle camera while
looking on with wise concern. There is also a government agent (Clark Gregg), whose every action is the
remedy to an immediate requirement of the plot.
Superhero movies live and die on the quality of their villains. "Thor" has a shabby crew. The Frost Giants
spend most of their time being frosty in their subzero sphere of Jotunheim and occasionally freezing their
enemies. Thor's brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is dark-haired, skinny, shifty-eyed and sadly lacking in
charisma. He might as well be wearing a name tag: "Hi! I can't be trusted!" These villains lack adequate
interest to supply a climactic battle, so the movie fabricates a Metal Giant, sends him to the New Mexico
town, and has him blast fiery rays that blow up gas stations real good but always miss his targets. He is
apparently killed by a sword through his spine, but why does he need a spine since when his mask lifts we
can see his head is an empty cavern?
And what about that town? It seems to be partly a set with two interiors (the diner and Jane's office) and
partly CGI. It seems to go for a few blocks and then end abruptly in barren desert. Not even any suburbs or
strip malls. I know aliens from other worlds are required to arrive in New Mexico, but why stay there? Why
can't the Metal Giant attack the Golden Gate Bridge or scale a Trump Tower somewhere? Who cares he if
turns a 7-Eleven into a fireball?
Here is a film that is scoring 79% on Rotten Tomatoes. For what? The standards for comic book superhero
movies have been established by "Superman," "The Dark Knight," "Spider-Man 2" and "Iron Man." In that
company "Thor" is pitiful. Consider even the comparable villains (Lex Luthor, the Joker, Doc Ock and
Obadiah Stane). Memories of all four come instantly to mind. Will you be thinking of Loki six minutes after
this movie is over?
The director given this project, Kenneth Branagh, once obtained funding for a magnificent 70mm version of
"Hamlet." Now he makes "Thor." I wonder with a dread fear if someone in Hollywood, stuck with a movie
about a Norse god, said "Get Branagh. He deals with that Shakespeare crap."
Cast & Credits
Thor Chris Hemsworth
Jane Foster Natalie Portman
Loki Tom Hiddleston
Odin Anthony Hopkins
Erik Selvig Stellan Skarsgård
Darcy Lewis Kat Dennings
Agent Coulson Clark Gregg
Heimdall Idris Elba
King Laufey Colm Feore
Volstagg Ray Stevenson
Hogun Tadanobu Asano
Paramount presents a film directed by Kenneth Branagh. Screenplay by
Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz. Running time: 114 minutes.
MPAA rating: PG-13
Ramona and Beezus
It wasn't my fault! I was just standing here!
Release Date: 2010
Ebert Rating: ***
By Roger Ebert Jul 21, 2010
Kids who started reading anytime between the 1950s and today may know the books of Beverly Cleary, and
at 94, she's still writing. Her books are set on Klickitat Street in Portland, Ore., a real street not far from her
childhood home; she must have filed it away for future reference.
On that street, those readers will know, live a 9-year-old girl named Ramona, her 15-year-old sister Beatrice,
their parents Robert and Dorothy, their Aunt Bea, and Beezus and Ramona's friend Henry Huggins. Life has
stayed lively for these characters for 60 years because of the inexhaustible Ramona, who gets up to so
much mischief that I think she must have indirectly inspired the '50s sitcom "Leave It to Beaver."
It's not that Ramona (Joey King), the heroine of "Ramona and Beezus," is a bad girl. Winningly played by
King, no one can look more innocent, and indeed even think herself more innocent. She's a virtuoso of the
"but I was only standing here!" routine. Yet every day in an astonishing number of ways she disrupts her
family more than that insurgent Labrador in "Marley & Me." Considering that the story revolves around her
father losing his job, I don't even want to think about the bills for property damage.
Without ever meaning to, of course, Ramona survives as chaos erupts around her, and in her daydreams,
she dangles by precarious handholds over a roaring gorge, for starters. She was causing mischief even
when she was too young to know better: she saddled her sister Beatrice with the hated nickname Beezus.
This is a featherweight G-rated comedy of no consequence, except undoubtedly to kids about Ramona's
age. Joey King and the Disney star Selena Gomez are both appealing, and the movie is wisely populated
with grownups who are content to play straight men; Sandra Oh is a calming presence as Ramona's sensible
teacher. The adults hint that normality exists in some form on Klickitat Street, and prevent the movie from
going totally wacko and running off the rails.
It's surprising that these books by Beverly Cleary didn't inspire an American TV series in the 1950s or 1960s,
just as "Leave It to Beaver" did. (Sarah Polley played Ramona in a 1980s PBS series.) Maybe they'd still
work on Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel, but not these days on general TV. We no longer all watch the
same TV shows, we are no longer as innocent, and the world of Klickitat is fading into timeless nostalgia.
"Ramona and Beezus" is a sweet salute.
Cast & Credits
Ramona Joey King
Beezus Selena Gomez
Dad John Corbett
Mom Bridget Moynahan
Teacher Sandra Oh
Aunt Bea Ginnifer Goodwin
20th Century-Fox presents a film directed by Elizabeth Allen. Written by Laurie Craig and Nick Pustay, based
on the novels by Beverly Cleary. Running time: 103 minutes. Rated G.
Wall-E
Droid story
Release Date: 2008
Ebert Rating: ***½
// / Jun 26, 2008
By Roger Ebert
Pixar’s “WALL-E” succeeds at being three things at once: an enthralling animated film, a visual wonderment
and a decent science-fiction story. After “Kung Fu Panda,” I thought I had just about exhausted my
emergency supply of childlike credulity, but here is a film, like “Finding Nemo,” that you can enjoy even if
you’ve grown up. That it works largely without spoken dialogue is all the more astonishing; it can easily cross
language barriers, which is all the better, considering that it tells a planetary story.
It is 700 years in the future. A city of skyscrapers rises up from the land. A closer view reveals that the
skyscrapers are all constructed out of garbage, neatly compacted into squares or bales and piled on top of
one another. In all the land, only one creature stirs. This is WALL-E, the last of the functioning solar-powered
robots. He — the story leaves no doubt about gender — scoops up trash, shovels it into his belly,
compresses it into a square and climbs on his tractor treads and heads up a winding road to the top of his
latest skyscraper, to place it neatly on the pile.
It is lonely being WALL-E. But does WALL-E even know that? He comes home at night to a big storage area,
where he has gathered a few treasures from his scavengings of the garbage and festooned them with
Christmas lights. He wheels into his rest position, takes off his treads from his tired wheels and goes into
sleep mode. Tomorrow is another day: One of thousands since the last humans left the Earth and settled into
orbit aboard gigantic spaceships that resemble spas for the fat and lazy.
One day WALL-E’s age-old routine is shattered. Something new appears in his world, which otherwise has
consisted only of old things left behind. This is, to our eye, a sleek spaceship. To WALL-E’s eyes, who
knows? What with one thing and another, WALL•E is scooped up by the ship and returned to the orbiting
spaceship Axiom, along with his most recent precious discovery: a tiny, perfect green plant, which he found
growing in the rubble and transplanted to an old shoe.
Have you heard enough to be intrigued, or do you want more? Speaking voices are now heard for the first
time in the movie, although all on his own, WALL-E has a vocabulary (or repertory?) of squeaks, rattles and
electronic purrs, and a couple of pivoting eyes that make him look downright anthropomorphic. We meet a
Hoverchair family, so known because aboard ship they get around in comfy chairs that hover over surfaces
and whisk them about effortlessly. They’re all as fat as Susie’s aunt.
This is not entirely their fault, since generations in the low-gravity world aboard the Axiom have evolved
humanity into a race whose members resemble those folks you see whizzing around Wal-Mart in their
electric shopping carts.
There is now a plot involving WALL-E, the ship’s captain, several Hover people and the fate of the green
living thing. And in a development that would have made Sir Arthur Clarke’s heart beat with joy, humanity
returns home once again — or is that a spoiler?
The movie has a wonderful look. Like so many of the Pixar animated features, it finds a color palette that’s
bright and cheerful, but not too pushy, and a tiny bit realistic at the same time. The drawing style is Comic
Book Cool, as perfected in the funny comics more than in the superhero books: Everything has a stylistic
twist to give it flair. And a lot of thought must have gone into the design of WALL-E, for whom I felt a curious
affection. Consider this hunk of tin beside the Kung Fu Panda. The panda was all but special-ordered to be
lovable, but on reflection, I think he was so fat, it wasn’t funny anymore. WALL-E, however, looks rusty and
hard-working and plucky, and expresses his personality with body language and (mostly) with the binocularlike video cameras that serve as his eyes. The movie draws on a tradition going back to the earliest days of
Walt Disney, who reduced human expressions to their broadest components and found ways to translate
them to animals, birds, bees, flowers, trains and everything else.
What’s more, I don’t think I’ve quite captured the film’s enchanting storytelling. Directed and co-written by
Andrew Stanton, who wrote and directed “Finding Nemo,” it involves ideas, not simply mindless scenarios
involving characters karate-kicking each other into high-angle shots. It involves a little work on the part of the
audience, and a little thought, and might be especially stimulating to younger viewers. This story told in a
different style and with a realistic look could have been a great science-fiction film. For that matter, maybe it
is.
Note: The movie is preceded by “Presto,” a new Pixar short about a disagreement over a carrot between a
magician and his rabbit.
Cast & Credits
With the voices of:
Wall-E: Ben Burtt
Eve: Elissa Knight
Shelby: Fred Willard
Captain: Jeff Garlin
John: John Ratzenberger
Mary: Kathy Najimy
Computer: Sigourney Weaver
Hoverchair mom: Kim Kopf
Hoverchair son: Garrett Palmer
Walt Disney/Pixar presents a film directed by Andrew Stanton. Written by Stanton and Jim Reardon. Running
time: 97 minutes. Rated G.
The Sandlot
Release Date: 1993
Ebert Rating: ***
By Roger Ebert Apr 7, 1993
If you have ever been lucky enough to see "A Christmas Story," you will understand what I mean when I say
"The Sandlot" is a summertime version of the same vision. Both movies are about gawky young adolescents
trapped in a world they never made and doing their best to fit in while beset with the most amazing
vicissitudes.
Neither movie has any connection with the humdrum reality of the boring real world; both tap directly into a
vein of nostalgia and memory that makes reality seem puny by comparison.
"The Sandlot" takes place in a small American town in the early 1960s. A new boy named Scott (Tom Guiry)
arrives in the neighborhood and desperately wants to fit in. There is a local sandlot team with eight players,
and so he could be the ninth - if only he could play baseball! He cannot. He's so out of it, he doesn't even
know who Babe Ruth was. He asks his stepfather to teach him to play catch (there is a quiet poignancy in
being asked to be taught such a thing), and his stepdad agrees, but puts it off, and then one day Scotty finds
himself, to his horror, on the sandlot in left center field with a fly ball descending on his head, which it
bounces off of.
That would be the end of his baseball career, were it not for the understanding of Benjamin Franklin
Rodriguez, the best of the players, who tactfully teaches Scotty what he needs to know, thus launching the
finest summer of his young life.
It is one of those summers that are hot and dusty, and the boys play baseball every day, and sometimes go
to the municipal swimming pool, where they lust after the impossible vision of the beautiful lifeguard in the
red swimming suit. Lust is balanced by terrors: Behind the wall at the end of their sandlot is a backyard
inhabited by the Beast, a dog so large and savage that it has become a neighborhood legend. We catch
glimpses of parts of it from time to time - a massive paw, slavering jowls - and from what we can see, it's
about as large as a dinosaur.
One day the boys' last ball goes over the fence into the domain of the Beast. Scotty saves the day. He runs
home and borrows his stepfather's ball, which happens to have been autographed by Babe Ruth, a name
that means nothing to him until this ball, too, is slammed over the fence, and then the other players explain to
him why his stepfather is not going to be overjoyed to learn that his trophy has become the Beast's lunch.
All of these events are told in an original, quirky, off-center, deliberately exaggerated way. This is not your
standard movie about kids and baseball. It's so unconventional, it doesn't even end with the sandlot team
winning the Big Game. This movie doesn't even have a Big Game. (The one game they play is a pushover.)
The movie isn't about winning and losing, it's about growing up and facing your fears, and as the kids try one
goofy plan after another to get the ball back, the story gently leaves the realm of the possible and ventures
into the exaggerations common to all childhood legends.
The movie's director is David Mickey Evans, who wrote the script with Robert Gunter. Their tone and the
voice-over narration remind me of Jean Shepherd's memories of growing up in northern Indiana.
Memories are sharper, colors are brighter, events are more important, and a life can be changed forever in
the course of a sunny afternoon.
These days too many children's movies are infected by the virus of Winning, as if kids are nothing more than
underage pro athletes, and the values of Vince Lombardi prevail: It's not how you play the game, but whether
you win or lose. This is a movie that breaks with that tradition, that allows its kids to be kids, that shows them
in the insular world of imagination and dreaming that children create entirely apart from adult domains and
values. There was a moment in the film when Rodriguez hit a line drive directly at the pitcher's mound, and I
ducked and held up my mitt, and then I realized I didn't have a mitt, and it was then I also realized how
completely this movie had seduced me with its memories of what really matters when you are 12.
Cast & Credits
Scotty Smalls: Tom Guiry
Benjamin Rodriguez: Mike Vitar
Ham Porter: Patrick Renna
Directed By David Mickey Evans. Running Time: 101 Minutes. Classified PG.
Finding Nemo
Release Date: 2003
Ebert Rating: ****
By Roger Ebert May 30, 2003
"Finding Nemo" has all of the usual pleasures of the Pixar animation style--the comedy and wackiness of
"Toy Story" or "Monsters Inc." or "A Bug's Life." And it adds an unexpected beauty, a use of color and form
that makes it one of those rare movies where I wanted to sit in the front row and let the images wash out to
the edges of my field of vision. The movie takes place almost entirely under the sea, in the world of colorful
tropical fish--the flora and fauna of a shallow warm-water shelf not far from Australia. The use of color, form
and movement make the film a delight even apart from its story.
There is a story, though, one of those Pixar inventions that involves kids on the action level while adults are
amused because of the satire and human (or fishy) comedy. The movie involves the adventures of little
Nemo, a clown fish born with an undersized fin and an oversized curiosity. His father, Marlin, worries
obsessively over him, because Nemo is all he has left: Nemo's mother and all of her other eggs were lost to
barracudas. When Nemo goes off on his first day of school, Marlin warns him to stay with the class and avoid
the dangers of the drop-off to deep water, but Nemo forgets, and ends up as a captive in the salt-water
aquarium of a dentist in Sydney. Marlin swims off bravely to find his missing boy, aided by Dory, a blue tang
with enormous eyes who he meets along the way.
These characters are voiced by actors whose own personal mannerisms are well known to us; I recognized
most of the voices, but even the unidentified ones carried buried associations from movie roles, and so
somehow the fish take on qualities of human personalities. Marlin, for example, is played by Albert Brooks as
an overprotective, neurotic worrywart, and Dory is Ellen DeGeneres as helpful, cheerful and scatterbrained
(she has a problem with short-term memory). The Pixar computer animators, led by writer-director Andrew
Stanton, create an undersea world that is just a shade murky, as it should be; we can't see as far or as
sharply in sea water, and so threats materialize more quickly, and everything has a softness of focus. There
is something dreamlike about the visuals of "Finding Nemo," something that evokes the reverie of scubadiving.
The picture's great inspiration is to leave the sea by transporting Nemo to that big tank in the dentist's office.
In it we meet other captives, including the Moorish Idol fish Gill (voice by Willem Dafoe), who are planning an
escape. Now it might seem to us that there is no possible way a fish can escape from an aquarium in an
office and get out of the window and across the highway and into the sea, but there is no accounting for the
ingenuity of these creatures, especially since they have help from a conspirator on the outside--a pelican
with the voice of Geoffrey Rush.
It may occur to you that many pelicans make a living by eating fish, not rescuing them, but some of the
characters in this movie have evolved admirably into vegetarians. As Marlin and Dory conduct their odyssey,
for example, they encounter three carnivores who have formed a chapter of Fish-Eaters Anonymous, and
chant slogans to remind them that they abstain from fin-based meals.
The first scenes in "Finding Nemo" are a little unsettling, as we realize the movie is going to be about fish,
not people (or people-based characters like toys and monsters). But of course animation has long since
learned to enlist all other species in the human race, and to care about fish quickly becomes as easy as
caring about mice or ducks or Bambi.
When I review a movie like "Finding Nemo," I am aware that most members of its primary audience do not
read reviews. Their parents do, and to them and adults who do not have children as an excuse, I can say
that "Finding Nemo" is a pleasure for grown-ups. There are jokes we get that the kids don't, and the
complexity of Albert Brooks' neuroses, and that enormous canvas filled with creatures that have some of the
same hypnotic beauty as--well, fish in an aquarium. They may appreciate another novelty: This time the dad
is the hero of the story, although in most animation it is almost always the mother.
Cast & Credits
Featuring The Voices Of:
Marlin: Albert Brooks
Dory: Ellen Degeneres Nemo: Alexander Gould
Gill: Willem Dafoe
Pelican: Geoffrey Rush Bloat: Brad Garrett
Bruce: Barry Humphries
Walt Disney Presents A Pixar Production Written And Directed By Andrew Stanton. Running Time: 101
Minutes. Rated G.
The Incredibles
Delightfully smart, exciting superhero fare
Release Date: 2004
Ebert Rating: ***½
Roger Ebert / Nov 5, 2004
The Pixar Studios, which cannot seem to take a wrong step, steps right again with "The Incredibles," a
superhero spoof that alternates breakneck action with satire of suburban sitcom life. After the "Toy Story"
movies, "A Bug's Life," "Monsters, Inc." and "Finding Nemo," here's another example of Pixar's mastery of
popular animation.
If it's not quite as magical as "Nemo," how many movies are? That may be because it's about human beings
who have some connection, however tenuous, with reality; it loses the fantastical freedom of the fish fable.
The story follows the universal fondness for finding the chinks in superhero armor; if Superman hadn't had
kryptonite, he would have been perfect, and therefore boring, and all the superheroes since him have spent
most of their time compensating for weaknesses. Think about it: Every story begins with a superhero who is
invincible, but who soon faces total defeat.
Mr. Incredible, the hero of "The Incredibles," is a superhero in the traditional 1950s mold, dashing about town
fighting crime and saving the lives of endangered civilians. Alas, the populace is not unanimously grateful,
and he's faced with so many lawsuits for unlawful rescue and inadvertent side-effects that he's forced to
retire. Under the government's Superhero Relocation Program, Mr. Incredible (voice by Craig T. Nelson)
moves to the suburbs, joined by his wife Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) and their children Violet (Sarah Vowell),
Dashiell (Spencer Fox) and little Jack Jack (Eli Fucile, Maeve Andrews).
They are now officially the Parr family, Bob and Helen. Bob works at an insurance agency, where his
muscle-bound supertorso barely squeezes into a cubicle.
Helen raises the kids, and there's a lot of raising to do: The world is occasionally too much for the teenager
Violet, whose superpowers allow her to turn invisible and create force fields out of (I think) impregnable
bubbles. Dashiell, called Dash, can run at the speed of light, but has to slow down considerably when he's
finally allowed to compete in school track meets (if they can't see you running around the track, they assume
you never left the finish line, instead of that you're back to it already). Jack Jack's powers are still limited, not
yet encompassing the uses of the potty.
Bob Parr hates the insurance business. Joining him in the suburb is another relocated superhero, Frozone
(Samuel L. Jackson), who can freeze stuff. Claiming they belong to a bowling league, they sneak out nights
to remember the good old days and do a little low-profile superheroing. Then the old life beckons, in the form
of a challenge from Mirage (Elizabeth Pena), who lures him to a Pacific island where Mr. Incredible,
overweight and slowed down, battles a robot named Omnidroid 7.
This robot, we learn, is one of a race of fearsome new machines created by the evil mastermind Syndrome
(Jason Lee), who admired Mr. Incredible as a kid but became bitter when Incredible refused to let him
become his boy wonder. He now wants to set up as a superpower by unleashing his robots on an
unsuspecting world.
On the surface, "The Incredibles" is a goof on superhero comics. Underneath, it's a critique of modern
American uniformity. Mr. Incredible is forced to retire, not because of age or obsolescence, but because of
trial lawyers seeking damages for his unsolicited good deeds; he's in the same position as the Boy Scout
who helps the little old lady across the street when she doesn't want to go. What his society needs is not
superdeeds but tort reform. "They keep finding new ways," he sighs, "to celebrate mediocrity."
Anyone who has seen a Bond movie will make the connection between Syndrome's island hideout and the
headquarters of various Bond villains. "The Incredibles" also has a character inspired by Q, Bond's gadgetmaster. This is Edna Mode, known as E and voiced by Brad Bird, who also wrote and directed. She's a hornrimmed little genius who delivers a hilarious lecture on the reasons why Mr. Incredible does not want a cape
on his new uniform; capes can be as treacherous as Isadora Duncan's scarf, and if you don't know what
happened to Isadora Duncan, Google the poor woman and shed a tear.
Brad Bird's previous film was "The Iron Giant" (1999), about a misunderstood robot from outer space, and
the little boy who becomes his friend. It had a charm and delicacy that was unique in the genre, and "The
Incredibles," too, has special qualities, especially in the subtle ways it observes its gifted characters trying to
dumb down and join the crowd. Kids in the audience will likely miss that level, but will like the exuberance of
characters like Dash. Grown-ups are likely to be surprised by how smart the movie is, and how sneakily
perceptive.
Cast & Credits
Featuring the voices of:
Bob Parr/Mr. Incredible: Craig T. Nelson
Helen Parr/Elastigirl: Holly Hunter
Lucius Best/Frozone: Samuel L. Jackson
Buddy Pine/Syndrome: Jason Lee
Gilbert Huph: Wallace Shawn
Violet Parr: Sarah Vowell
Dashiell Parr (Dash): Spencer Fox
Edna "E" Mode: Brad Bird
Mirage Elizabeth Pena
Walt Disney Pictures presents a Pixar film directed and written by Brad Bird. Running time: 115 minutes.
Rated PG.
Monsters, Inc.
Release Date: 2001
Ebert Rating: ***
By Roger Ebert Nov 2, 2001
K ids and movie monsters have a lot in common. They feel conspicuous. They stand out in a crowd. They
can't make small-talk with grownups. They are always stepping on stuff and breaking it. Anything that goes
wrong is blamed on them. Now it turns out they share something else.
Not only are kids scared of monsters, but according to ''Monsters, Inc.,'' monsters are scared of kids.
The new animated feature from Pixar reveals that it is true (as every child knows) that there are monsters in
the bedroom closet, especially after the lights have been put out. What we did not realize is that the
monsters are on assignment. A closet door, which by day leads to a closet, at night leads directly to
Monstropolis, the world of monsters, which is powered by Scream Heat. The only reason monsters jump out
of closets and scare kids is to collect their screams, which are to Monstropolis as power plants are to the rest
of us.
As the movie opens, Monstropolis faces a crisis: Kids are getting too hard to scare, and there's a scream
shortage. ''Rolling blackouts'' are predicted. A complete energy shutdown is a possibility. Responsibility falls
on the broad shoulders of a big blue monster named Sully (voice by John Goodman), who is the leading
scream-producer. Sully looks like a cross between a gorilla and a bear. His best pal, Mike Wazowski (voice
by Billy Crystal), is a green eyeball with arms and legs. Sully is brave and dedicated. Wazowski is phobic,
frightened, and malingering. Together, they cover the spectrum of work traits. The sexy Celia (voice by
Jennifer Tilly) has a crush on Wazowski. What she sees in him is beyond me, although if there is anyone
who can figure out how to have sex with a green eyeball, that would be Jennifer Tilly. I can imagine her
brassy voice: ''Blink! Blink!'' There must be villains, and this time they are Henry J. Waternoose (James
Coburn), who looks like a crab crossed with a cartoon of Boss Tweed, and Randall Boggs (Steve Buscemi),
a snaky schemer who wants to dethrone Sully as the champion scream collector. Their competition grows
more urgent when a human child named Boo (voice by Mary Gibbs) goes where no human has gone before,
through the closet door and into the monster world.
''Monsters, Inc.'' follows the two ''Toy Story'' movies and ''A Bug's Life'' from Pixar, and once again shows off
the studio's remarkable computer-aided animation, which creates an uncanny sense of dimension and
movement. Monsters, like toys and bugs, come in every conceivable shape, size and color, which must have
been one of their attractions, and the movie is jolly to look at. And since the monsters are terrified of Boo,
whose very name is a rebuke to their lifelong missions, there are screams and chases on both sides of the
closet doors. (''There's nothing more toxic or deadly than a human child,'' Waternoose warns. ''A single touch
could kill you!'') Speaking of those doors--turns out they're manufactured in Monstropolis, to such exacting
specifications that no one ever figures out they didn't come with the house. The most entertaining sequence
in the movie is a roller-coaster chase scene involving hundreds of doors on an endless conveyor line that
loops the loop at a breakneck speed.
Voice-over dubbing used to be what actors did instead of dinner theater. Now, with the multimillion-dollar
grosses of the top animated films, it's a lucrative job that is finally getting the credit it deserves for the artistic
skills necessary. Not everyone is a good looper, and stars like Goodman, Crystal, Coburn, Buscemi and
Bonnie Hunt bring a dimension to the film that both borrows from their screen personas and kids them. As for
the invaluable Tilly, she has the only voice that has ever made me think simultaneously of Mae West and
Slim Pickens.
The animation of Wazowski is interesting because the animators apparently had so little to work with. Instead
of an expressive face and a lot of body language, they're given, as one of the leads of the picture, an eyeball.
Luckily, the eyeball has an eyelid, or maybe it's a brow, and with this to work with, the artists are able to
supply him with all the facial expressions a monster would ever need--especially one without a face. It's a
tour de force.
''Monsters, Inc.'' is cheerful, high-energy fun, and like the other Pixar movies, has a running supply of gags
and references aimed at grownups (I liked the restaurant named Harryhausen's, after the animation pioneer).
I also enjoyed the sly way that the monster world mirrors our own, right down to production quotas and sales
slogans. ''We Scare,'' they assure us, ''Because We Care.''
Cast & Credits
With The Voices Of:
Mike Wazowski: Billy Crystal
&Quot;Sully&Quot; Sullivan: John Goodman
Henry J. Waternoose: James Coburn
Celia: Jennifer Tilly
Boo: Mary Gibbs
Randall Boggs: Steve Buscemi
George: Sam &Quot;Penguin&Quot; Black
Disney/Pixar Presents A Film Directed By Pete Docter. Written By Andrew Stanton And Daniel Gerson.
Running Time: 86 Minutes. Rated G.
Toy Story
Release Date: 1995
Ebert Rating: ****
By Roger Ebert Nov 22, 1995
"Toy Story" creates a universe out of a couple of kid's bedrooms, a gas station, and a stretch of suburban
highway. Its heroes are toys, which come to life when nobody is watching. Its conflict is between an oldfashioned cowboy who has always been a little boy's favorite toy, and the new space ranger who may
replace him. The villain is the mean kid next door who takes toys apart and puts them back together again in
macabre combinations. And the result is an visionary roller-coaster ride of a movie.
For the kids in the audience, a movie like this will work because it tells a fun story, contains a lot of humor,
and is exciting to watch. Older viewers may be even more absorbed, because "Toy Story," the first feature
made entirely by computer, achieves a three-dimensional reality and freedom of movement that is liberating
and new. The more you know about how the movie was made, the more you respect it.
Imagine the spectacular animation of the ballroom sequence in "Beauty and the Beast" at feature length and
you'll get the idea. The movie doesn't simply animate characters in front of painted backdrops; it fully
animates the characters and the space they occupy, and allows its point of view to move freely around them.
Computer animation has grown so skillful that sometimes you don't even notice it (the launching in "Apollo
13" took place largely within a computer). Here, you do notice it, because you're careening through space
with a new sense of freedom.
Consider for example a scene where Buzz Lightyear, the new space toy, jumps off a bed, bounces off a ball,
careens off of the ceiling, spins around on a hanging toy helicopter and zooms into a series of loop-the-loops
on a model car race track. Watch Buzz, the background, and the perspective -- which stretches and
contracts to manipulate the sense of speed. It's an amazing ride.
I learn from the current Wired magazine that the movie occupied the attention of a bank of 300 powerful Sun
microprocessors, the fastest models around, which took about 800,000 hours of computing time to achieve
this and other scenes -- at 2 to 15 hours per frame. Each frame required as much as 300 MBs of information,
which means that on my one-gigabyte hard disk, I have room for about three frames, or an eighth of a
second. Of course computers are as dumb as a box of bricks if they're not well-programmed, and director
John Lasseter, a pioneer in computer animation, has used offbeat imagination and high energy to program
his.
But enough of this propeller-head stuff. Let's talk about the movie. Lasseter and his team open the film in a
kid's bedroom, where the toys come to life when their owner is absent. Undisputed king of the toys is Woody,
a cowboy with a voice by Tom Hanks. His friends include Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles), Slinky Dog (Jim
Varney), Hamm the Pig (John Ratzenberger) and Bo Peep (Annie Potts). The playroom ingeniously features
famous toys from real life toys (which may be product placement, but who cares), including a spelling slate
that does a running commentary on key developments (when Mr. Potato Head finally achieves his dream of
Mrs. Potato Head, the message is "Hubba! Hubba!).
One day there's a big shakeup in this little world. The toy owner, named Andy, has a birthday. Woody
dispatches all of the troops in a Bucket of Soldiers to spy on developments downstairs, and they use a
Playskool walkie-talkie to broadcast developments. The most alarming: The arrival on the scene of Buzz
Lightyear (Tim Allen), a space ranger.
Buzz is the most endearing toy in the movie, because he's not in on the joke. He thinks he's a real space
ranger, temporarily marooned during a crucial mission, and he goes desperately to work trying to repair his
space ship -- the cardboard box he came in. There's real poignancy later in the film when he sees a TV
commercial for himself, and realizes he's only a toy.
The plot heats up when the human family decides to move, and Woody and Buzz find themselves marooned
in a gas station with no idea how to get home. (It puts a whole new spin on the situation when a toy itself
says, "I'm a lost toy!") And later there's a terrifying interlude in the bedroom of Sid, the dreadful boy next
door, who takes his toys apart and reassembles them like creatures from a nightmare. (His long suffering
sister is forced to hold a tea party for headless dolls.)
Seeing "Toy Story," I felt some of the same exhilaration I felt during "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." Both
movies take apart the universe of cinematic visuals, and put it back together again, allowing us to see in a
new way. "Toy Story" is not as inventive in its plotting or as clever in its wit as "Rabbit" or such Disney
animated films as "Beauty and the Beast"; it's pretty much a buddy movie transplanted to new terrain. Its
best pleasures are for the eyes. But what pleasures they are! Watching the film, I felt I was in at the dawn of
a new era of movie animation, which draws on the best of cartoons and reality, creating a world somewhere
in between, where space not only bends but snaps, crackles and pops.
Cast & Credits
Woody: Tom Hanks
Buzz Lightyear: Tim Allen
Mr. Potato Head: Don Rickles Slinky Dog: Jim Varney Rex: Wallace Shawn Hamm: John Ratzenberger
Bo Peep: Annie Potts
Andy: John Morris
Walt Disney presents a film directed by John Lasseter. Produced by Ralph Guggenheim and Bonnie Arnold.
Written by Joss Whedon, Andrew Stanton, Joel Cohenand Alec Sokolow. Based on a story by John
Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter and Joe Ranft. Edited by Robert Gordon and Lee Unkrich. Music by
Randy Newman. Running time: 81 minutes. Classified G.
Shrek
Release Date: 2001
Ebert Rating: ****
By Roger Ebert May 18, 2001
There is a moment in "Shrek" when the despicable Lord Farquaad has the Gingerbread Man tortured by
dipping him into milk. This prepares us for another moment when Princess Fiona's singing voice is so
piercing it causes jolly little bluebirds to explode; making the best of a bad situation, she fries their eggs. This
is not your average family cartoon. "Shrek" is jolly and wicked, filled with sly in-jokes and yet somehow
possessing a heart.
The movie has been so long in the making at DreamWorks that the late Chris Farley was originally intended
to voice the jolly green ogre in the title role. All that work has paid off: The movie is an astonishing visual
delight, with animation techniques that seem lifelike and fantastical, both at once. No animated being has
ever moved, breathed or had its skin crawl quite as convincingly as Shrek, and yet the movie doesn't look
like a reprocessed version of the real world; it's all made up, right down to, or up to, Shrek's trumpet-shaped
ears.
Shrek's voice is now performed by Mike Myers, with a voice that's an echo of his Fat Bastard (the Scotsman
with a molasses brogue in "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me"). Shrek is an ogre who lives in a
swamp surrounded by "Keep Out" and "Beware the Ogre!" signs. He wants only to be left alone, perhaps
because he is not such an ogre after all but merely a lonely creature with an inferiority complex because of
his ugliness. He is horrified when the solitude of his swamp is disturbed by a sudden invasion of cartoon
creatures, who have been banished from Lord Farquaad's kingdom.
Many of these creatures bear a curious correspondence to Disney characters who are in the public domain:
The Three Little Pigs turn up, along with the Three Bears, the Three Blind Mice, Tinkerbell, the Big Bad Wolf
and Pinocchio. Later, when Farquaad seeks a bride, the Magic Mirror gives him three choices: Cinderella,
Snow White ("She lives with seven men, but she's not easy") and Princess Fiona. He chooses the beauty
who has not had the title role in a Disney animated feature. No doubt all of this, and a little dig at
DisneyWorld, were inspired by feelings DreamWorks partner Jeffrey Katzenberg has nourished since his
painful departure from Disney--but the elbow in the ribs is more playful than serious. (Farquaad is said to be
inspired by Disney chief Michael Eisner, but I don't see a resemblance, and his short stature corresponds not
to the tall Eisner but, well, to the diminutive Katzenberg.) The plot involves Lord Farquaad's desire to wed the
Princess Fiona, and his reluctance to slay the dragon that stands between her and would-be suitors. He
hires Shrek to attempt the mission, which Shrek is happy to do, providing the loathsome fairy-tale creatures
are banished and his swamp returned to its dismal solitude. On his mission, Shrek is joined by a donkey
named the Donkey, whose running commentary, voiced by Eddie Murphy, provides some of the movie's best
laughs. (The trick isn't that he talks, Shrek observes; "the trick is to get him to shut up.") The expedition to the
castle of the Princess involves a suspension bridge above a flaming abyss, and the castle's interior is piled
high with the bones of the dragon's previous challengers. When Shrek and the Donkey get inside, there are
exuberant action scenes that whirl madly through interior spaces, and revelations about the dragon no one
could have guessed. And all along the way, asides and puns, in-jokes and contemporary references, and
countless references to other movies.
Voice-overs for animated movies were once, except for the annual Disney classic, quickie jobs that actors
took if they were out of work. Now they are starring roles with fat paychecks, and the ads for "Shrek" use big
letters to trumpet the names of Myers, Murphy, Cameron Diaz (Fiona) and John Lithgow (Farquaad). Their
vocal performances are nicely suited to the characters, although Myers' infatuation with his Scottish brogue
reportedly had to be toned down. Murphy in particular has emerged as a star of the voice-over genre.
Much will be written about the movie's technical expertise, and indeed every summer seems to bring another
breakthrough on the animation front. After the three-dimensional modeling and shading of "Toy Story," the
even more evolved "Toy Story 2," "A Bug's Life" and "Antz," and the amazing effects in "Dinosaur," "Shrek"
unveils creatures who have been designed from the inside out, so that their skin, muscles and fat move upon
their bones instead of seeming like a single unit. They aren't "realistic," but they're curiously real. The artistry
of the locations and setting is equally skilled--not lifelike, but beyond lifelike, in a merry, stylized way.
Still, all the craft in the world would not have made "Shrek" work if the story hadn't been fun and the ogre so
lovable. Shrek is not handsome but he isn't as ugly as he thinks; he's a guy we want as our friend, and he
doesn't frighten us but stir our sympathy. He's so immensely likable that I suspect he may emerge as an
enduring character, populating sequels and spinoffs. One movie cannot contain him.
Cast & Credits
With The Voices Of:: Mike Myers
Donkey: Eddie Murphy
Princess Fiona: Cameron Diaz
Lord Farquaad: John Lithgow
Dreamworks Presents A Film Directed By Andrew Adamson And Vicky Jenson. Written By Ted Elliott, Terry
Rossio, Joe Stillman And Roger S.H. Schulman. Based On The Book By William Steig. Running Time: 90
Minutes. Rated PG (For Mild Language And Some Crude Humor).
Mr. Popper's Penguins
Pets that waddle, eat fish, fart and squawk
Release Date: 2011
Ebert Rating: *½
By Roger Ebert Jun 15, 2011
Mr. Popper's Penguins" is a stupefying dumb family movie proving that penguins have limited charisma as
pets. I mean, what do they do? They sit on eggs, they waddle, they eat fish and they squawk. Sometimes
they might snap at you. The movie stars Jim Carrey, who is in his pleasant mode. It would have helped if he
were in his manic mode, although it's hard to get a rise out of a penguin.
The movie is inspired by a 1938 children's book, apparently beloved by many. I haven't read it, so I'm trying
to imagine why kids might like it. My best guess is that the idea of living in your home with penguins is more
delightful than the experience. Penguins look cute in their little tuxedos, and kids can imagine being friends
with them. The problem with a movie is that they take on an actual presence that gets old real fast.
This is, perhaps I should make clear, not an animated film. If the penguins were zooming into outer space in
3-D, that might change things. Weighted down by their apparent reality, they're more limited, although
sometimes they slide down stuff on their bellies. One goes hang-gliding, but not very convincingly. I assumed
that all of the penguins in the movie were created with CGI, but no. I learn from IMDb: "Some are, some
aren't." Since they all look and behave much the same, either the CGI is very good, or the real penguins are
well-trained.
Jim Carrey plays Mr. Popper, a man involved in architecture and real estate, who must have great wealth
because he lives in a Manhattan duplex with a spacious deck and travels in stretch limos. He is divorced
from his wife, Amanda (Carla Gugino), although they seem on such good terms, it is eerie. The unit of
mother and two children is always available to turn up at his co-op at a moment's notice, smiling and
cheerful. It's one of those cases, I guess, where the parents are apart only for the good of the children.
Mr. Popper inherits six penguins from his father. Never mind why. At first he doesn't want them in his
apartment, which is modern and sleek and looks decorated by a designer with ice water in his or her veins.
There is no sign of daily habitation in his living space. What with one thing and another, Mr. Popper comes to
love the little creatures; guess how Stinky gets his name. You would think the spic-and-span apartment
would soon be deep in penguin poop, but no, Mr. Popper squeezes them over the toilet.
There is a subplot involving Popper's employers, who also move in a unit of three like his family. Also a
matter involving the sale of the historic Tavern on the Green by the rich Mrs. Van Gundy (Angela Lansbury).
These need concern us no more than they will concern the kiddies in the audience. There is also some
weirdly bland courtship by which Mr. Popper attempts to persuade Mrs. Popper to return.
Of more interest may be the blessed event when the penguins produce three eggs, a tipoff (given penguin
mating habits) that three of the six are male and three female. You could have fooled me. Two eggs hatch.
The third does not. That is the movie's tragic low point. Mr. Popper seems more distressed than the parents,
or perhaps Carrey is the better actor.
Cast & Credits
Mr. Popper Jim Carrey
Amanda Carla Gugino
Mrs. Van Gundy Angela Lansbury
Pippi Ophelia Lovibond
Janie Madeline Carroll
Nat Jones Clark Gregg
Gremmins Jeffrey Tambor
Franklin Philip Baker Hall
20th Century-Fox presents a film directed by Mark Waters. Written by Sean Anders, John and Jared Stern,
based on the novel by Richard Atwater and Florence Atwater. Running time: 97 minutes. Rated PG (for mild
rude humor and some language).
Kung Fu Panda
You don't mess with the Panda, either
Release Date: 2008
Ebert Rating: ***
Jun 5, 2008
By Roger Ebert
"Kung Fu Panda" is a story that almost tells itself in its title. It is so hard to imagine a big, fuzzy panda
performing martial-arts encounters that you intuit (and you will be right) that the panda stars in an against-allodds formula, which dooms him to succeed. For the panda's target audience, children and younger teens,
that will be just fine, and the film presents his adventures in wonderfully drawn Cinemascope animation. (It
will also be showing in some IMAX venues.)
The film stars a panda named Po (voice of Jack Black), who is so fat he can barely get out of bed. He works
for his father, Mr. Ping (James Hong) in a noodle shop, which features Ping's legendary Secret Ingredient.
How Ping, apparently a stork or other billed member of the avian family, fathered a panda is a mystery, not
least to Po, but then the movie is filled with a wide variety of creatures who don't much seem to notice their
differences.
They live in the beautiful Valley of Peace with an ancient temple towering overhead, up zillions of steps,
which the pudgy Po can barely climb. But climb them he does, dragging a noodle wagon, because all the
people of the valley have gathered up there to witness the choosing of the Dragon Warrior, who will engage
the dreaded Tai Lung (Ian McShane) in kung-fu combat. Five contenders have been selected, the "Furious
Five": Monkey (Jackie Chan), Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Crane
(David Cross). Tigress looks like she might be able to do some serious damage, but the others are less than
impressive. Mantis in particular seems to weigh about an ounce, tops. All five have been trained (for nearly
forever, I gather) by the wise Shifu, who with Dustin Hoffman's voice is one of the more dimensional
characters in a story that doesn't give the others a lot of depth. Anyway, it's up to the temple master Oogway
(Randall Duk Kim), an ancient turtle, to make the final selection, and he chooses -- yes, he chooses the
hapless and pudgy Po.
The story then becomes essentially a series of action sequences, somewhat undermined by the fact that the
combatants seem unable to be hurt, even if they fall from dizzying heights and crack stones open with their
heads. There's an extended combat with Tai Lung on a disintegrating suspension bridge (haven't we seen
that before?), hand-to-hand-to-tail combat with Po and Tai Lung, and upstaging everything, an energetic
competition over a single dumpling.
"Kung Fu Panda" is not one of the great recent animated films. The story is way too predictable, and truth to
tell, Po himself didn't overwhelm me with his charisma. But it's elegantly drawn, the action sequences are
packed with energy, and it's short enough that older viewers will be forgiving. For the kids, of course, all this
stuff is much of a muchness, and here they go again.
Cast & Credits
Po: Jack Black
Master Shifu: Dustin Hoffman
Tigress: Angelina Jolie
Tai Lung: Ian McShane
Mantis: Seth Rogen
Viper: Lucy Liu
Crane: David Cross
Oogway: Randall Duk Kim
Mr. Ping: James Hong
Zeng: Dan Fogler
Commander Vachir: Michael Clarke Duncan
Monkey: Jackie Chan
DreamWorks presents an animated film directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne. Written by Jonathan
Aibel and Glenn Berger. Running time: 91 minutes. Rated PG (for kung-fu violence). Opening today at local
theaters.
Madagascar
Zoo-break makes for OK comedy
Release Date: 2005
Ebert Rating: **½
BY ROGER EBERT / May 26, 2005
One of the fundamental philosophical questions of our time is why Goofy is a person and Pluto is a dog.
From their earliest days when Mickey Mouse was still in black and white, cartoons have created a divide
between animals who are animals and animals who are human -- or, if not human in the sense that Paris
Hilton is human, then at least human in the sense that they speak, sing, have personalities and are voiced by
actors like Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith.
Now comes "Madagascar," an inessential but passably amusing animated comedy that has something very
tricky going on. What happens if the human side of a cartoon animal is only, as they say, a veneer of
civilization? Consider Alex the Lion. In the Central Park Zoo, he's a star, singing "New York, New York" and
looking forward to school field trips because he likes to show off for his audiences.
Alex (voice by Ben Stiller) lives the good life in the zoo, dining on prime steaks every day, courtesy of his
keepers. His friends include Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock), Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer) and
Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith). If Alex likes it in the zoo, Marty has wanderlust. He wants to break out
and live free. One night he escapes from the zoo, and his three friends catch up with him just as he's about
to board a train for Connecticut, acting on bad advice from the giraffe, who has informed him that is where
"the wild can be found."
The animals are captured, crated up and shipped off aboard a cargo ship to a wild animal refuge in Africa.
On the way, a mutiny by rebellious penguins leads to them being swept off the deck, and washed ashore in
Madagascar. They're back in the wild, all right, but without survival training. The local population, primarily a
colony of lemurs, is ruled by King Julien (Sacha Baron Cohen) and his right-paw-man Maurice (Cedric the
Entertainer). Some of the locals think maybe the New Yorkers are obnoxious tourists, even though Alex
stages his zoo act, much in the same sense captured prisoners of war entertain the commandant. Then the
intriguing problem of the human/animal divide comes into play. Alex misses his daily stacks of sirloin and
porterhouse. He is a meat-eater. He eats steak. "Which is you," Marty the Zebra is warned. At one point,
driven wild by hunger, Alex even tries to take a bite out of Marty's butt.
This is the kind of anarchy that always lingers under the surface of animal cartoons. How would Goofy feel if
Pluto wanted to marry one of his daughters? There is a moment at which "Madagascar" seems poised on the
brink of anarchy, as the law of the wild breaks down the detente of the zoo, and the animals revert to their
underlying natures. Now that could have been interesting, although one imagines children being led weeping
from the theater while Alex basks on a zebra-skin rug, employing a toothpick.
The movie is much too safe to follow its paradoxes to their logical conclusion, and that's probably just as
well. The problem, though, is that once it gets them to the wild, it doesn't figure out what to do with them
there, and the plot seems to stall. "Madagascar" is funny, especially at the beginning, and good-looking in a
retro cartoon way, but in a world where the stakes have been raised by "Finding Nemo," "Shrek" and "The
Incredibles," it's a throwback to a more conventional kind of animated entertainment. It'll be fun for the
smaller kids, but there's not much crossover appeal for their parents.
Cast & Credits
Featuring the voices of:
Alex the Lion: Ben Stiller
Marty the Zebra: Chris Rock
Melman the Giraffe: David Schwimmer
Gloria the Hippo: Jada Pinkett Smith
Julian: Sacha Baron Cohen
Maurice: Cedric the Entertainer
Mort: Andy Richter
DreamWorks Animation presents a film directed by Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath. Written by Mark Burton
and Billy Frolick. Running time: 80 minutes. Rated PG (for mild language, crude humor and some thematic
elements).
Baby . . . The Secret of the Lost Legend
Release Date: 1985
Ebert Rating: *
By Roger Ebert / Mar 26, 1985
The death the other day of Sinbad, the elderly gorilla at the Lincoln Park Zoo, was a reminder of how we like
to sentimentalize animals, turning them into images of cute, incomplete human beings, instead of loving
them for their differences from us. "Baby," a comedy about an infant brontosaurus, is another example, a
dreary one, of the glory of nature being turned into a cliché of man.
Imagine that somewhere in the heart of Africa, a colony of dinosaurs still survives. Wouldn't it be a great
wonder to actually see one of them, living evidence of the world of 100 million years ago? I'd think I'd rather
see a brontosaurus than see a man walk on the moon, because I am less amazed by technology than by the
wonders that life has provided on its own.
If "Baby" had shared that sense of wonder, it might have been a really special movie. The raw materials were
in place: The special effects in this movie provide surprisingly believable dinosaurs, and if the screenplay had
been equally believable, they might have had something here.
Instead, "Baby" turns out to be a real no-brainer. The movie even blows the one moment you'd assume
couldn't fail - the first sighting of a brontosaurus. Instead of a moment of quiet awe, the movie gives us the
gee-whiz approach of a Godzilla remake.
But then maybe that's not surprising: This movie has no serious ambition at all, and is content to surround its
wonderful creatures with a plot that even the kids have seen too many times before.
Here you have a family of dinosaurs, and use it as a prop in a movie about good guys and bad guys. The
good guys are a couple of Peace Corps volunteers (William Katt and Sean Young), who treks off into the
wilderness to find and protect the creatures. The bad guys include a greedy scientist (Patrick McGoohan),
his bitchy sidekick (Julian Fellowes) and a trigger-happy African mercenary (Olu Jacobs).
The bad guys actually drug the female brontosaurus, and fly around in a helicopter firing machine-guns at
the male. Why? To rid the jungle of all those bothersome brontosauri?
Meanwhile, the husband-and-wife team find a baby brontosaurus and try to drag the cute little thing back to
civilization and safety. Their mission is accompanied by a great many manufactured discussions; the wife is
a feminist, and we learn in the movie that feminists feel strongly on the issue of Brontosaurus Rights.
The whole story is trivial. The scenes that work best are the ones where the little dinosaur acts like a baby,
and playfully nuzzles the people or carelessly uproots their tent.
But is this why we need a brontosaurus? So it can do its clever puppy imitation? Wasn't there anybody who
saw this story idea as more than a cheap gimmick? The movie is subtitled "The Secret of the Lost Legend,"
and that sounds like an exciting movie they might want to make sometime.
Cast & Credits
George: William Katt
Susan: Sean Young
Dr. Kiviat: Patrick McGoohan
Nigel: Julian Fellowes
Caphu: Kyalo Mativo
The Colonel: Olu Jacobs
Touchstone presents a film directed by B. W. L Norton and produced by Jonathan T. Taplin, from a
screenplay by Clifford and Ellen Green. Music by Jerry Goldsmith, Classified PG.