LUCIDMEDIA

Originality is such a rare commodity in horror filmmaking nowadays that you’ll take it anyway you can get it. Now I didn’t know at first, but the new film The Uninvited is actually a remake of a Korean film called A Tale of Two Sisters. In fact, when I found out, it surprised me because most Asian horror remakes usually have a telltale element as the producers try their hardest to preserve some shred of its heritage; like how The Grudge remake was set in Japan. There’s the obligatory stuff like creepy kids and uncomfortable, family relationships, but otherwise this film has more in common with an Agatha Christie mystery than something from the foreign section of the video store.

The story centres around young Anna (Emily Browning) who’s a newly released mental patient going home for the first time since she tried to kill herself out of grief for her lost mother. She reunites with her distant father (David Strathairn) and her prickly sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel), but not so much with her father’s new girlfriend Rachael (Elizabeth Banks). Now wait a minute, did I just write “Elizabeth Banks” between those parentheses. Why yes I did. Though she maybe best known for her comedic and romantic parts, Banks really gets into the evil Stepmother bit and plays Rachael with a subtle hint of “No wire hangers” like relish.

Part murder mystery and part ghost story, The Uninvited is all about fun, cheap scares pure and simple. It’s campy goodness without any hesitation or reservation, but plenty of bad dialogue, scenery-chewing acting and cheap thrills. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, which I believe is the point that a lot of people are missing in looking at this film. It can be dopey, loopy and camp, but I believe that’s the point. Over-the-top acting? That’s par for the course, as is pointed musical cues designed to make you jump along with the visuals. And there are actually a few jumps, a few descent, although not thoroughly convincing, scares. But then again, it may have been the company; a theatre full of easily jumpy teenage girls at the late show.

But the visuals are strong, and the directors seem to have a really good sense on how to arrange a scene and build tension. And given the film’s actually surprising ending, The Guard Brothers also show themselves fairly adept at the fine art of the red herring. Some of that though might have to do with an underestimation of the film. Reading it as a dippy shallow horror made for a quick buck rather than something that might have some kind of art to it. But that’s my bad, or maybe it was my mood. Sometimes you’re just in the mood for something uncomplicated, and if The Uninvited is anything, it’s uncomplicated. It’s the movie equivalent of a trashy beach novel.

Surprised? I know I was. The fact of the matter is that I may look back on The Uninvited sometime in the future and be shocked and appalled that I had even once handed down even back-handed praise to this work. But the fact of the matter is that after suffering though My Bloody Valentine, The Unborn and the third Underworld while having only more remakes, Friday the 13th and Last House on the Left to look forward to, The Uninvited is refreshing. As stupid as it can be, at least it does so with conviction and follow-through, which at least shows that the filmmakers know themselves and the audiences. Sometimes perfection can be found in the moment, and for the moment The Uninvited is a blast. What tomorrow brings… Who knows?

When I read other reviews of Inkheart, I wasn’t given much hope; which goes to show you that sometimes the only judgment you have to trust is your own. Is Inkheart perfect? No, absolutely not. It’s got a hook, it has a talented cast of actors, and it has a popular series of novels as its inspiration to draw from. Where things go wrong though is that the director lacks the scope and ambition to bring the film to a truly stirring existence. He’s unable to marry style with substance and because the former is lacking, the latter ends up suffering. Still, I think there’s enough in the finished product to recommend.

Inkheart is the name of the book within a movie based on a book. Mortimer (Brendan Fraser) is a restorer or rare books, and he’s searching for one of the rarest books of all. You see, through an accident several years earlier, Mortimer discovered an ability to bring things to life from books just by reading it aloud. This rare talent makes him a “Silver Tongue” and it cost Mortimer his wife when in exchange for bringing three characters from Inkheart to life, while she took their place in the book. Mortimer and his daughter Meg (Eliza Bennett) have been on the run for years from the dangerous villain Capricorn (Andy Serkis), while look for a way to bring the missing member of their family back.

Truthfully, it’s pretty standard fantasy fair. So it really shouldn’t have come as any surprise that the characters new to this entire books-coming-to-life thing should be so cool with it. But that was a bit odd for me. “Hey, I have the ability to make stuff out of books come to life. Want to see King Arthur’s Excalibur? Shall I conjure the tornado from the Wizard of Oz?” “Yeah. Sure, go for it. Maybe you can conjure up Lady Godiva too.” It’s one of those suspension of disbelief things because it’s okay for us in the audience to buy this stuff easily enough, but the characters’ refusal to see the obvious gives us permission to do so.

Also, I think Inkheart suffers the fate of many fantasy books turned movies by trying to cram too much into the story without giving it proper time to grow and breathe. So many characters and so many predicaments are thrown at us in such a short space and time that you don’t really get any time to get to know any of them. The final battle with Capricorn also feels horribly contrite and barely exciting. It’s probably the most static final battle I’ve ever seen, with the reveal of the dreaded monster called Shadow looking less Balrock and more Barney. However there was something about resolving the situation with writing that appealed to my pen-is-mightier-than-the-sword writer’s sensibility.

And besides, the various characters I found very appealing. Helen Mirren as Great Aunt Elinor is a treat, with her over-protective book nerdiness; she’s kind of the Henry Jones Sr. of Inkheart, if you will. Serkis is delicious as Capricorn, relishing the Lex Luthor style attitude and shorn dome. You can truly tell that Serkis enjoys playing the bad guy and he wears that ice smile like a silk suit. Jim Broadbent has a few good blows as Inkheart – the movie book’s – author, but Fraser looks bored as he finds himself facing off against magic and mayhem again for what feels like the millionth time. The film’s saving grace is probably that he doesn’t have to fight a mummy.

But in the end, I found that the energy and spirit of the film itself overcame the technical and occasional thespian failings that grind it down. It’s got a good message about the power of the written word, which, although understandably marginalized given the medium, is a good thought to leave with the Playstation generation. It’s also a reminder that there’s more to life than Harry Potter or, heaven forbid, Twilight. I wish though that the producers had managed to recruit a Tim Burton or Guillermo del Toro type director that really good have married the content with the presentation. This film had such great possibilities and it seems that only through luck that it avoided being a void.

I thought that there’d be no movie more insulting to women this winter than Bride Wars. So it’s a true tribute to Hollywood that there were able to release two of these movies within a month of each other. But I do applaud the studio for smart counter-programming by putting on a female friendly alternative to the Super Bowl, even if the film in question is horridly redundant, predictable and tacky. It’s like Fargo if it were done by the same people that make every ridiculous Sandra Bullock romantic comedy ever to come off the Tinseltown assembly line. This is to say that it’s just about one of the most contrived products to come out in the still early calendar year.

The formula follows simply. A trussed up executive from Miami is given the stewardship of a factory in Minnesota to modernize it for the production of a new protein energy bar. Young Lucy Hill (played by Renée Zellweger) is a corporate climber with designs on the CEO’s chair, so she’s a good soldier and is preparing to make the factor work through the purchase of new equipment and the downsizing of old staff. But what’s supposed to be an in and out assignment, becomes something deeper and much more heartfelt as Lucy connects with the town folk, which includes good looking widower and union rep Ted (Harry Connick Jr.) Lessons about the value of good, old fashioned American hard work and small town, Mid-Western values follow.

Also, it’s as syrupy sweet as the sticky stuff that’s the foundation of all Slush Puppy flavours, just not as colourful. The plot plays on the notion that typically smart people act stupidly to suit the circumstances. Like when Lucy first arrives in Minnesota during a blistering snowstorm, she leaves the airport dressed only in a miniskirt and pullover. Like what? She’s never watched the weather channel before? The idea that it might be cold and snowy in the northern US in the winter, never occurred to her? She’s also a typical girlie girl that’s never lit a fire in a fireplace that wasn’t attached to an electric switch; she uses a lot of them big words that you get from fancy college learning; and is, of course, desperate to get out of Minnesota. At first.

Ted meanwhile is a manly man. He likes shooting at stuff, listens to country music, and drives an American pick-up as he sticks up for the working man. He doesn’t care much for this city girl that’s a shill for corporate America. At first. But slowly the two grow on each other, and a love connection is made through an errant bullet to the butt in a near-unfortunate hunting accident. It’s basically all part of the tourist package. The film portrays Minnesota as a sportsman’s paradise with nothing else to offer the women folk but weekly, group scrapbooking and baking. Has anyone in this town ever heard of the internet? Or the library?

And praise be the Coen Brothers for beginning that perpetuation of the Fargo accent, because that’s the way everyone in small town Minnesota talks. Except Ted of course, because then he’d look too goofy and he could never get a girl like Lucy no matter how pretty he is. So we’ll leave the obvious goofiness to Blanche Gunderson played by Siobhan Fallon, who’s perhaps best known for playing Edgar’s wife in the first Men in Black. There’s a whole lot of “Don’t cha knows” and “You betchas” which might have been cute in 1996, but have become universal signs of the dolt in the post-Sarah Palin era. If nothing else, it’s indicative of how very unimaginative the film is, like it was put together with the romantic comedy edition of Mad Libs.

But the unfortunate truth is that despite its numerous flaws, New in Town is relatively harmless and not altogether unfunny. It’s got heart at least, and doesn’t feel to be a genuinely soulless, Hollywood film. But that doesn’t make it any less a horrible cliché at times; almost as horrible as J.K. Simmons’ ugly ass beard. But if you can look past all that, and the beard, than you’ll able to subsist long enough through New in Town to be only vaguely disappointed. As far as romantic comedies go, this is definitely no joke.

Liam Nesson as former intelligence agent Bryan Mills in Taken is about as bad ass as Jason Bourne and Batman combined. He makes Jack Bauer look like a kindergarten teacher and a kindergarten teacher like a sock puppet. As far as revenge pictures go, Taken is a high energy, no holds barred roller coaster through the Parisian underworld. Shot with highly kinetic action and frantic pacing by Pierre Morel, who directed the excellent parkour-inspired District 13, Taken pushes the right buttons to do a little better than the average revenge-fuelled, action picture thanks to a decently played out story and a seriously Mad-as-Heck leading man.

But it all begins with Bryan’s daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and her desire to spend two weeks of summer vacation in Paris with her friend Amanda. Being a former super-spy, Bryan’s hesitant, but his daughter’s happiness is his paramount concern so he gives her the okay. But no sooner does Kim arrive in Paris that she’s taken by kidnappers while on the phone with Bryan. After hearing his daughter scream as she’s taken away, Bryan tells the kidnapper, “If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”

And the chase is on. Bryan has 96 hours to recover Kim before she’s gone forever, the probable victim of an Albanian smuggling ring that takes young, female tourists and forces them into a life of heroin-fuelled prostitution. Filled with over-the-top action, Taken’s like a SVU episode of the Bourne series with corrupt cops and sex traffickers. And at the centre of it all is Neeson putting on a pretty scary façade as a father prepared to do anything to secure his daughter’s safety. The violence is relentless, but it’s actually kind of bloodless. It is attention grabbing though; it’s an edge-of-your seat, action thriller where the only question is how bad Bryan’s going to tear up the kidnappers.

It’s simple, sure. Coincidence abounds in this film that sees Kim get into trouble in about 90 seconds after getting off the airplane in Paris, just like her father predicted. And Bryan seems unusually adept at tracking down a group of unknown gangster across a foreign city. But hey, who cares? We didn’t come here to ask questions, we came to be entertained. And Taken certainly does deliver value added entertainment with revenge fantasies and thrilling kills. We know who the good guy is and we know who the bad guys are and what they deserve. It’s so wonderfully cut and dry; the kind of filmmaking simplicity that can only come from the French. For what Taken is, it’s perfection.

The gross-out gag film College begins with a rather ingenious credit sequence where the names of the cast and crew are scrawled on various walls, articles of clothing and other paraphernalia associated with high school. It was neat and I liked, but unfortunately it came to be the only residue of inspiration contained in this 90 minutes of so-called comedy; even the unrated version. And speaking of unrated versions I think there should be some kind of rule instated where you can’t make a big deal and call something unrated because it’s got a bunch of the same, stale jokes re-edited into the theatrical cut. There’s been entirely too much abuse of this system and it needs to stop.

But College has bigger problems frankly, and not just the fact that it’s an uninspired revisit of Animal House for what has to be like the thirtieth time. More egregious is that it seems that the makers of College took it upon themselves to create the unofficial prequel to Superbad. Because what are the three main characters – the sensitive Kevin (Drake Bell), the rancorous Carter (Andrew Caldwell) and the introverted Morris (Kevin Covais) – but carbon copies of Evan, Seth and McLovin. They’re high school geeks just looking for a good time and they think that a weekend touring a nearby college will be filled with booze, women and wildness, which of course it is, but for these guys it also means gross-out pranks, prat-falls and a life enlightening self-inventory.

Think of anything that could possibly be done to a person capable of embarrassment, whether it involves bodily fluids or social alienation, and it probably happened to these guys. Never in history, whether that’s film history or the real one, have three guys gone through so much to get so little. I think even the most sex-starved, sheltered teenage virgin would have to ask themselves if what they were put through by masochistic frat boys was worth the slim chance of being bare naked with girl? But naturally they don’t and they continue to put up with frat crap until they ultimately blame one and other for their social failure before making-up for the revenge montage.

And the pranks are so pedestrian at that. Super glue on the toilet seats? Compromising posters plastered across campus? Where’s the originality? What’s the point on being a socially inept nerd if you haven’t completely visualized the public deconstruction of the people that torment you? But that’s the problem with this movie: things just seem to proceed all too predictably. Even Verne Troyer, who cameos as himself, looks disgusted to be involved in this display; I, at least, hope that he was well paid for his trouble. The three leads do their best but it seems that their best stuff was preserved for the blooper reel. Now sitting here, trying to remember anything from the movie that might have made it even memorable, and all I can think about is how the biggest name in this movie is the guy that played Mini-Me, and how ironic that is.

Marvel latest animated movie is hit and miss; Hulk Vs. Wolverine is a hit, Hulk Vs. Thor is a miss. It’s a good thing that the studio decided to package the two stories together in one feature because that second one, left to its own devices, was kind of lame. Both are solid efforts though, as long as you ignore the one conceit, which is that the Hulk is actually a very marginal part of the film that’s named after him. Despite how interesting everything else may be, it’s pretty bad when the star of the film is little more than a plot device.

In Hulk Vs. Thor, the Green Goliath finds himself a pawn of Loki, the Norse God of Mischief. Taking advantage of King Odin’s annual hibernation, Loki uses Hulk has a puppet to wreck unholy havoc on Asgard generally, and his step-brother Thor particularly. Of course with the Hulk being involved, these things don’t go according to plan, and after Loki’s control is broken, a really, really angry Hulk just says eff it, I’m going to smash everything anyway. The problem with this story is that there’s a constant start-stop motion through everything; as if the writer is constantly trying to find more story to keep things going to a pre-arranged running time.

And I know Hulk’s alter ego Bruce Banner is supposed to be all tortured and everything, but there’s this whole Star Trek: Generations thing where he has an illusion of a quiet life with a wife and a kid that just felt really misplaced. Now whininess is a part of Banner’s personality, but not to the point where he lockjaws about fighting to keep Hulk under control because he feels personably responsible for the actions of his atomic Mr. Hyde. It’s almost like the writers of this film didn’t really understand the underline rational of Banner when it comes to the Hulk, but then again they also seemed to forget that Loki is a God of Mischief, not a God of Darkness, or whatever they tried to sell him as. This Loki wasn’t very mischievous, but I love the voice of Graham McTavish in playing him.

Next, there’s Hulk Vs. Wolverine, and it is by far the better entry. Almost duplicating the origin of Wolverine from The Incredible Hulk #180, the story finds Logan being sent by Canada’s Department H into the woods to bring in the monster, who’s terrorizing unwitting campers. Unfortunately for both Wolverine and Hulk, Weapon X really wants them for their ongoing experiments in creating super-powered soldiers. As a result, the two combatants have to team up against the evil Canadians in order to survive. And in what has to be a preview of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, they have to fight through Sabretooth, Deadpool, Deathstrike and Omega Red to escape.

From a story perspective, this half of Hulk Vs. is much cleaner and much more linear. Although it doesn’t deliver a full-on bloody fight between the two title characters, it undoubtedly nailed the dark tone the story needed and was just violent enough to be satisfying without going R-rated. The real surprise of the film though was Deadpool, never a very favourite of mine, yet somehow really enjoyable here being played against the dark, humourless characters. Voice actor Nolan North is so good in bring the Merc with a Mouth to life, I can say without hyperbole that in the minds of fans who see this, young Ryan Reynolds will have big shoes to fill this summer.

So if you watch the film in its intended order you can get past the terrible He-Man-esque quality of Hulk Vs. Thor and just sit back to enjoy the antics and in-jokes of Hulk Vs. Wolverine. In the collection of Marvel animated films I have to say that this one ranks pretty high, but in the end would have ranked higher had something more compelling been done with the Thor portion.

As a young boy, the sport of wrestling combines all the things you like in one package: violence, showmanship and larger than life characters. In many ways wrestlers are like superheroes, they have costumes, code names and arch-nemeses. They have catch phrases too, and they often engage in once-in-a-lifetime, cataclysmic battles with fellow titans to determine who the best of them is. Professional wrestling combines the best aspects of fighting games, comic book action and schoolyard fisticuffs, and its players are elevated to the status of rock gods. But what happens when it’s all over? What happens when you’re too old to be a player, but you keep playing anyway because there’s nothing else you can do?

That’s the crux of The Wrestler, a small film that’s intimate to the point of sometimes feeling intrusive. Like a western where the old cowboy saddles up for one last ride, or the heist movie where the veteran crooks go for one more big score, Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson stands at the edge of being rendered obsolete at the only thing he’s ever really been a success at. Further still, it’s not a voluntary retirement, if it were up to The Ram he’d keep fighting forever. But while the will is strong, the flesh is weak. Heart problems force The Ram to be benched permanently, but without the glory of the lights and tights what is he? The fact of the matter is that just plain Randy is alone, working a menial job at a supermarket, having a regular stripper as his only source of human comfort and living estranged from his only child.

Mickey Rourke has been honoured again and again for his portrayal of Randy The Ram, and he is surely deserving of any and all accolades. Rourke has always been one of the actors on the periphery of greatness, yet somehow has been unable to truly grasp it. He’s done some occasionally memorable work and then disappeared back into the B-movie bins as a second-stringer or starred in some direct-to-video dreck. But as the commercial says, this really is the resurrection of Mickey Rourke. But while I certainly recognize Rourke to see him, I didn’t recognize the talent on display here. Maybe it was because the actor invested some of that real life struggle into the part, but Rourke just manages to fit Randy the Ram like glove. He wears the emotions of the character on his face, and makes you buy every second of it.

Director Darren Aronofsky uses a vérité style that manages to be both involving and observational. There are so many shots where the camera frames Randy in the centre and follows directing behind him in a tracking shot, it’s like watching one of those TV news pieces where there’s some kind of sting. It’s cool though because the film’s stoic realism is really driven home by this documentary-like approach, which although done undoubtedly for budgetary purposes, offered an interesting juxtaposition for the two parts of Randy’s life. He was the superstar with a legion of adoring fans, a trademark move and a spot of infamy in an original Nintendo wrestling game; but now he lives in a trailer park, working for minimum wage and is estranged from everyone that ever mattered to him. It’s hard to put a happy face on that one-eighty, and Aronofsky, wisely, doesn’t try.

But don’t think that The Wrestler is a two-hour downer, because it isn’t. If anything, the film makes a strong case for some important life lessons that begins with living on your own terms, but not at the expense of the people. You may discover too late that you can’t change things, and when that time comes you can either embrace who you are or fade out quietly as if you were never there at all. It’s a powerful message and told simply too. So many things can be taken from this film you may debate the various meanings, but on its own The Wrestler is a traditional story about whether or not a man can find his “blaze of glory” moment. With this film, Rourke is a man driven to prove something, and like his character, he does so in a surprising way. From beginning to end, The Wrestler is pure humanity with all its bright spots and shadows. Very well done.

After being under-whelmed by Underworld, and downright bored by Underworld Evolution, I was prepared to treat Rise of the Lycans with only a passing interest. Low and behold though, this rather dullard looking franchise took a left turn into actual engagement. Amazingly, it only took three films for the Underworld folks to find even half the potential for their horror/action/S&M fetish combo platter, but it says something more that even at its best, the Underworld films deliver marginal thrills. While the execution has substantially greater levels of gusto, the core problem with the series remains the same: it borrows too heavily from its genre forbearers to be taken seriously.

This Underworld takes a detour to the distant past and reintroduces us to minor faces of the franchise’s past. (So no tight-leather clad Kate Beckinsale in this one boys. Sorry.) In a medieval castle, the vampire lord Viktor (Bill Nighy) has bred half-breed Lycans that can transform back to a human form, the first being his favourite “pet” blacksmith Lucian (Michael Sheen). What Viktor doesn’t know though is that Lucian’s loyalties is not out of a slave’s gratitude for some modicum of freedom, but because Lucian is in love with Viktor’s daughter Sonja (Rhona Mitra), and she with him. But Viktor’s anger and pettiness over the affair spurs Lucian to revolution; leading his werewolf brothers in a rebellion against their vampire masters.

So yes, it’s 90 minutes of film taken from about five lines of dialogue in the script of the original. Firstly, Rise of the Lycans suffers from “prequelitis,” where any chance of a compelling story coming out of the antics on screen is foiled by the fact that we already know where it’s all going. If the appeal of doing a prequel has any merit, it’s that you get a chance to flesh out the details more and really develop characters and relationships that might have suffered in the originating chapter for whatever reasons. One marked area of improvement is the romance angle. Sheen and Mitra make a much more believable couple than Beckinsale and her werewolf beau Scott Speedman ever did. Granted, that accomplishment didn’t require much of a push to make the win.

But if there’s a real benefit to this movie, it’s that the central characters are played by two distinguished and talented British thespians. The right actor can take B-movie drivel and remind you that a film can be more than a two-bit, RPG rip-off with delusions of X-Men. Unfortunately though, this is not the case with Rise of the Lycans. There’s something about Nighy, right down to the way he’s lighted, that screams Disney villain; from his skeletal face bones to his scenery chewing delivery. Sheen comes off better and certainly seems commanding enough to be believed as the George Washington of the werewolves. However, this doesn’t stop the movie from being too terribly shallow, and there was definitely room for improvement in terms of how some of the relationships played out.

And still, everything is shot in that horrid, blue gel that makes everything look so fake and staged. There are times the entire production seems more like an elaborate LARP scenario than a movie, just because of the pedigree of the actors sometimes makes you do a double take as to how they were compelled to be involved in this in the first place. Working in favour of this Underworld though is that it seems to truly embrace its core idea, and it seems that the movie’s got its act together more here than in the previous films. But core improvements don’t erase the fact that this entire series feels like it was ripped off, and it’s as uninspired now as it was when the first film was released way back when. Perhaps the makers of Underworld can take a cue from other horror franchises: just remake already.

As much as the title “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” is a phonetic delight, it’s a better one than – what I assume was the original title – “Fat Ass Die Hard in a Mall.” That is the essential nucleus of Blart, which is about a group of sophisticated, high tech thieves that try to rob a mall on “Black Friday” and find themselves thwarted by an overzealous rent-a-cop. But where as Hans Gruber’s master plan had within it some degree of plausibility – not to mention planning – the robbers of Mall Cop manage to marry ambition with short-sightedness. Logically speaking, I have no idea how they planned on getting away with it, and counting fallacies in a movie like this is usually a bad sign for zero distraction.

But I may take it easier on Blart than most. Sure its only rarely funny, its concept is tired and it stars a man whose biggest comedic contribution has been to have his own sitcom in the waning, on life-support, final days of the art form, but at its heart is an idea that’s sadly given me hours of enjoyment. I used to work retail, and on the odd occasion the topic of conversation amongst a few of us drones was about what we could do in the event of a hostile takeover of the store. With questions like where would you hide, and what could you use as a weapon, there were infinitesimal possibilities. In this respect, Mall Cop reached my inner mallrat and renewed some fond memories.

Now this is another way of saying that what was going on in my head during the show was way more interesting than what was happening on screen. There are a lot of fat jokes at the expense of Blart, played by Kevin James. He’s one of those guys that have aspirations above their station, so Blart turns his meaningless job into something bordering on the fanatical. Of course, this diligence comes in handy when faced with a mall full of acrobatic thieves on skateboards and BMX bikes, who are all clearly over-skilled to be knocking over a mall for credit card numbers. But that’s okay really because Blart is mostly a good natured film that’s kind of harmless.

But if we really want to rip into it, there’s more than enough to chew on. Let’s see, it’s basically an hour and a half ad for the Segway scooter. It perpetuates a myth that no matter how overweight or hypoglycaemic you are, you too can be a super-commando he-man capable of physical deeds normally beyond your ability. Also, the makers of Blart demonstrate that you can take an idea with so many possibilities and exploit it for only the most basic of simplistic story directions you can possibly choose. Double cross? Check. Kid in peril? Check. A budding romance with the slim girl that works one of the mall kiosks? Check. Everybody being curiously ineffectual but the one guy that really should be? Check.

Ridiculously formulaic without even the slightest hint of irony, it’s easy to see why Paul Blart: Mall Cop has somehow impressed so many. Anyone wanting deep, thoughtful and well-timed original comedy is clearly looking for the new Charlie Kaufman, which this clearly is not. James is pretty much a one note comedian, so there’s no help there and I can’t really think of anyone else in the cast, except maybe Bobby Cannavale, that has done any work of significance. It’s not a failure, but it’s not genius either. Whatever Paul Blart is, it’s become extremely popular for some reason that I can’t fully fathom. But if you like middle-of-the-road, take-no-risks, Home Alone-style antics, then I think you’ve found your movie.

Would it possibly be offensive if I were to offer that Last Chance Harvey is Before Sunrise for the older set? Because it kind of is, and in such a way that I kind of think that filmmaker Joel Hopkins maybe saw that movie, and its sequel, Before Sunset, may be a few too many times. Sorry Mr. Hopkins, but Richard Linklater you are not. That’s not a slight, of course, few are as talented with a camera while being smooth with the dialogue, but the feeling exists nonetheless and honestly, there a great number of much more terrible films to crib from than something from the Linklater oeuvre. (For examples of this, simply walk to another theatre in the multiplex, you should find a couple of examples.)

Last Chance Harvey could easily be called “Sad Sack Harvey” or “How Harvey Got his Groove Back.” Dustin Hoffman is the self-styled Harvey, fighting hardily for a borderline crappy job writing commercial jingles which given modern technology actually has very little to do with jingle writing. His boss (Richard Schiff) is giving him the business about needing to nail this contract, but Harvey’s nervously trying to get to his daughter’s wedding in London. When he gets there, Harvey’s clearly the odd man out as the distance from his daughter Susan (Liane Balaban), his ex (Kathy Baker) and the other members of the family clearly seem strained. The coup de grâce? When Susan tells Harvey that she wants her step-father, Brian (James Brolin), to do the father-of-the-bride duties and walk her down the aisle.

His fatherly absent-mindedness sends Harvey into a shame spiral. At the airport bar he attempts to sooth his guilt with some Johnny Walker, but an airport survey-taker named Kate (Emma Thompson) catches his eye and they start talking. And talking. And talking some more. And walking and talking… See a pattern? Perhaps I’m painting this wrong, because I’m making this sound rather boring. The fact of the matter is though that Hoffman and Thompson have a perfectly good rapport, but I found myself questioning if they had any real chemistry. Good actors can overcome a lot, but experience has shown that true chemistry can’t be faked or supposed. I’m not saying that the two leads were positively charged ions or nothing, just there was some doubt.

But it’s cool though, because I think Harvey is cool. It knows how to take it’s time and paces things out nicely so that the burgeoning infatuation between Harvey and Kate feels natural, but not all together inevitable. Much of the film deals with broad archetypes and story elements though. You know that Harvey and Susan will reconcile, you know that there’ll be some final complication to keep Harvey and Kate apart after their perfect night, and you know that Harvey will be rejuvenated and ready to believe in something again. It’s kind of a cynical fairy tale that doesn’t want to admit it’s a fairy tale and tries to persuade you that it’s something more upstanding. I liked it, but I wasn’t entirely convinced.

The best part of the film by far though was the stuff about Kate’s mother, played with hilarious, blank-faced seriousness by Eileen Atkins, as she suspects her Polish immigrant neighbour of being a psycho killer. It’s funny stuff, laugh out loud funny, which is why it feels like it almost belongs in an entirely separate movie. Otherwise, it’s just really terrible, old-fashioned views on so-called spinsterism, and while Harvey is a hero who must overcome his emotional detachment, Kate’s kind of treated like an object of pity meant only to serve as the fulfilling element to Harvey’s existence. Despite this politically incorrect notion, Last Chance Harvey was fairly crowd-pleasing. It’s a simple story with simple pleasures.