According to Colwell

To say Wanted is over the top is to mistake the movie for something having anything to do with the top. My mother commented that the climactic chase scene in Get Smart was “over the top” which only indicated that she hasn’t been to any big-budget Hollywood action movies in the last 10 or 15 years. Wanted, on the other hand, is in the realm of cartoon-fantasy (it is based on a comic book series). It has elements of: The Matrix with superhumans shooting magical bullets wandering among the ordinary sheep (that’s you and me), every vengeful superhero movie ever made, and even a dash of style from Fight Club and adrenaline from Crank thrown in for seasoning.

James McAvoy plays the hero, Wesley Gibson, who all his life has mistaken the superhuman ability to shoot the wings off a fly and make bullets turn corners with a predilection for panic attacks. Enter Fox (Angelina Jolie) and Sloan (Morgan Freeman (my co-star if you’re playing 6 degrees of Josh Colwell)) of the ancient “Fraternity” to show him that he’s actually someone special and not an anonymous loser. The Fraternity is that one that was created 1000 years ago by weavers who have a magic loom that tells them who to assassinate. Yes, being special in this world means killing people whose names are spit out in code on a piece of cloth. Wanted has the same appeal as most movies in the genre of “guilty pleasures”: impressive action set-pieces, flying cars and flying people, and bad guys having bad things happen to them. There are some nice humorous touches at the beginning when Wesley is still entrenched in the world of sheep (the real world) and being dragged into the world of assassins. But that quickly fades into a steady action beat with the occasional admonition to the audience to seize the day.

Maybe it’s because I’m predisposed to laugh when I see Steve Carrell, but I found Get Smart to be the funniest movie I’ve seen in quite some time. While there were a few sequences that fell flat for me, the pace of the movie was fast enough that there were more than enough laugh-out-loud scenes to keep me engaged. The movie does a nice job of updating Maxwell Smart from incompetent ninkompoop (spelling?) to mostly competent ninkompoop. He’s a clutzy, nerdy James Bond instead of an Inspector Clouseau. We can laugh at him without mocking him. Anne Hathaway adds just the right blend of sex appeal to the mix as Agent 99. The supporting cast, in particular Alan Arkin as The Chief, add their share of funny moments to an admittedly goofy and formulaic spy caper. But Carrell’s deadpan and deadly serious demeanor in the midst of Hollywood explosions and chases and his own comical miscues (the one that had me laughing hardest was his attempts to shoot off his handcuffs with a high powered miniature crossbow while inside an airplane lavatory) carry the movie. Mel Brooks and Buck Henry were consultants on this update to the TV series they created in the 60’s, and their comic touch is evident. I’m surprised that this has gotten fairly negative reviews: while I can see that it might miss the mark for some (at times it looks like a movie that is stubbornly refusing to be the farce we’re expecting), I found it genuinely funny.

I have a perhaps unfairly allergic reaction to movies that deal with the paranormal or pseudoscience, but for the most part I managed to put the aside for Indiana Jones’ return to the screen. From the movie’s opening action sequence (and it could almost be said that the movie is really one continuous action sequence), aliens establish their presence as this movie’s Ark of the Covenant. But Indiana Jones is about fun and a certain retro-style of adventure story-telling that Spielberg masters, so I was ready to go along for the ride. And it is one hell of a ride. So much so, in fact, that the outlandish over-the-top finale may not even be the most non-physical thing in the movie. Some of the sequences border on comical and are reminiscent of the movie within the movie of “Last Action Hero”. When our heroes plunge over Niagara-like waterfalls not once, but three times, and get nothing more than a little wet, the movie severs contact with reality and left me feeling less connected with the action. It is far more gripping to see people struggling in a plausible way. Nevertheless, it is fun, gimmicky, corny, and entertaining to the end, though by the time it got to the end it was so far removed from reality that my interest was fading.

This documentary about a group of singers with an average of 80 is surprisingly moving. The style of documentarien Stephen Walker is initially disarming as his narration explains in conversational first person how he got interested in the singing group “Young at Heart”. At first it is charming and amusing to see a 92-year-old woman singing “Should I Stay or Should I Go” by the Clash. The group, in existence since 1982, brings a totally new twist to modern and classic rock songs. As the movie unfolds we follow their rehearsals for a new stage show, “Alive and Well”, as well as the inevitable medical setbacks for a large group of people in their 80s. Their love for the group and the joy they get from participating it is infectious, and it is impossible not to get attached to them or moved by their uniformly positive and upbeat attitude.

Although I like Tina Fey from both Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock, my expectations for this movie were modest. But what appears in the previews to be only a gimmick comedy turns out to be, well, a really good gimmick comedy. Fey plays Kate, a successful executive for an organic food company run by Steve Martin in a hilarious turn as a new age guru who has had delicious salmon with native Americans and wants his new flagship store to capture the essence of a one-inch seashell. With her biological clock ticking, Kate feels the imperative of motherhood and turns to surrogacy when her uterus turns out to be inhospitable and the wait for adoption is years. Enter Poehler as Angie and her longtime boyfriend Carl. Angie agrees to carry Kate’s in vitro baby setting up a set of easy gags based on Kate’s type A personality with Angie, who “discontinued high school” and would rather watch America’s Funniest Home Videos than listen to foreign language CDs so Kate’s baby will be born bilingual.

But the movie, written and directed by Michael McCullers, actually gives the characters a story. Rather than being a drawn-out SNL segment, Baby Mama is a thoroughly enjoyable comedy with a plot as well as plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. Angie stumbles through an explanation of her presence in Kate’s apartment to Kate’s new boyfriend, saying “I live in an apartment in New York with her husband which I have” but they travel around visiting various stock exchanges. But, like most good comedies, most of the funny lines are intertwined with the story and cannot be easily pulled out of context.

You have to like a comic book movie that casts Robert Downey Jr. as the superhero and Gwyneth Paltrow as the plain jane unnoticed assistant. Jon Favreau, my co-star from Deep Impact, directs this entertaining action outing. Downey (Downey Jr.?) plays Tony Stark, the genius son of one of the creators of the atomic bomb. After graduating from MIT at 17, the young Stark followed in his father’s footsteps by creating high-tech weapons for Stark Industries. One of the likable aspects of this movie is how cheerfully unlikeable Stark is. Downey Jr. (Downey?) can make an unlikeable, obnoxious, selfish, womanizing, amoral, weapon-building genius likeable like no other. And it’s not just because he poses for pictures with the troops in Afghanistan who are taking delivery of Stark’s latest and greatest missile system that promises to rain unprecedented destruction on the countryside.

One thing leads to another, and next thing you know Stark decides maybe he can use all those clever robots and computers in the basement of his palatial L.A. home for something more constructive than weapons. As Iron Man, Stark flies around in a high-powered form-fitting metal suit complete with, well, weapons, a heads-up display, and a bluetooth cell phone. The plot revolves around the double-dealings of Stark Industries with the bad guys and the good guys, perpetuating war for the sake of arms sales and Tony’s transformation from CEO to Iron Man. The action is entertaining, but what sets the movie above the run-of-the-mill flying superhero movie is the devil-may-care attitude of Stark, who is clearly having as much fun as the audience.

Not surprisingly, the titular smart people of this movie aren’t so smart. Or to be more accurate, they’re smart about some things (Victorian literature and whatever you need to know to get a perfect SAT score), and incredibly dumb about just about everything else, especially how to get along with other people. What is surprising, and disappointing, is that they are also not very interesting. Dennis Quaid plays Lawrence, a curmudgeonly professor at Carnegie Mellon desperately trying to get his book published and just as desperately trying to become head of his department, even though he dislikes everyone else in it. Ellen Page plays Vanessa, his 17-year-old daughter who has learned how to be a pompous ass intellectual from her father. Her mother is dead, and her brother is at college and is the token normal person in the family. An accident in the opening act sets up Lawrence with Janet, a young doctor (Sarah Jessica Parker) and brings his “adoptive brother” Chuck into the household. Thomas Hayden Church brings the only funny moments with his deadpan observations, but they are scattered too thinly throughout the movie. Quaid plays the grump so convincingly that it is hard to believe Janet’s interest in him. She was a student of his long ago, so perhaps she remembers a kinder, gentler Lawrence. But no, we are told that he was just as pompous then as now and was even responsible for making her change her major from English to Biology. That obviously worked out for her, but as Chuck points out, “if you tell someone they’re stupid they’re probably going to hate you.” Lawrence spends his life telling everyone but Vanessa exactly that. Vanessa is a high-strung overachiever who doesn’t know how to have fun. Chuck tries to show her, triggering another bizarre and unbelievable relationship. I wanted to like this movie and found much to like about it. The performances are solid, and I was rooting for Lawrence and Vanessa to turn their lives around. But the script is thin and the pace slow. Interesting conversations are begun and then abandoned, giving the movie an incomplete feel.

Ken and Ray are a pair of hitmen cooling their heals in Bruges, Belgium, on the orders of their boss following their latest hit. Ray (Colin Farrell) is wound-up, nervous, and acts like a kid being dragged around a museum by his parents in the person of Ken (Brendan Gleeson). Ken looks and acts like a friendly uncle to the squirming Ray, scolding him when he misbehaves and trying to calm him as Ray complains about being stuck in Bruges. It’s rather quaint until we are reminded of the gruesome business the pair have just completed back in England and the psychopath, Harry Waters, who sent them there. This dark comedy definitely comes down on the dark side of the spectrum, but there is something sweetly naive and endearing about Ray, even as he decks an American at a restaurant for complaining about Chloe’s (Ray’s date) cigarette smoke. The American (who actually is Canadian (just his luck)) wonders why he and his wife should have to die because of the (smoke-blowing) arrogance of Chloe. Ray points out that’s probably what the Vietnamese thought before decking the pair and escorting Chloe home. Ray is frequently very much like a five-year-old with no impulse control and fierce fighting skills, but a childish sense of right and wrong. It falls to Ken to help Ray grow up before it’s too late.

This lighthearted romp of a movie follows the dowdy and down-on-her-luck governess Miss Guinivere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand) through 24 hours in London on the eve of World War II. Desperate for work, she takes the place of another worker from an employment agency to become the social secretary for Delysia Lafosse, a flighty aspiring American actress. Amy Adams plays Delysia with an almost irresistible effervescence. She lives in the penthouse sweet of a wealthy bar-owner, Nick, while seducing a young play producer in the hope of getting a lead role. Lurking in the wings is her true love, Michael (Lee Pace of Pushing Daisies). There is little suspense over the eventual outcome, but a lot of fun on the way there.

This tense heist thriller is based on the true story of a London bank robbery in 1971. Four days after the robbery, the U.K. government issued a “D-notice” that requests the media to stop reporting on the story. The media complied, meaning that relatively little is known about the actual robbery. This gives the movie a fair amount of leeway while still maintaining a claim of veracity. Not that it really matters. The story as told in the movie, however much it might deviate from or adhere to the actual events, is gripping and taut. Jason Statham plays Terry, a car mechanic with a petty crime past who, with his mates, jumps at the chance to make one big score and get out of small-time crime and low-income labor. That chance is served up by Martine, played by Saffron Burrows. Martine is a model and one-time friend of Terry’s who gets busted for a drug offense. A government official tells her that if she can steal some compromising photos of a member of the royal family that is held in a safe deposit box at a London bank, she’ll be free and clear. The problem is that it must be done with no official government involvement, so the bank job must still be pulled off in spite of the best efforts of the bank and the police to prevent that sort of thing.

What no one bargained for is that lots of people have a tendency to put embarrassing and compromising material in their safe deposit boxes, and many of them can get extremely upset when that material goes missing. Pulling off the robbery is not the most challenging aspect of the operation. The movie is tense and suspenseful, and I have to confess that the link to a real bank robbery added to the intensity for me. Some aspects of the movie are certainly fiction, but the basic events and historical figures are real.